BACK at the turn of the Millennium, I was keen to set up an online journal that would properly represent the dynamism and diversity of the arts and culture in the Highlands and Islands.

REMOTENESS —real or perceived—continues to deny those based in the Highlands and Islands a fair coverage in the national press, and, with a few honourable exceptions, local press rarely have space, or the confidence, to deal with the arts.

Northings was the result, and we were very fortunate right at the beginning to be able to recruit, as editor, Kenny Mathieson, a highly experienced and well-connected arts journalist who is based at Boat of Garten. Kenny quickly established editorial templates and standards which have stood the test of time, and recruited a network of writers, new and established, from across the Highlands and Islands.

The National Theatre of Scotland's Black Watch was one almost 2,000 events reviewed in Northings

In its first year Northings won a Broadband Britain national award, and in the subsequent ten years it has published 761 features and 1,961 reviews, as well as countless news items. It was a fundamental policy of Northings that all writers and reviewers should be paid. A website made up of purely voluntary contributions would have been valid, but it would have been a very different site. Our aim was to take a professional approach to writing about the arts, and in many cases that meant that the online format could allow for a much deeper and more considered coverage than would be feasible in print. This means that scores of artists and arts companies, over the years, have been the beneficiaries of detailed and thoughtful assessments, by writers who, if they were not already recognised, came to acquire a reputation through their work for Northings.

But all this comes at a price. The actual cost of hosting the Northings site has been minimal since we moved to a WordPress platform a few years ago, but to maintain an appropriate level of new content each month means a budget for writers’ fees.

Up till now those costs have been met by Highlands and Islands Enterprise, but with shrinking budgets and changing priorities, HIE is no longer able to continue that support. It’s with the greatest regret, therefore, that, with effect from the end of March, Northings will become a static site and we’ll be unable to commission new material.

A key part of our aim was to build up an archive, and we now have a ten year portrait of the extraordinary wealth of cultural activity in the Highlands and Islands. For at least the next twelve months that archive will remain fully accessible and searchable, as a unique document of a period of growth and change in the area. Our aim will be to find a permanent host for that archive and also, if possible, to relaunch Northings in a new form which can remain true to the original vision of presenting the arts and culture of the Highlands and Islands to the rest of the world in an inclusive and professional way.

Finally, I’d like to thank Kenny Mathieson for his skill and dedication in the task of editing Northings over the past decade, and also everyone who has written for Northings, and indeed everyone who has logged on, read, and shared our articles

Robert Livingston, Director, HI~Arts

© Robert Livingston, 2013

THE LOCAL community centre, in popular imagery, is a traditional space which is under threat, a hub for people to congregate around and form a social group in the face of funding cuts and the decrease in activity which runs alongside those cuts.

YET that doesn’t tell the whole story of people’s determination to keep their communities alive across the country, and the network of village halls in the Highlands and Islands is representative of that.

Ron Emslie in rehearsal for Watching Bluebottles

Based in Alves in Moray, theatre production company Right Lines have created a new, cross-generational performance event which celebrates both this fact and the role the village hall continues to play in people’s lives. Across six local halls, Hall Tales has been an ongoing community engagement project which saw filmmaker Tim Flood run basic film production courses for young people in each village, with the students then going out to film the village hall recollections of elder members of their communities for one Hall Tales film to be shown at each final performance.

This month’s tour of six shows spread over a fortnight will also feature exhibitions of artefacts related to the village halls they’re staged in and a central performance of a past Right Lines production, the one-man, site-specific play Watching Bluebottles, in which actor Ron Emslie plays a hallkeeper preparing for his own retirement.

“The local hall has a very special place in our hearts,” says Euan Martin, who runs Right Lines alongside Dave Smith. “Both Dave and I were brought up in church and village halls and see them as fantastic, adaptable venues. Since we set up Right Lines ten years ago we’ve principally toured our shows there, and it’s only recently we’ve started creating them for more traditional theatre spaces.”

When he points out that these places are adaptable and versatile, he’s suggesting that the imagination really is the limit for those who want to use them for new and interesting purposes. “One of our first shows was called Accidental Death of An Accordionist,” Martin points out by way of illustration, “and it was set at a ceilidh in a village hall. So we took the show out to these small venues and the people arrived at the hall as if they were coming to a ceilidh, getting involved in dancing and listening to music before the actual show broke out around them.”

Ron Emslie - the allure of the draughty old hall

A lot of the allure of such places, he suggests, is the individual character they’ve built up over time, the fact that each one is different. “Although over the last few years, a remarkable number of halls have managed to get grants to do them up,” he points out. “One of the funny things about Watching Bluebottles is that we very much wrote the story about the old hall and the old hallkeeper, and in the show he talks about the new hall being built down the road and how he’s not going to transfer. So what we wanted was the old, crumbly, draughty halls to perform it in, because they had the greatest character. But when we booked it the committees were so excited they decided to stage it as the first show in their brand new, centrally-heated and wonderfully decorated hall instead.”

For their next project Martin and Smith are debuting a version of Roger Hunt’s book Be Silent Or Be Killed, a true account of the Scots banker’s days caught amidst the Mumbai massacre. Opening at the beginning of May and touring throughout the month, the piece was made possible by a little seed funding from the National Theatre of Scotland and full funding for the tour from Creative Scotland. Yet Smith believes that the future climate for such projects will become more difficult given the controversial news about Moray slashing its entire arts budget.

“It’s a very short-sighted move,” says Smith. “I think it’s much less likely that larger organisations will want to bring shows into Moray, and it also hits your personal enthusiasm for doing this. Everyone knows you just have to go out there and make things happen, but that’ll be even harder now in terms of the level of administration involved.” The loss of a dedicated arts officer, the feeling is, will be the biggest blow, with nobody on hand to discuss arts projects with the council on a daily basis.

“Yet there are two wonderful organisations in the Highlands and the north-east,” points out Martin. “There’s NEAT (North East Arts Touring) and the Touring Network (formerly PAN, the Promoters’ Arts Network), with both of their specific aims being to support touring theatre companies in the area, so they’re helping keep village halls and village hall theatre alive. And if this is under threat, that’s why people should put all the more effort into making things happen.”

Hall Tales opens tonight (15 March) at Kinloss Church Hall, and runs until 30 March at Dyke Village Hall. Full details at Right Lines website below. 

© David Pollock, 2013

Links

• Right Lines

THANKS to Helen for these photos from the current London exhibition.

READ Ian Stephen’s review of the show at An Lanntair and view the catalogues (see links below).

The exhibition runs at Art First in London until 6 April 2012.

© Helen Macalister, 2013

Links

• Catalogues
• Ian Stephen review

BETWEEN October and December 2012, as part of her Museums Galleries Scotland and Creative Scotland funded “Iconic Artists in Iconic Places” residency at Caithness Horizons, the Fibre Artist created a “Portable Museum of Curiosity” inspired by the hand-made moss collection box, which belonged to Thurso baker and botanist Robert Dick (1811-1866) that is on display at the Museum.

Joanne B. Kaar's Portable Museum of Curiosity

The “Portable Museum of Curiosity” is available for schools, community groups and other heritage organisations to borrow in order to learn more about the life and work of Robert Dick. The “Portable Museum of Curiosity” is already going out on loan to the St. Fergus Gallery, Wick and Mull Museum. It has been featured in a paper entitled “The Herbarium as Muse: Plant Specimens as Inspiration” by Maura C. Flannery, Professor of Biology, St. Johns University, New York at an American Association for the Advancement of Science Conference in Boston, which was attended by over 8,000 people.

If you would like to borrow the “Portable Museum of Curiosity” please contact Joanne Howdle, Museum Curator on 01847 896508 or e-mail: joannehowdle@caithnesshorizons.co.uk

The “Portable Museum of Curiosity” will be on display at Caithness Horizons from 21st February until 10th March. During this period the “Portable Museum” will be taken off display for a few hours each day for groups to use.

© Caithness Horizons, 2013

Links

• Caithness Horizons
• Joanne B. Kaar

ALTHOUGH a large-scale theatrical project which attempts to use the length and breadth of the Shetlands as its stage and involves months of artistic interaction with the inhabitants of the islands seems like a celebratory venture, Ignition was borne of a deep tragedy within the community.

“THE project goes back five years ago, to the death of a young lad called Stuart Henderson in a road accident,” says John Haswell, arts development officer of Shetland Arts, who have teamed with the National Theatre of Scotland to bring Ignition to life. “Stuart was very much involved in the youth theatre which I ran, and his parents were very anxious afterwards that perhaps a piece of theatre could be created which would address road safety issues. I ummed and ahhed about it, because I wasn’t sure that a piece of issue-based theatre would have any sort of lasting impact.”

