Christmas Open Exhibition, Pier Arts Centre, until 24 December; Book Stone Voe, Northlight Studio, until 11 December; Christmas Open Exhibition, Waterfront Gallery, until mid-February 2011

CREATIVE ENERGY output must reach its peak in October in Orkney in the countdown to the Christmas art shows, which have a staggering number of arts and crafts people submitting pieces in Stromness this season. The Pier Arts Centre has one or two works each from more than 100 people on its pristine walls and floors; four artists are exhibiting at Northlight Studio, and the work of more than 40 painters, textile workers, wood and metal workers are skilfully displayed in a tiny space in the back room of the Waterfront Gallery.

These frugal times may be reflected in art this year at the Pier Arts Centre where small pieces have replaced last year’s big, bold exhibits. Consequently this year’s open show is confined to the ground floor in loosely themed rooms and corridors. As one might expect the focus of inspiration is Orkney’s landscape, heritage and natural history; there are more representations of Neolithic standing stones than you can shake a paintbrush or camera at. This is not to denigrate the originality and competency of many of the pieces, with a close study of the texture of the stones in mono photographs by Rebecca Marr particularly grabbing my attention.

Too Hot To Handle by potter Elaine Henderson

There’s so much to see that after three turns round the exhibits I needed a week to take it all in. Taking a rest I sat down and watched a short video by Victoria Rhodes filmed at Skara Brae and the potter’s studio of Elaine Henderson. Too Hot to Handle starts as a documentary of how to throw a tea set, on the potter’s wheel that is, then balances the delicate floral cups on the beach for the tide to take them. Pot shots with an air rifle in Skara Brae spill red goo from the tea pot. The fancy-glazed shards mixed with ancient-style terracotta are displayed in a glass cabinet, perhaps suggesting the continuity of ancient and modern in Orkney.

Beach Stones sculpture by Sam Green

Seascapes have a tidal surge in the catalogue of work this year. Alayne Dickey’s textural painting, simply titled Beach, marries stone, resin and wire to create an almost 3-D image. Photography shifts from the dramatic moment of a storm to the eerie calmness of Nonnie Dingwall’s Dragon’s Teeth, Dingieshowe, where jagged rocks barely break the surface. Fiona Smith’s textural textiles range from the lumpy Rough Seas II to the delicate embroidery of Sea Spray. The eye is drawn outside to the pier on which the arts centre sits to Sam Green’s Balancing Beach Stones, floodlit with a dusting of snow which temporarily enhances their smooth forms. Inside, framed by a window overlooking the harbour, Sarah Smith’s Boat Number 10 from discarded wood is funny, simple and delightful.

An accomplished piece of whimsy by Mark Scadding is the oil, Springtime in Orkney; Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers are morphed into daffodils in a vase while the background is replaced with an Elysian scene of two women picking daffs among the hen coops, sheep and birds. Other beasts that grab are Colin Kirkpatrick’s cattle skull motif branded onto wood and John Vincent’s hefty scrap metal Big Bird and surprisingly dainty bird bath.

There’s so much more from ceramics to wood, stained glass to weaving, figurative to freestyle. Set aside a week to dip in and out of this feast of the visual arts.

Along the road in Graham Place, Northlight Studio’s Book Stone Voe takes George Mackay Brown’s notion that Stromness houses are stone books with stories to tell while the harbour or voe of Hamnavoe is the sea. Four artists interpret the spirit of Ros Bryant’s weaved study, Oh Little Town of Hamnavoe. Weaver and stone carver Ros Bryant has hewn relief carvings from Quoyloo flagstone, the crazily angled gables and roofs a tactile joy. Tapestries are set in frames of stone and the light ricocheting through buildings across the street is captured in photographs printed on linen.

A lobster creel by Rebecca Marr

Rebecca Marr has applied museum photography techniques to produce striking mono images of old creels, devoid of shadow, by setting up lights and black backcloths in the jumble of Willick Sinclair’s working shed by the Stromness shore. Each creel is isolated from its neighbours and has its own identity, shaped by its working life and encounters with the sea. The creels are familiar as working objects but somehow romanticised by the process. Objects become artefacts in museums but many were workaday in a previous life.

For Jackie Ward, Stromness houses are benign old men who watch out for us and protect us. Her large felt wall hangings are friendly with elongated height to tower up in Gothic fashion on one and with colour splashed chimney pots on a roof details in another.

Painter Diana Leslie took her easel outside in the street to capture the light on the busy waterfront, fishing boats, the hillside of Brinkie’s Brae against the light and the open scene of Cairston Road. Fighting with the elements has paid off in these dynamic studies.

The Waterfront Gallery’s show is all new work and is truly multi media with paintings in oil, acrylic and watercolour, etchings, glass, metalwork, woodwork, woven baskets, glass bowls, felt, bags and cushions.

The reacquaintance with the work of Louise Scott, a long time Orkney resident now in Glasgow who has sent up bird etchings will be welcomed. Orkney’s sea and landscapes and wildlife inspires much of the work including Ingrid Grieves’ huge mixed media Gerwin Field with the reds and ochre of an Orkney sky illuminate the land while Elfreda Scott’s Sunset at Scapa is golden and more discreet.

© Catherine Turnbull, 2010

Links

• Pier Arts Centre
• Waterfront Gallery