Artistic Vacations

GEORGINA COBURN investigates a new initiative offering creative breakaways in the Highlands & Islands.

OFFERING VISITORS a once in a lifetime experience is at the heart of Art Galore, a web-based service recently launched by husband and wife team Ian and Chris Pellow.

The inspiration of the natural environment, history and landscape are combined with another vital resource, the skills of artists who have chosen to live and work in areas such as Ardnamurchan, Arisaig, Fort William, Oban, Port Appin, Aviemore, Ballachulish, Glencoe, Glenfinnan, Invergarry, Kingussie, Spean Bridge and Skye.

Contact with local artists and tutors in a variety of locations can be booked as hourly tuition, half-day, full day or weekend courses, or as part of themed package holidays. Families, groups and individuals are all catered for by a broad choice of activities. Art Galore can also advise about alternative outdoor activities such as climbing or mountain sports for partners or family members not artistically inclined.
 
The aim is to provide a service that tailors specifically for the individual needs of each visitor, enhancing the overall experience. We have all been on holiday and taken photographs, but how much more is added to this experience when we see the same view whilst being led by a storyteller or visual artist?

With so many people coming to Scotland to retrace the footsteps of their ancestors, interested in history, or drawn by the natural beauty of the area, the chance to really immerse themselves in local culture and the environment is sure to appeal.

It is great to see artists leading development creatively and organically out of their own communities and in response to the natural environment

Art Galore offers the opportunity to create a video diary of a visitor’s journey, perhaps incorporating a creative exploration of their own ancestry, create a pot from local clay to take home to a relative unable to accompany them, make their own sporran, or paint a watercolour out of doors that makes them feel the wind and weather on their face years after their holiday.

Currently the Art Galore site offers a booking facility for forty different creative activities including drawing and painting, photography, book binding, wood turning, jewellery, weaving, Gaelic song and conversation, pottery, etching, papermaking, life drawing, encaustic art, papier mache, spinning, natural dying, wire sculpture, batik, music recording and video filmmaking, to name a few.
 
Storyteller Scot AnSgeulaiche offers programmes that can focus on mythology and folklore or historical and landscape-based interpretation of various sites including Kilmartin Glen. Art Galore is currently developing themed packages based on “Kilmartin Glen”, “The Jacobite Trail” and “Dance With the Spirits”.

“Tactile Touches” is a workshop designed for those with sensory impairment, combining experience of the natural environment with creating a work of mixed media art incorporating found natural materials. As Chris Pellow suggested a course of this kind could be used with the elderly to enhance their sensory experience and quality of life or with people who have special needs. She also suggests that artists may also benefit from a creative experience where a sense is removed, blindfolded for example, as a doorway to a new way of creating and seeing.

There is a huge amount of choice, flexibility and individual attention in the kind of getaway packages offered by the service. During a Highland visit it is possible to arrange tuition in Gaelic song and then combine this with making your own recording to take home.

Children could create their own lanterns and take part in a procession along the beach prompted by the folktales of a storyteller, or they could make their own paper combined with materials found on their holiday and bind it in booklet form. For couples, one partner could be out hill walking while another develops their passion for painting or experiences what working with clay feels like for the first time.

Through extensive research and personal contact with artists and selected local hotels and B&Bs, the business gradually took shape, and has generated considerable interest from artists in other parts of the Highlands & Islands seeing the same great potential in cultural tourism, yet to be fully developed.

Chris Pellow has put her graphic design skills to great use in designing an attractive and user friendly site that presents information about individual artists, examples of their work, explanations of each medium, a range of courses, and area profiles of all the locations, including maps and accommodation options.

Providing an additional means of income to support local artists, this kind of creative business serves its community by also providing the means for local residents interested in a particular course (often not offered by local colleges) to try it out without a major outlay of equipment.

People interested in a particular artistic skill can experience individual one-on-one tuition that maximises their learning experience and develops their own level of creative skill.

However the greatest value for visitor and residents alike is to experience the natural environment anew, reinterpret historical sites, landscape and local life through creative eyes, learn new skills, and get the fullest enjoyment out of the places we have chosen to visit or settle in.

What many people look for in a holiday is to “get away from it all”, and this is perfectly in tune with the lifestyle choice of creative residents and the further development of creative industries.

When I asked one of Art Galore’s artists and tutors, Felicity Nightingale (watercolour, drawing and papier mache), about what inspired her about living and working in the Fort William area, she described the “powerful and magnificent” landscape, everything “living and breathing”, “the rocks, rivers and trees” and the “vastness” of this environment. The qualities that cause so many artists to settle in the Highlands are the very things that visitors come to experience for themselves.

Led by an artist, a visitor is not just an observer but a participant in the local culture. Working with artist Brian Dickie (willow lantern making, wire sculpture), Felicity also highlighted the value of working with children in a creative and imaginative way through their work with families and lantern making. For children living in larger towns and cities the chance to experience a naturally creative environment has lasting value. These are the kind of holiday memories that last a lifetime.

Tutor and fibre artist Dorothy Gibb spoke with me about the importance of retaining and developing traditional skills in Scotland since the modern decline of woollen mills and weaving.

Originally from Dundee Dorothy returned two years ago from the USA and is passionate about the history of textiles in the Highlands & Islands, and sharing the knitting, spinning and weaving skills indigenous to Scotland. She teaches Shetland Lace, Fair Isle and Aaran knitting and provides a “Knit One, Sip One” morning or afternoon half-day session that links the qualities and tastes of certain types of teas or coffee with the characteristics of the knitted pattern being created.

Her approach combines history, folklore and the transmission of time honoured skills with an exploration of new fibres and techniques in her own practice. She is keen to develop textile tours of the Highlands that I’m sure would have great appeal to travellers from the USA and Eastern Canada in particular.

Anne Dye began her exploration of Batik in the same way many of her students first experience it, through a taster session. She described the way that the medium immediately drew her attention and after years of honing her craft examples of her own work as an artist visibly pushes the boundaries of what you might expect from this technique.

Landscape is a primary source of inspiration, and Anne often returns to the same scene, the land mass of Eigg and Rum. Her environment and experimentation with different techniques produces an amazing range of effects and an infinite variety of colours. Her enjoyment of teaching is obvious and she enjoys seeing students embark on the same voyage of creative discovery that often yields surprising results.

Batik is a medium that combines use of different fibres, silk, cotton, paper, even velvet, with the fluidity of dye, and the multilayered effects of wax resist working from light to dark. Part of the beauty of this art is the element of the unexpected. No two images will ever be the same.

Anne described the way in which at the last stage of creating a work there is excitement in how the final piece will emerge out of the whole process. Her students are often surprised by the results and her one day and weekend workshops are a lively exploration of the skills involved in the craft combined with the fun of experimentation as visitors move through each stage of the process.

Ann works with local students, textile students from Art Colleges in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and with visitors. As part of a holiday experience the process of Batik enables students to immerse themselves fully and really “get away from it all” in a beautiful setting.

It is great to see artists leading development creatively and organically out of their own communities and in response to the natural environment. Scotland is globally recognised for its natural beauty and culture and this website combines these two elements very effectively in its information on locations and different interpretive arts and crafts activities. Art Galore is an example of the far reaching impact of creative ideas for both residents and visitors.

© Georgina Coburn, 2006

Link

• Art Galore 
• Ian Pellow