Ignition (image Simon Murphy)

Keen to do something to honour Henderson, who was killed alongside his friend Marcus MacPherson in November 2007, Haswell kept the idea in mind, and the eventual pitch he took to – and had accepted by – the NTS was for a project which would attempt to examine our entire relationship with the automobile as a society.

“Like all rural areas Shetland is heavily dependent on the motorcar,” says Haswell, “and like all rural areas there’s an even greater sense of freedom amongst young people when they pass their test and get a car, because it allows them to become independent of their parents. But the other thing about Shetland is that its whole economic infrastructure is bound up with Sullom Voe oil terminal and the money it brings in, so we have an even more complex relationship with the oil industry, rather than just the car itself.”

It was after the project had been approved that theatremaker Wils Wilson (whose border ballad-cum-supernatural comedy The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, co-created with David Grieg, has become one of the organisation’s most enduring shows) came on board to help facilitate it, having previously worked on the Shetland leg of the NTS’ launch event, Home.

“I spent time thinking about what this project could do that any other couldn’t,” says Wilson. “It’s an exchange of information between people like myself, who are coming in with a certain set of skills, and the people of the island who are the real experts on the subject.” Haswell reiterates that the process of Ignition is “not imposed from outside, it’s very much gathered and generated from within Shetland.”

The White Wife hosting a Sunday tea in her campervan (photo Chloe Garrick)

What followed was a series of community events and interventions geared towards collecting testimony from islanders about their stories of the road and relationship with it, most notably through what Wilson calls their “hitchhiker-in-residence” the White Wife, a creation of Manchester-based performance artist Lowri Evans.

Beginning in October last year and continuing until late February 2013, Evans has been riding around the island in cars, on buses and on ferries divining the text which will be used in the final performance at the end of March. There have also been or will be workshops, children’s events, parkour tours focusing on travel without roads and ‘Car Yarns’, a series of public storytelling and knitting events aimed at creating a full-size car out of wool (“mak’ing and yakking sessions,” Wilson calls them).

“When we think about cars, we wonder if they isolate us from one another,” says Wilson. “There we are, all driving round in our little metal boxes. We wanted to challenge that and break through it, so Lowri threw herself on the generosity of the islanders. Immediately, as a hitcher and a woman on her own, people are concerned for her safety, but as a driver a stranger getting into your car is also an interesting relationship. As a woman, do I pick up a hitcher? Already there are lots of interesting areas to explore. People took her to their house and made tea or to a special place they’d been to, and they told her very personal stories about journeys which had changed their lives. There’s something about travelling along in a car together which creates a kind of confessional environment.”

Knitted Car (photo Seth Hardwick)

The stories gathered and texts cultivated will be merged into the fluid final performance, which is still in a state of flux, but which will be held across the island (in locations reached by car, naturally) and which will feature as many residents as want to get involved, be they the youth theatre, dance groups, parkour groups or those appearing on pre-recorded video inserts, particularly through choreographer Janice Parker’s work with care home residents with dementia. Composer Hugh Nankivill has also composed a new score for the piece, entitled The Road.

“We set ourselves a challenge to try and reach everyone on the islands,” says Wilson. “Other than that we had to be open and responsive to what we found. The car is our spark, but it leads you to places you weren’t expecting. Even asking ‘do you have a pet name for your car?’, the question quickly expands to become about how they live their lives or why they came to Shetland, for example. It’s widening out to become about people’s journeys through life and their relationships with the landscape around them.”

Is it possible to say their work so far has reached any conclusions? “It’s reinforced our utter and total dependency upon the car,” says Haswell, “and what a difficult relationship that is. I mean, we’re generating funny stories, tragic stories, we’re hearing about the financial impact, the environmental impact, that fact that the public transport network here is pretty poor, which puts us back into the car… . I suppose ultimately it’s showing us we’re totally dependent on the car, but that we know that can’t last for ever. We’re not going to change the world overnight, but it’s made us wonder where we might go from here.”

The final Ignition performances will take place around Shetland between Monday 25 and Saturday 30 March.

© David Pollock, 2013

Links

• National Theatre of Scotland
• Shetland Arts

IT’S not easy making theatre in the Highlands.

EVEN though a full house in a village hall might involve a sizeable proportion of the local population, it can’t compare with a four-week run in a city theatre. Theatre companies, and individual performers, directors and writers, are scattered across a huge area and rarely have the kinds of opportunities to get together that their urban counterparts take for granted. And getting the Central Belt media to take notice is a perennial challenge.

UHI Drama

But the rewards can be great. There’s a closeness to the audience that it’s hard to match in urban venues, especially when the subject matter is of local interest and relevance. There’s a wealth of material to work with, historic, linguistic and contemporary, as well as the opportunity to draw on the rich musical traditions and talents of the area.

Nonetheless, it requires a special kind of person to be based in the Highlands and make theatre here. They need to be adaptable and resourceful, to manage what’s often called a form of ‘cultural crofting’. They can’t rely on just auditioning for other companies, they have to make their own opportunities, and above all they have to work closely with the communities in which they live.

So here at HI~Arts we were delighted to get the news that from September 2013, Inverness College UHI will be offering a new BA (Hons) Drama Degree (subject to approval), not least because it’s a Drama Degree with a difference, as the College’s own description makes clear:

The distinctive BA (Hons) programme aspires to explore, make and take forward performance in the Highland region. It has been devised to ensure that the study and making of performance in the Highlands is reflective of the specific challenges and opportunities presented to creative practitioners in areas of low urban density and mixed economy. However, to ensure the programme maintains an outward looking perspective, it will continually relate its work to that of the international contemporary performance community. Our emphasis will be on contemporary, rural and folk performance, but historical practices will be examined as a way of better understanding the theatrical present in which the students learn and will eventually work. Our mode of study will encompass a strong practice based approach informed by more conventional scholarly activity.

Throughout their studies, students will be encouraged to work as independent scholars/artists/performers. As a cohort they will be trained and developed as a creative producing company/troupe and will be encouraged and supported in maintaining this collaboration on exit from their studies. To that end, students will be trained in the myriad skills of performance-making including skills in acting, devising, technical, writing and cultural planning. By developing multi-skilled and multi-disciplined individuals we expect our graduates to be well equipped for a broad range of vocational roles within the cultural sector, including independent performance initiators and makers, as well as for further study at postgraduate level.

The degree has been specially designed for those students who have undertaken an HNC or HND in Acting and Performance (or equivalent). Direct entry into Year Three will be available from September 2013. From 2014, direct entry will be available into Year Two.

While the growth of drama and dance in the Highlands owes a huge amount to some long standing companies, from Mull to Dogstar, and from Right Lines to Out of the Darkness, it’s been heartening to see some new companies emerging in the last year or two, as new graduates aim to create opportunities for themselves back in their home territories. So, this new course should be a major step forward in both equipping the drama workers of the future, and also in encouraging them to stay and make work in the Highlands. Definitely a case of ‘watch this space’!

© Robert Livingston, 2013

Links

• Inverness College

Who are Zenwing puppets and how did you get started?

Zenwing Puppets is a rural touring puppet theatre company, based in Ross-shire. Karrie Marshall has a background in using creativity and puppetry in healthcare and adult education, and Chris King’s background is acting and performance arts. We work with other artistes who help make sets and sometimes puppeteer with us.

Our first show was in the Sligachan Hotel on the Isle of Skye in 2004. We wanted to use a penguin puppet we had made, but it had no place in the story… so he just slid back and forth in the background. Our name Zenwing came from him. We set up the puppet company as a partnership in 2005.

Chris King of Zenwing Puppets

What kind of help were you looking for from HI~Arts?

We found that many rural touring venues did not have sound or lighting systems, so we needed to buy or hire this in. Also puppets need lighting at a different level to usual stage shows.

Initially many audiences were used to paying half price for children’s shows, and adults expected to come and see a show for free if they brought their children. We could not possibly cover our costs on that basis. Expenses included the materials, licensed music, travel fuel, ferries, van hire, accommodation, and meals.

Did you get it, and what sort of difference did it make?

Yes, we were awarded the Producers Fund for three years, which enabled us to become a self-sufficient touring company, with our own PA system, lighting rig and puppets. In those first three years we produced three shows delivering 141 shows and workshops that toured the Western Isles from Lewis to Barra, Orkney, Caithness, Sutherland, Ross-shire and Skye, Inverness, Perthshire, Argyle and Bute. Along-side this we were developing our puppetry in health care work.

The shows led to other work at festivals and in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Fife. We were unable to compete with the subsidized workshop prices schools receive in the Highlands, so needed to deliver more community shows, which the Producers Fund and HIE travel assistance made possible.

We went on to produce three more shows, without funding, travelling from Shetlands to Gloucestershire. We gradually ensured ticket prices were fair, (used Aros Centre theatre as our benchmark). Delivered a further 150 shows and workshops. HI-Arts also helped us with marketing ideas and emotional and strategic support when the recession hit us. We recovered.

From our puppetry work in healthcare we set up a new social enterprise called creativity in care, which was incorporated as a community interest company on Dec 6th 2012.

How important is it to Zenwing to be part of a wider theatre network in the Highlands and Islands?

We have established good links and gained an understanding of how other theatre companies create work, which informs our own processes. We have collaborated with musicians and experimented ideas with scriptwriters. This helps us define our own work more clearly. The training, information and FST networking is also valuable.

The company’s come a long way in the past few years: where do you see it going in the future?

We are really pleased to still be here! We have grown in confidence, skill and vision. It was one of the hardest learning curves we have been on, but we love the production process. The feedback from audiences is great and we know that creating the work is an integral part of who we are.

Our plans for 2013 are:

1. to produce a puppet show that tours the Northern Countries

2. to revamp our beautiful Christmas Show.

3. We would also like to help a network of artists interested in healthcare work through the Creativity In Care work.

And what sort of help do you think you’ll need to get there?

To achieve our goals, we need the following:

• Vision – after two years in discussions, we have it!

• Time to make and produce the shows – we supply

• Skill and abilities to make and produce – we supply

• Music and set making and puppet making – we collaborate

• Bookings – we have interests in Highlands, and need to find venues in Northern Countries

Other areas that we need help with:

• Rehearsal space; Marketing; Co-director

• Fees / bookings to pay ourselves and artists involved

• Travel/ Touring assistance

The producer’s fund would be an ideal investment into this next level.

Regards the Creativity In Care work, our initial tasks are networking, whilst we deliver first our project in community care with High Life Highland. We know this also has international interest.

For more information on Zenwing Puppets visit their website at http://zenwingpuppets.com/

© Robert Livingston, 2013

“ONE thing about the college I always remember is playing music week in and week out,” says the North Uist-raised singer, who recently sang on the soundtrack of the Disney film Brave, “singing at sessions, playing at sessions, late night ceilidhs. There was always music on the go, that was very much part of my life as a student.”

Julie Fowlis

YET Sabhal Mòr Ostaig has never completely left Fowlis behind, nor her it. After first studying there a decade ago, she recently returned for a Master’s degree in Material Culture and the Environment, and this year is artist with the Tobar an Dualchais/Kist O Riches national conservation, sound archiving and digitisation project, which is based at Sabhal Mòr. “I still feel like Sabhal Mòr Ostaig is very much part of my life in lots of ways,” she says with obvious affection.

Initially established in old steadings at Ostaig Farm in 1973 (the name translates as “the great barn of Ostaig”), the initial aim for Sabhal Mòr Ostaig was to build a Gaelic library and eventually to create an educational establishment which would allow both Gaelic speakers and Gaelic learners to be educated using the language and within the environment in which it flourished. The man behind it was Sir Iain Noble – founder of merchant bank Noble Grossart, holder of the first Gaelic cheque book and campaigner for Gaelic road signs, amongst many other things – and one of his original board members was Sorley MacLean.

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig

Since then the college has expanded to become a modern degree-level educational establishment, albeit with surely one of the most distinctive settings in Europe, and yet its strong and deeply-rooted links to and development of the cultural life of the Scots Gaelic community is such that a concert like this doesn’t seem out of place.

“The whole purpose of the college is the furtherance of the Gaelic language and culture,” says Allan Henderson, music tutor and recording studio manager at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, musical director of the 40th anniversary concert and a member of Blazin’ Fiddles, “and of course music and the arts are a huge part of that, you can’t have one without the other. The language can’t survive without music, and there are very good historical reasons for that within Gaelic culture as a whole.”

Allan Henderson puts his best foot forward with Blazin' Fiddles - Ian Macfarlane is on the far right

Henderson explains that the language’s profile has really grown since Sabhal Mòr Ostaig was established, that it was given no real status or prominence back in the early days when the college was established and that now it’s almost an affirmation for speakers that they can come to a place of learning whose selling point is that the first language is Gaelic. “You only have to look at what’s happened on the mainland,” he says. “There are now very few Gaelic speakers in Mallaig or Arisaig, but there are still significant numbers in the south of Skye. There’s no doubt that Sabhal Mòr has played a big part in that.”

Fowlis agrees. “I’m lucky enough to come from a Gaelic family,” she says, “but I didn’t have that much confidence to speak it, so it was a great boost to spend time where I could study the language in depth and study the culture and the history. Certainly I didn’t get the opportunity to study these at school level, the exploration into identity and culture and belonging. It formed a great part of the course (at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig) and it was a very enjoyable.”

Henderson notes that although the music course at Sabhal Mòr has only relatively recently been established, the musical heritage of the college is written into its DNA. “One of the things about the Gaels is that we’ve always made time for music,” he says. “We’re very appreciative of it, whether it’s part of our working life or our social life, it’s always there, it’s always key. It doesn’t matter whether we’re at a low ebb or things are going well, music is how we express ourselves.

“The college reflects that. Our music degree has been up and running for only five years or so, but music has always played a huge part in college life here. It’s incredible how many of our students and staff are actually musicians themselves.”

This month’s concert in Glasgow will reflect that breadth and richness of talent. Henderson picks out Fowlis herself as one of the artists of most widespread repute who will be appearing, while he also names house bandmember Iain MacDonald, up-and-comers the Angus Nicolson Trio, and fiddler and longtime Sabhal Mòr summer school tutor Alasdair Fraser as among the highlights.

Fowlis also names Fraser, as well as Margaret Stewart and singer Christine Primrose, while both are of course hearty in their praise for Irish concert pianist Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, from Limerick University. “He’s been a longtime friend of ours here,” says Henderson, “and very supportive of what we’re trying to do.”

Margaret Stewart (photo Euphoria Photography)

For Fowlis it will be just like her good old student days, which really weren’t so long ago. “There’s been a wealth of talent through the college,” she says, “so I think it’ll be a really nice atmosphere at the concert, just lots of friends getting together and playing music. It should feel like a very natural and organic thing to take to the stage together, it’s not going to feel forced at all, even though there are a lot of people who don’t necessarily play together that often. The type of music it is and the backgrounds we all come from, though, we’ll all have shared a lot of the music over the years at Sabhal Mor. So it’ll be a lovely gathering to put on stage.”

The Sabhal Mòr Ostaig 40th Anniversary Concert is at Celtic Connections at the City Halls, Glasgow, on Saturday 19th January.

© David Pollock, 2013

Links

• Celtic Connections
• Sabhal Mòr Ostaig

AS ALL the commissions were advertised together and artists selected by the same panel, you might expect to see evidence of a policy. There are of course many different possible approaches to this often controversial field.

The artist might reasonably be expected to engage in a genuine investigation into cultural aspects of the locality. He or she might be seen as part of a team with the architects and indeed with the staff and pupils of the building. The pitfalls often are that the process of engagement has come too late in the project for the consultation to be meaningful. You can often see evidence of this in public artworks which do not result in a sense of ownership by the community they serve.

A view of Donald Urquhart's installation

I’ve recently had the great pleasure of being able to take a close look at a work which has been made in consultation with the architects of the Nicolson secondary project in Stornoway, but with a genuine input from the pupils of the school. I do have some ‘inside knowledge’ of the process and not because I was a pupil of that school. The artist, Donald Urquhart, is a mate. I can claim that this does not at all affect my ability to be objective because we have also been rivals in applying for commissions.

Let’s get the negative out of the way first because I can say right away that the Nicolson commission seems to me a completely successful work. But how can you judge that, with regard to art which is part of a public building rather than in an exhibition where you can take it or leave it? As always, only by comparison. I know of two other examples of public works made in the Western Isles as part of the umbrella scheme of commissions.

One is pretty much what you would have expected the artist to make. There is no contesting that this is an artist of great skills but often the idea of community involvement is ticked as a box with no real sense that it has significantly influenced the essentials of the work in question.

The installation

Another is a pre-formed idea, made to the budget and installed with no sense of the cultural implications of the representational icons mounted at the approach to the school. As a storyteller I was asked to justify one work by finding a relevant island story for it, after the rather sinister image was already produced. Now as a poet, I would have to question that such a retrospective process could meet the requirements of the words “consultation” or “dialogue”.

So why do I think that the Nicolson work works? Donald Urquhart is vastly experienced in this field and it shows. His installations in Stobhill hospital have been an integral part of the international regard the Reiach and Hall project is held in. Then there are the painted timbers installed at Dysart, an intervention on the shoreline which encourages an altered focus on the seascape but with allusion to the human heritage of the place.

A closer view

The cornfield wall and the painted towers at the redeveloped Eden Court Theatre in Inverness are quiet in one sense, but a large part of the aesthetic of the building visible to the outside world. In all of these, colour is the essential element. A draughtsman and painter by trade has carried his obsessions and skills into the multiple dimensions of the public works, interior and exterior.

As a mate and one with a head for heights, Donald asked if I’d give a hand touching up some minor post-installation damage to the paintwork of the abstract three dimensional work, newly installed in the Nicolson. This makes use of the high open hallway in the now occupied building. As one of the labouring team, following Donald’s instructions, to touch-up some minor scuffs to the paint finish, I gained an insight into both the final form of the work and the process which greatly influenced one aspect of it.

What do you see when you walk in? A closely hung grouping of painted three-dimensional shapes suspended from the roof structure to continue below the line of a mezzanine area, into the void space below. They are a bit like Toblerones, but a lot skinnier, in proportion. The bottom ends are not in line but slightly staggered, though not in a uniform way. Instead, you immediately get a sense of a connection with landscape, rather than with the more logical shapes of a designed building.

A longer view

The range of colours is on the point of being shocking and yet it is also harmonic. Donald had brought 120 plastic bottles, each carefully numbered to match a plan. Each ‘Toblerone’ has a different shade on each facet. There is some chance for the works to swing very slightly from a single-point suspension on a tensed wire. But this will be more like a very subtle shift of light in landscape than anything like a kaleidescope effect.

So where did the colours come from? If you’re familiar with Donald Urquhart’s work you’ll know there’s a reason for the choices. This is the link to the locality. The artist commissioned a former student of his, now living in the Western Isles, to conduct a series of workshops at the school. These generated great interest, due to enthusiastic participation of the head-teacher, the art-department and other staff. Thus a significant proportion of the school population went out on field trips to identify particular shades in the flora and fauna of the natural environment.

The artist acting as assistant but also with a passion for colour, worked with the pupils to produce a large panatone palette of observed shades which could be reproduced. These might come from the beak of a puffin or from a frond of the complex shading roughly summarized by the word “moor”.

These then gave Donald the basis for his eventual choices of which shade to paint on which face of which of the many suspended shapes. And yes, a measure of chance occured, as when lighting-tracks were not fixed exactly where the plans said they would be.

So the original idea of creating a flush lower line by exactly matching the lengths of suspension-wire to the pitch of the roof, could not be achieved. Donald then chose to go for a random grouping which of course is in sympathy with an inevitable random element in the colour selection. So the work suggests landscape and the asymmetry in much of the observed natural world.

To make it work, he had to consult with the architects to change their choice of colour-scheme for the surrounding area. Its present subtlety is calming and throws focus on the abstract work.

Another angle

I feel that the process has led to a sense of ownership in the work but don’t take my word for it. Ask the cleaners, the staff and the pupils. More than once, in the few hours when our squad was dabbing paint from the said range of bottles, someone came up to say how much they liked the piece and how it contributed something to the space though they couldn’t say quite what.

There we go. To make successful public art, I think the process of commissioning the artist has to allow a space for the factor which is very difficult to score. I’m reminded of a local crofter’s reaction to a temporary installation of painted marks in the landcape during Comhla, the first Triangle Trust artists’ workshop in Scotland. He couldn’t quite say why but somehow he didn’t mind that being there. He looked up again at a place he saw most days. Somehow his line of sight was temporarily altered, that little bit.

I do know that Donald Urquhart would welcome a further dialogue with the wider community which surrounds the school building. It would be a fine and fair thing if all the artists, involved in this series of commissions were invited to a public event where they could each present their work and the experience behind it’s finished form.

The work, COLOUR LINES, takes as its starting point the Hugh MacDiarmid poem, Scotland Small ? ( 1943 ). In this work MacDiarmid urges a way of seeing in the landscape which allows the appreciation of detail and colour. The pupils at the Nicolson Institute were asked to adopt that way of seeing in the development of the work.

Through a series of workshops conducted by the Stornoway based artist, Christine Morrison, a range of over 70 pupils, from across all the year groups, went on visits to the Castle Grounds to photograph and record colour in the landscape. Further computer-based workshops looked at extracting colour samples from digital images.

Each pupil was then asked to think about their favourite colour from a detail of the natural environment of Lewis and to suggest these for the work. The pupils sourced imagery from the photography archive of Scottish Natural Heritage to select individual images of their chosen subjects – from waxwings to puffins and ladybirds to sea campions. Individual pixels were then extracted from these images to form the final pallette for COLOUR LINES.

Urquhart discussed formal options with the pupils for how these colours could be introduced into the space in an appropriate form. The work is intended to form a cluster of colour within the atrium space and if of a scale appropriate to the height of the ceiling from which it is suspended. The triangular section of each element of the work is intended to allow the visible colours to change as the work is viewed from different angles. The forty elements were fabricated to Urquhart’s specification by Inscape Joinery

With forty individual triangular elements this allowed one hundred and twenty colours, selected by the pupils, to be used in the work. Each colour was mixed to match the pixels’ colours before Urquhart hand painted each face of each element. One hundred and twenty colours from the landscape of Lewis brought together by the pupils in one work at the heart of the Nicolson Institute.

© Ian Stephen, 2012

Links

• Nicolson Institute
• Ian Stephen

THE statement follows earlier announcements and the work carried out by the Board sub-groups over the past few weeks.

THE commitments outlined in this statement recognise the issues raised in recent months by external commentators, through open sessions with artists and creative practitioners and also, importantly, by Creative Scotland staff.

Central to many of the concerns communicated recently to Creative Scotland has been an inconsistency in our dealings with external partners, and there is clearly a need to create a culture and ethos where trust and mutual respect can thrive.

This has meant that, despite a range of welcome and successful initiatives throughout Scotland in the first two years of operation, many important relationships have deteriorated.

The Creative Scotland board acknowledges its own share of responsibility for this.

Both the board and the senior management team recognise the need for substantial changes which will address the principal concerns made evident in our internal reviews, extensive external feedback, and the submissions sent to us by a range of organisations and individuals, including our own staff.

We are very conscious that future success depends on us functioning as a team with shared goals, operating in an environment of mutual respect.

One cause of friction which has affected both competence and delivery has been the lack of effective use of expertise available to the organisation internally and externally.

This will change in two ways:

• · We will change Creative Scotland’s operational structure to give staff the freedom to use their specialist knowledge more effectively.
• · We will set up internal and external forums that allow artists, creative practitioners and staff to feed into policy development.

We reiterate one of our core values: that artists and creative practitioners should be at the heart of our thinking.

Changes to make the language and tone of Creative Scotland more accessible are already underway, and we accept that the nature and number of our funding streams and programmes has led to confusion.

This will also change. Work has begun on simplifying the routes through which individuals and organisations can access advice and funding.

Stability is a core concern of many companies, not least in this difficult financial climate. We intend to offer that stability in a number of key ways:

• · As soon as is practicable, we will offer long term funding to organisations over a number of years. This will be subject to a review of progress, but relieve them of the need to submit fresh applications annually.
• · We will work towards changing what has come to be viewed as a funding hierarchy. Instead we will offer the security of multi-year funding to organisations, project funding for specific time limited work, and funding to individuals which may include partnerships.

It is essential in our view that lottery funding should never be regarded as a substitute for government sourced grant in aid, but we are working on ways in which we can use both to ensure the creative community thrives.

Crucial to re-building trust and confidence in the organisation is the commitment of our staff who have been operating under the most difficult circumstances.

We greatly admire, value and respect the skills and talents of our staff and intend to create an atmosphere in which these can flourish. They will be involved at every stage of this period of essential change.

There has been good practice in many of the things Creative Scotland has achieved but that has to become the norm in all areas of activity. We recognise that imaginative and successful initiatives have been undermined by failures in other areas.

It is time that Creative Scotland stopped being the story. We think the best way to achieve this is to focus on making our core operation effective, and affording those we support due care and attention.

We will also moderate the pace of change to enable better planning and consultation internally and externally.

These changes are the product of a period of painful but essential re-examination. We are individually and collectively signed up to restoring confidence in Creative Scotland’s work.

We ask for time to be allowed to do this, and to be judged on the results of the changes announced today.

Summary of commitments:

Commitments for change agreed by the Board of Creative Scotland on 6th December 2012 and to be delivered by the Senior Management Team and staff:

• · Underlining our commitment to putting artists, creative practitioners, cultural organisations and our staff at the heart of everything we do.
• · Enabling more effective use of staff specialist knowledge and expertise, increasing autonomy of decision-making and increasing the visibility of, and access to, this expertise.
• · Creating effective regular consultative forums with artists and creative practitioners and staff to inform policy development and increase transparency. Working with the sector to design the specific nature of these forums with the aim of a first open session in early 2013.
• · Reviewing current funding models to enable as many organisations as possible and appropriate to benefit from stable, multi-year arrangements. This will include an end to the plans for ‘strategic commissioning’.
• · Changing the perceived funding hierarchy of Foundation, Flexibly Funded and Annual Organisations and creating clear funding routes for individuals and specific time limited projects.
• · Changing the content and tone of our language to increase clarity and accessibility with a re-design of our application forms, guidance and other communications.
• · Emphasising the language of “support” rather than “investment” in both our values and operations.
• · Reducing efforts on activity that could be construed as promoting Creative Scotland ahead of artists, creative practitioners or cultural organisations.

Work on these commitments will be a collaborative process with staff, artists, creative practitioners and organisations.

We continue our commitment to supporting arts, culture and creative industries across Scotland and to increasing public engagement and participation, working in partnership with others to achieve this.

Next Steps

Some of these changes are underway, others will involve a significant level of future work. The support and active involvement of people and organisations in the arts, culture and creative industries through this period will be essential.

The following date should be noted:

• · Friday 14th December: Publication of Board sub-group reports and update on actions.

Early in 2013 we will publish more detailed plans for implementing these significant changes, including anticipated timescales. This is to allow staff and the senior management team time to consider the activity and people required to deliver the commitments being made.

The Board will also begin the process of recruiting a new Chief Executive in the New Year and interim organisational arrangements are currently being put in place.

© The Board of Creative Scotland, 2012

Links

• Creative Scotland

OCTOBER 2012 saw the ninth annual Mariafest monologue festival at the Ivan Franko theatre in the Ukranian capital of Kiev.

MARIAFEST has been established as a significant event in Ukraine’s cultural calendar, honouring the country’s renowned actress Maria Zankovetska (1854-1934) and offering performances by some of the finest theatrical talent from Eastern Europe.

The festival is ably and energetically directed by Lara Kadyrova, laureate of the National Schevchenko Prize and People’s Artist of Ukraine. During the festival there is an international conference embracing and uniting the worlds of literature and theatre, presided over by Dmytro Drozdoyvski, deputy editor of Vsesvit magazine (‘The Universe’).

Larysa Kadyrova, director of Mariafest, and Dmytro Drozdovskyi (Hamish MacDonald)

Established in 1925, Vsesvit is Ukraine’s leading literary journal which through its features and translations over ten decades – across Soviet and post-Soviet eras – has maintained a vital connection between the country’s literature and that of the wider world.

Dogstar Theatre Company had already forged its own links with Ukraine in 2007 when the company first travelled to the Ternopil Theatre Festival and L’viv Youth Theatre to perform its production of Seven Ages. The company returned in 2010 with Matthew Zajac’s The Tailor of Inverness – a story embracing much of western Ukraine and eastern Poland’s troubled modern history – and was performed at the Golden Lion Theatre Festival in L’viv, at Lutsk, and at the Kyiv Mohyla University.

Matthew Zajac in The Tailor of Inverness

The Tailor of Inverness was subsequently translated into Ukranian to feature in Vsesvit magazine. The company was invited to Mariafest 2010 when I travelled to Kiev to attend the festival and to present a paper ‘The International Languange of Theatre’ to the international Mariafest conference – reflecting upon the universal appeal of theatre and upon Dogstar’s own experience as an international touring company.

When the opportunity arose to attend Mariafest 2012 I was only too happy to accept, and to be able to contribute to the conference by presenting a paper in celebration of the bicentenary of one the world’s foremost literary figures, Charles Dickens. Whether through literature, film or TV adaptation, the work of Dickens has been appreciated and loved by every generation since he first began serialising stories and novels for the popular press more than a hundred and seventy years ago. How’s that for literary longevity?

In this age of the banking crisis, global debt and the profound gap in personal wealth that has been widening at an alarming rate since 1980 (recently exemplified by BBC 4’s Park Avenue – Money, Power and the Dream), perhaps it is no surprise that Dickens’ stories, often embracing personal struggle, suffering and the acute social maliase caused by societal divides should read as powerfully today as they did in the nineteenth century.

Kiev (photo Kiev Travel)

Kiev is a truly beautiful city. It appears not as one city but two, the ancient historical heart on the rising hills, crowned by golden domed churches, its parks and terraces hanging high over the River Dnieper with its island hydro-parks and resorts. Beyond the green islands with their trailing willow trees, over on the flat side of the river a monolithic concrete outline reaches into the sky, houses, factories, offices, power stations, the functional proletarian communities of the Soviet days, appearing at first sight from the older city like some magnified Springburn or Wester Hailes, the two communities joined by strips of concrete that rise on pillars over water and land, by arched and cantilevered bridges.

The whole city is connected by the Metro, going out into the open air of the modern precincts and deep under the hills of the ancient. In the district of Darnytsya concrete underpasses are filled with the colour of flower-sellers, traditional accordion music goes out from the buskers, with its shops and retaurants and hotels it all seems somehow more integrated, less dysfunctional, not as threatening or bleak as many of the post-war schemelands of Scotland. But this of course is only one small part of the city and it may well be a different story elsewhere.

By night buskers promenade through the train carriages, in Khreschaty Park it is not unusual to see some religious procession going past, whispering in prayer with an ikon held to the fore, no doubt a common sight to the ordinary passer-by but appearing to the stranger as it emerges from under the shade of the trees as if out of some thickly oiled picture of Old Russia.

Mariafest offers two molologue perfromances per day in the smaller 200-seat auditorium at the Ivan Franko Theatre. The first performance I watched was the Moscow Armenian Theatre’s dynamic re-telling of Jean Cocteau’s The Human Voice, made universally famous by Ted Kotcheff’s 1966 film starring Ingrid Bergman, featuring only the actress in her appartment, the opening scene revealing some torn-up photographs and a telephone.

Moscow Armenian Theatre's The Voice

Moscow Armenian Theatre’s production was designed and directed by Slava Stepanyan. Actress Zita Badalyan’s journey of breakdown and despair was told with impassioned and reflective effect, moving between bouts of grief and rage to the safer haven of recollections of better times with her estranged lover, emblemized by a silent actor recalling her to memory through an upheld mirror. The foreground featured a male figure fashioned out of thin copper wire, a substanceless form remaining only in outline as the increasingly frenetic woman finds her life spiralling out of control – and answering to a dead telephone line.

Following this matinee a powerful evening performance was given by veteran Polish Actor Boguslaw Kierc of My Corpse, an epic dream of life, love and death viewed from behind the curtain of mortality, written and directed by Boguslaw Kierc from the lines of Poland’s greatest Romantic nationalist poet Adam Mickiewicz, with only a stark light, a walking stick and a glass of water between actor and audience. Standing mostly stalk-still for the duration of the performance, Kierc held the theatre spellbound with the sheer power of language and facial expression alone, climaxing in the shattering of the water-glass gripped between trembling hands.

The following day’s matinee found Belorussian actress Olena Dudych give a sensitive and heartfelt delivery of the story of Edith Piaf in The Sparrow Who Growls, followed that evening by Laryssa Kadyrova’s tribute to the woman in whose name the festival was founded, Maria Zankovetska. When Two Are Separated visits the famous Ukranian actresses’ life from the point of estrangement from her second husband, the actor Nikolai Sadovsky whom she met in an army barracks in the Principality of Moldavia during her first husband’s military service and who persuaded her to venture to a new life in the theatrical profession.

Maria Zanovetska Museum (www.worldwalk.info)

Maria Zankovetska became a renowned actress in Ukraine, in Russia and throughout Europe. Her story reads like something from the pages of an epic classical novel and Laryssa Kadyrova’s amazing and elegant performance resurrects not only the story but the spirit of a great Ukranian artist.

During Mariafest a day is given over to the aforementioned International Conference held in the Ivan Franko Theatre, which focused this year not only on Dickens but on Ukraine’s great dramatist of the modernist era, Les Kurbas, founder of the legendary Theatre Nights in Ternopil and the daring experimentalist who worked from his studio in Kiev and would go on to present his ground-breaking drama in the Berezil and Kharkiv theatres.

Despite having a background in socialist idealism and revolutionary Bolshevism, in the late 20’s Kurbas’s work came under the increasingly watchful scrutiny of Soviet authoritarianism, with his plays eventually reduced to charges of ‘subversive organisation’ and ‘bourgeoise nationalism’. Kurbas was pronounced unfit for developing Soviet art and utlimately arrested, his life ended by execution in Sandarmokh in 1937 when a number of Ukranian intellectuals were shot under Stalin’s orders in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution.

The conference reflected upon the legacy of Kurbas’ work and its continuing importance, upon the life and work of Dickens in the novel and in cinema, and more broadly upon the social and political challenges faced by the performing arts in the age of globalised mass consumption and ever-changing media and audience needs.

Evridika featured a piece of physical theatre from Russia, performed by Yana Likhotina, moving from ground level to the upper air on perilously balanced step-ladders, between a theoretical heaven and hell. Remaining firmly in a dark place Anna Slubik’s performance of Zhan Rasin’s Fedra opened with unnerving discordance and foreboding. With the Polish actress appearing in deathly pale make-up the story of adulterous and incestuous betrayal was illustrated at times by the use of two hand-held effigies in a production that was unrelenting in its tearing open of the tortured soul of its protagonist.

The day was rounded off by a superb performance of Ticket to Heaven by Milka Zimkova from Bratislava, Slovakia. It can be something of a challenge to take in such a concentration of plays in any situation let alone in a range of Eastern European languages. When the spoken language is scarcely understood this requires another kind of engagement altogether, concentrating instead on rhythm, imagery and ultimately upon the connection between actor and audience.

Not to worry – although I’d loved to have got the jokes in Ticket To Heaven that had the audience roaring out loud at times, in every nuance and expression Milka Zimkova’s performance might as easily have been by some Scottish Everywumman, a Glasgow wifie or Torry quinie sitting down at the kitchen table, sharing innermost secrets and reflecting upon the faded love of extended matrimonial life. Judging by what was happening onstage and by the audience reaction this was clearly a fine piece of intimate theatre, full of warmth and observation and with the common touch that would have worked in any language.

Once again Mariafest invited us on an excursion to the beautiful sights of Kiev, to Lavra with its incredible reconstruction of monasteries and bell-towers that fell to the ravages of World War Two, dwarfed under the monstrous Soviet Victory monument on the adjacent hill, the hollow metallic statue holding up her sword and shield and affectionately known – or so I’ve been told – as ‘Old Tin Tits’.

To St. Michael’s gold-domed cathedral and the statue of Cossack warrior Bodhan Khmelnitsky ascending on his horse, his mace pointing in symbolic gesture back in the direction of Moscow. To the house of Maria Zankovetska who is the reason we are here, a careful reconstruction of the actresses’ home that had fallen victim to fire and then to demolition before being reopened in 1989, now a dedicated museum housing photographs, playbills and theatrical costumes that tell the story of her life.

The final performance I was to take in was Richard After Richard performed by Lidia Danylchuk, directed by Iryna Volystka, a cabaret style grotesquerie in which Richard III’s adversaries are played by – a sack of cabbages – each systematically given the chop in manic rhythmic fashion by a range of dangerous looking kitchen knives held magnetically in the form of a shining heraldic shield before their determinidely villainous purpose is revealed.

Lidia Danylchusk’s dissecting of the cabbages was truly unique – circling around the table, sending up a fountain-like spray of green as the knives drummed into the flesh of the vegetables, the floor now a seething organic mess of homicide and destruction.

You’ve probably twigged by now that Mariafest ventures to combine the traditional with the less conventional. So this was it for Mariafest 2012, the festival celebrates the theatrical form of the monologue and we hope to be able to respond to the invitation to return next year to the tenth anniversary of Mariafest with The Tailor of Inverness. Thank you once again to Laryssa, to Iryna and to Dmytro and to all those involved at Mariafest, to Vsesvit and the Maria Zankovetska House, and to the supporting institutions of Mariafest.

Mariafest is held with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Ukraine, the National Academic Theatre of Ivan Franko and the International (Ukraine) charitable foundation of the International Institute of Theatre. The conference is supported by the Taras Schevchenko Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Hamish’s travel to Ukraine was supported by Creative Scotland’s International and Conferences Investment Programme.

© Hamish MacDonald, 2012

Links

• Dogstar Theatre

YOU KNOW what it’s like when it’s your turn to choose the DVD.

YOU’RE tense, you’re nervous, you laugh a bit louder at the jokes, scream a bit more at the scary bits. Because you’ve made yourself a little bit vulnerable. It’s about your taste after all. Up close and personal. Which actually could be the motto of the Cromarty and Resolis Film Festival, now in its 6th year – Up Close and Personal, and unique in many ways.

The Angel's Share - a Gala screening this year

The by-line for this film festival is My Favourite Film Festival, because guests are invited to choose their 5 favourite films, and the committee select one of them to screen. In its 6 years so far the festival has welcomed an impressive array of guests to share their personal cinema favourites and to stay around awhile to watch and talk and eat curry.

Kirsty Wark, Sanjeev Kohli, Eddi Reader, John Byrne, writers Ali Smith, Ian Rankin and AL Kennedy, politician Charles Kennedy. Plus a selection of Scotland’s own brilliant film-makers – Sherlock’s Paul McGuigan, Dr Who’s Douglas Mackinnon, Last King of Scotland’s Andrea Calderwood, Hallam Foe’s David Mackenzie, Rob Roy’s Michael Caton-Jones, and probably Scotland’s most revered producer, Iain Smith – all people at the top of their game with fascinating insight into the business, but all of whom gave of their wisdom and experiences in a chummy, cosy settting. Audiences actually do come away from these sessions feeling not only enlightened but also like they’ve just had a gratifying gossip in Grouchos. Definitely Up Close and Personal.

Cloaked by the fabulous backdrop of Cromarty and its neighbouring parish Resolis, the Committee really make use of the Gothic atmosphere that descends upon the town in deep mid-Winter. There are open-air screenings with braziers and mulled wine, torch-lit walks up to The Stables – venue for gloaming and late night screenings. Animated films are projected onto the mothballed Lighthouse; the warm and welcoming Sutor Creek Cafe is the venue for couthy Scottish gems. The Old Brewery becomes the Festival Hub and offers a chance for a breather and a welcome blether over heart-warming soup, inspiring talks or a dip into the Scottish Screen Archive. And the Gala event on the Sunday night – a curry feast, a fantastic film, and a wee bit of music, is snuggled in to the lovely community atmosphere of Resolis Hall.

Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in Annie Hall

And so to this year, the festival looks like another cracker. Added to the venues mentioned this time also the Highland Travelling Cinema, the Screen Machine, will make an appearance for its first outing away from its regular circuit.

Among the guests will be the legendary politician Tony Benn, and they will be showing Will and Testament, a deeply moving intimate documentary portrait of the great man, followed by his favourite film which will be Brassed Off, which includes a tour-de-force performance from the late very great Peter Postlethwaite.

Rhona Cameron, comedian and writer will be there, and her chosen film is Woody Allan’s classic Annie Hall. She’ll be quizzed about life, love and what cinema meant to her when she was growing up in Mussleburgh.

Enzo Staiola in Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves

Screenwriter Paul Laverty, long-time collaborator of Ken Loach’s, in a previous life was a Human Rights Lawyer in Nicaragua which gave him the inspiration for his first feature script, Carla’s Song. His favourite film on this occasion will be the beautiful Italian classic Bicycle Thieves, and this year’s Gala Event will screen his latest hugely popular film, The Angel’s Share.

As if this wasn’t enough also making an appearance will be Moray-based Michael Start, of the House of Automata, who made the models for films like Hugo and the eerie dolls and toys in the Woman in Black, both of which will be screened during the weekend. Armourer Carl Summersgill will give audiences insight into his experiences on films such as the Clash of the Titans and the Eagle of the Ninth. And the lovely Scottish Screen Archive People will be back with a selection of gems with Highland connections from their vaults.

It is worth mentioning, and again this is quite unique, that this film festival is run almost entirely by a volunteer committee – it really is a labour of love and it shows. They work to make themselves sustainable by doing things like creating and selling a beautiful poster of images of ridiculously photogenic Cromarty. But they also get funding from Regional Screen Scotland and other organisations – most happily The Co-op. This year is the International Year of Co-operatives and to celebrate the committee’s relationship with (and on-going support from) the local Co-op membership, the Festival will be screening The Rochdale Pioneers, a recently completed film about the Co-operative movement.

So it’s all go for a full and frantic weekend of all things film.

Comfortable? Certainly. Eccentric? Probably. Magical? Undoubtedly.

And films that mean so much somehow, when seen with people who long for you to like them, no matter who they are.

The 2012 Cromarty Film Festival runs from 30 November until 2 December.

© Lindy Cameron, 2012

Links

• Cromarty Film Festival

ALTHOUGH it had its detractors at the time, the first national Year of Homecoming in 2009 was deemed such a success by the Scottish Government that they’ll be repeating the exercise in 2014, handily timing it to coincide with the staging of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

AGAIN, the format will be broad enough that it can accommodate populist events and unashamed exercises in drumming up tourism trade, while also finding room for artistic explorations of what it means to be Scottish, or of Scottish descent and dispersed around the world.

Jim Sutherland (photo Kerstin Gruenling)

One such event officially launches this month, and it will focus its attention specifically on the “Gaelic diaspora”, a distinct culture of travellers and settlers who often find their own rich history lost amidst the wider story of Scots migration. Conceived and artistically directed by composer Jim Sutherland, who was raised in Thurso and lives in Edinburgh, Struileag / Shore to Shore is currently beginning a long process of gathering testimony and artistic contributions from Gaels around the world ahead of a final performance incorporating poetry, music and film at Eden Court Theatre in Inverness in 2014.

“Struileag is quite an obscure word,” explains Sutherland, himself a Gaelic learner, “I’ve been asked what it means by quite a few native speakers. It refers to an imaginary boat which was used in storytelling sessions, a bit like pass the parcel. When somebody had taken their turn at a storytelling ceilidh they would pass on the struileag, the boat, to the next storyteller.”

Struileag logo

Pointing out that his initial discussions with bodies ranging from the Scottish Government to Creative Scotland have been overwhelmingly supportive and positive, Sutherland suggests that Struileag / Shore to Shore is so much more than just an arts event. “It’s a massive outreach project which will last for two years,” he says. “It will have community engagement in Scotland, particularly in the Highlands, and internationally, culminating in a week of events and finally the show at Eden Court.” The show, he says, will be streamed live around the world, and will live on as a book, a recording and a DVD after the fact.

The way Sutherland describes the process of uncovering stories and testimony for the event makes it sound almost like a huge piece of genealogy research, with his investigations leading him to people in Argentina, Australia, Nova Scotia and most recently to Mairi Og Koroleva, a lecturer in Gaelic at Moscow State University.

“You wouldn’t imagine Moscow State University having a lecturer in Gaelic, would you?’ he laughs. “It’s been a surprising project, but it’s a strange old business these days when you’re working internationally. If you’re on Facebook and things like Twitter and Blipfoto, you find all these connections in an almost social way, research becomes a totally different thing.”

It’s the same way, he says, that he drew his pan-continental orchestra La Banda Europa together in 2006, and already it’s led him to a pipe band in Buenos Aires, the man in Seville who translated Sorley MacLean into Spanish and a Canadian rapper who speaks Irish Gaelic and is learning Scots.

Sutherland is quick to point out that the work produced will be a contemporary exploration of the Gaelic diaspora, not an opportunity to dwell once more upon traditional culture. “We’re looking at people’s lives, at what’s going on now,” he says. “We’re looking at language and the speakers of it, whether they’re first or second generation. The diaspora is an ongoing thing, it’s not about the clearances.” He recalls people coming around the doors in the 1960s, trying to headhunt Scottish workers for emigration to Australia or South America, and he’s privately glad that his father turned down the chance.

Kevin MacNeil

Although the show will eventually incorporate elements of music, performance and film (which will be co-ordinated respectively by Sutherland, theatre director Dan Ayling on behalf of Cryptic and film and television director Douglas Mackinnon of The Flying Scotsman and Doctor Who fame), its origins will be in poetry.

“These poems will then become songs, speeches, dramatic monologues,” says Kevin MacNeil, the celebrated Outer Hebridean author and poetry director of Struileag / Shore to Shore, who is currently commissioning a number of pieces to set things in motion. “I see my role as being to catalyse new pieces of art. It’s not to tell the world that contemporary Gaelic culture has elements that are of world class quality, it’s to demonstrate it.”

“There will be, for example, a piece written by a Scottish poet and performed by a rapper from Vancouver,” he continues. “Another poet is writing a secular psalm to the sea, because Gaelic psalms invoke the sea in their inherent acoustic qualities, although it’s unusual to have a secular psalm. Religion will be represented, though, because it’s a large part of the culture that this arises from – we’ve commissioned a prayer too. There will be a haibun (a Japanese blend of prose and haiku), which is rare in the Gaelic literary tradition, but that’s important because we want to build upon the cultural heritage rather than simply rely upon it. We want to do something that’s dynamic and not merely passive.”

Sutherland echoes this point, flagging up the fact that the project will be an ongoing conversation over the next two years, both with Gaelic-speaking communities around the world (he’s keen to hear leads and suggestions via the project’s Facebook site) and via an escalating programme of homegrown talks, discussions and workshops in the build-up period.

“We’re keen to engage with young people in the Highlands and talk to them about diaspora,” he says. “We want to know whether they feel the need to leave home to work, to go to Edinburgh or Glasgow or London or New York or wherever to survive. We’d really like to get people of all ages talking, whether that’s primary school kids talking to their parents or grandparents in Gaelic, and we want to hear ourselves how and where the language has gone out into the world.

“We want to be a part of creating confidence in the language and culture, to do something that we can be proud of. It’s not about nationalism, it’s not about the hills. It’s about people.”

The full Struileag / Shore to Shore website will go live later in November.

© David Pollock, 2012

Links

• Struileag Facebook Site
• Jim Sutherland

LANDWARD, BBC2’s outdoor and countryside programme, will feature a unique and melodious voyage following self proclaimed “adventure folk band”, starting tonight (19 October) .

EARLIER this month I was lucky enough to catch the Whisky River Boat Band on the final gig of their Spey River adventure at the Tugnet Ice House, snugly seated beside the Scottish Dolphin Centre at Spey Bay. For any other band, it was, by all accounts, a pretty unique way to arrive at what was already an unusual location for a gig. Four guys and a girl, laden with guitars, fiddles, banjos and a double bass arriving damp but ecstatic just in time for an afternoon performance at the Ice House.

Whisky River Boat Band at Spey Bay (photo Rob Ward)

The band – Marty Camino on bass, Jo Jeffries on fiddle, Jed Milroy on guitar and banjo, Toby Shippey on guitar and Gavin Taylor on dobro – had already taken their whisky powered bluegrass and country across the Spey valley, and the Ice House was the last gig in a pretty hectic week.

After setting off from the Old Bridge Inn at Aviemore, and stopping off to play at Craggan Outdoors, Cragganmore Distillery and Craigellachie’s Whisky Bar, the band finally arrived on a cold but sunny afternoon at the Scottish Dolphin Centre at the mouth of Moray’s Spey Bay. The Ice House itself was a rare location for a gig. Built in the 1830s to store salmon and reputedly the largest in Scotland, its cavernous space meant it was remarkably well suited acoustically to an intimate gig.

John Hartford’s ‘Bring Your Clothes Back Home’ was a lively kick-start before the band launched into a number of their own compositions including the suitably titled ‘River Spey Song’, the feisty ‘Roughhead Mountain Song’ and the joyful ‘Old Black Crow’. There were some tasty covers too, including spirited versions of Loudon Wainwright III’s ‘Swimming Song’ and Lyle Lovett’s ‘If I Had A Boat’. Their last tune, the breezy ‘Going Down This River’, saw the band lead the audience out into the late afternoon sun for a gloriously cheery finale. It was a fitting end to an inimitable and thoroughly enjoyable gig.

Landward's Euan McIlwraith has a go with the band (photo Rob Ward)

Rumour has it that the band are already planning their next adventure. So if whilst sailing down the Tay or the Dee you hear the faint whisper of bluegrass and whisky fuelled harmonies then don’t be feart, it’ll only be the guys in the midst of another folk adventure and perhaps you should follow Marty’s advice; “paddle faster, I hear banjos”.

This article is adapted from a review originally posted on Folk Radio UK, and is used with kind permission. Thanks to Rob Ward of Scottish Dolphin Centre for the photographs.

© Billy Rough, 2012

Links

• Landward
• Whisky River Boat Band
• Folk Radio UK review

HIGHLAND Stoneware is a unique company that supports the livelihoods of a cluster of artists in the northwest Highands.

THE ‘decorators’, as the glaze painters are known, are all artists in their own right, with individual styles, and give each pot they finish a personal touch. When I visit the company’s headquarters in Lochinver, Tracey Aird is painting little grey flowers onto vases, but in her mind’s eye they are bright purple.

Tracey Aird painting square dishes

She has scratched the delicate shape of the blossom down through layers of glaze to the base glaze, to ensure that the colour will be as vibrant as possible. Next she paints delicate grasses with fine brushstrokes. All I can see is a surface of dull, matt, brown, white and grey marks, but once the vases are fired in the kiln, a gleaming, multicoloured image of machair flowers will emerge.

How on earth can she tell one bland whitish glaze from another? She laughs. ‘You have to try not to mix them up. For example, puffin red, white and blue all look white at this stage, and inevitably we have had a few red sheep and blue sheep!’

Linda Macleod

Linda Macleod, another of Highland Stoneware’s decorators, explains that it’s essential to keep the colours in the same configuration on the table beside her. ‘My hand knows where to go to get each colour’, she says. I watch her painting puffin mugs, marvelling at her ability to work in shades that will only come apparent after they have been fired.

The colour-transformation is one aspect of the magic that ceramic kiln-firing brings about, and is perhaps at the heart of why this art form is so compelling.

‘I still get a thrill when I see what comes out of the kiln, especially if I’m trying something new and it works’, Tracey says. This is after twenty years of decorating pots. She joined Highland Stoneware in 1992 after studying at art college in Aberdeen and doing a masters degree at Stoke, working at Wedgewood on porcelain jewellery.

‘I just came here for a year, to do a porcelain development project’, she says, then goes on to explain how she met her husband in Assynt and has never looked back. These days as well as decorating some of Highland Stoneware’s most popular designs, and painting bespoke tile panels, she also manages the company’s website, designs their leaflets and brochures and does some of their photography.

Dorell Pirie has been with Highland Stoneware even longer, since she left art college in 1987. When she isn’t painting at Highland Stoneware, she has also developed her own line of decorated glass, distinctively coloured with the tones of Assynt’s land and sea. A mother, she appreciates the flexibility of the company in allowing its staff to shift between full-time or part-time work, and recognising that work with Highland Stoneware may be only one strand in their lives and careers.

This sentiment is echoed by Linda Macleod, who says. ‘Everyone here works flexitime, which is fantastic for me, as I couldn’t work here otherwise’. She started with the company in its early days in 1976, straight out of art college. ‘I graduated on Saturday and drove up here on Sunday from Dundee. I’d never been up here before – it seemed very far and felt very pioneering’.

Highland Stoneware was founded by David Grant, who has a unique mix of artistic and entrepreneurial talent. Along with co-directors David Queensberry and Grahame Clarke, David started the pottery with the aim of bringing employment to this remote corner of his home county of Sutherland, and these days it is an important local employer, with 24 staff. It also generates a lot of business for local contractors and the post office as well as attracting tourists. For a community of only a few hundred people, it is a crucial part of the economy.

Tracey Aird - Machair Rectangle

David is proud of their company’s long staff relationships. ‘It’s good to have created these livelihoods, but it’s a big responsibility too’, he says. Although a successful businessman, David is still primarily an artist. ‘Yes, it’s a business,’ he says, ‘but basically I enjoy making things and I want to share that.’ He has created, and continues to paint, many of the companies most successful designs of Assynt landscapes, seascapes and features of the local environment, like rockpools.

Dorell Pirie

Dorell Pirie now manages the Ullapool part of the company. Like David Grant, her management role does not overshadow her work as an artist, and she is found on a daily basis decorating pots and painting tile panels, which she describes as ‘huge blank canvases’. Dorell says, ‘I love painting panels, it feels like being a proper artist’, as if her exquisite representations of otters, birds and fish were somehow less impressive when painted on the curved surface of a bowl or a jug.

Linda Macleod’s puffins are all complete one-offs. ‘I make them all slightly different’, she says. Of the four she is working on, one has a bunch of grass in its mouth, another tilts its head saucily. She takes inspiration from photos of puffins. ‘It’s a quite unique situation,’ she says, ‘to be able to be so flexible with designs. Most industries work with one pattern at a time, or with transfers. We’re more people-organised, and it’s really good.’

Tracey says, ‘Sometimes we’ll paint one pattern all day, sometimes you’re painting one different pattern after another’. Increasingly they do bespoke work, designing individual pieces to commission, from huge aga surrounds to little gifts. I watch as Dawn Healey paints a dog, with painstaking perfectionism, onto a mug that will be the owner’s birthday treat.

Linda Macleod - Cockerel Oval

Seeing the work of these people, I find myself asking questions about the blurred territory between art and craft, and why paintings on functional 3-dimensional surfaces are usually taken so much less seriously, and are indeed so much cheaper, than those on conventional 2-dimensional wall-hangings.

Highland Stoneware’s production is substantial, but far from being a semi-industrial setup it has at its heart a community of highly talented artists, both hand-throwing pots (such as the many beautiful forms created by Fergus Stewart) and conceiving and painting the range of decorations. If you are already the owner of any of their stoneware pots, check out the signature on the base and you’ll know which of the artists’ work you have in your kitchen, and if not, perhaps it is time to treat yourself to a bargain piece of Highland artwork.

© Mandy Haggith, 2012

Links

• Highland Stoneware
• Mandy Haggith
• Mandy Haggith’s Blog

YOU KNOW the story of the emperor who paraded through the streets in his new invisible clothes. You’ll also know, for sure, about blank or apparently blank canvases. And most of us have heard of the timed period of silence – a work for any performer on any instrument, by John Cage, born a century ago.

BUT THE famous or infamous work, 4.33, is only one example of the inventive proposals of a man who also wrote and painted. I remembered that I possessed a work by Cage – part of Alec Finlay’s astonishing “Folios” series. You subscribed and, for a fiver a time, received a white envelope every few months. Inside, it could be a folded map, a booklet, or indeed just about anything that would easily fit. Once, it was some pages of language by Cage. And this centenary performance included storytelling with a difference, as well as the timed period where anything but silence happened.

John Cage

I work with Peter Urpeth – an inventive improviser on piano and percussion as well as a writer. He’s also a friend. I declare that standpoint and the fact that I have no real background in John Cage’s work, or indeed contemporary music at all.

But this probably puts me in line of the majority of the local audience for the centenary event. Looking around An Lanntair on Thursday (20 September) I could see many new faces, and suspect that some people travelled many miles to experience what would happen. The whole work has also been recorded and will be part of an international relay of the celebration. But I could also recognize many people, who had come, like me, because they were curious. If someone is passionate enough to make the links needed to carry-through an event on this scale, there must be something that got under their skin.

I trusted the An Lanntair website for the start time but it started half an hour earlier. You might think that this was part of the script – staggered arrival of people to an arts event – but I’m afraid it wasn’t. But somehow this random factor fell into the spirit of the night

There’s a lot of humour, implicit throughout. OK, I missed the silence that wasn’t. But Peter’s description of it, later, told of a relationship between him on stage, as a performer with the expectations and reactions of the audience, also players. He said there was more than one wave of laughing.

So what seems to have happened is a willingness to allow the inclusion of chance.

As I’m typing and thinking, I look up now and again to see the two large drawings installed in my living room but also made as a series of three for a publication. These are by the artist David Connearn who had a show in the old An Lanntair, that was like an installation of music.

Publication by David Connearn

He draws one line after another, within set parameters, with different thicknesses of pen or in different materials. Connearn also made a drawing, in gravel, in a courtyard in Dublin. This could only be documented from the air before it was raked to something that was nearer nothing – a less-designed fall of the stones. As each line of these very fine ink drawings, in my house, follows the one before it, there is a chance difference – that could be the result of tension in the artist’s hand or it could be a tendency suggested by the paper itself.

The same artist has also made a print by blind-embossing, which looks like nothing on paper, until you catch an angle to see that again it is a meticulous and brave attempt to follow a proposition in line. I feel that this is significantly different from the minimalism in the recent show of works on paper by Calum Innes at Ingleby Gallery. (And why, by the way, have we not seen the work of either artist in the suitable gallery space of An Lanntair?)

Innes is known for removing the paint he has placed on his medium. However, there seems to me a common element though one artist is concerned with line and one with colour. That is the allowance of chance to enter. There could never be complete control in the removing of paint from a page and the ability to work, responding to the movement of these substances, seems to me a bit like a musical improvisation. The titles often suggest sequences – numbered variations.

Chance re-occurred all through the John Cage performance. Five performers tune five radios to pre-determined frequencies, but, according to Peter’s very clear and detailed notes, the score permits additional variations, left open. And of course there is no control over what arrives, along the frequencies. I thought of the radio-hams I’ve known, with dreams of transmitting from Rockall or simply noting the call-signs come from afar. These guys are attuned to the static or interference or other sounds which occur between the morse blips or the spoken voice.

So why could you not do this at home? Just listen to the tuning of a radio or sit to watch paint dry on the boat-parts I’ve just coated. Well, I could, but there’s always something else to be done.

Before the concert, I’d asked Gerry Loose, one of said tuners and a poet and writer by trade, to tell me why he’d come a long way to take part. He said he thought Cage was very playful. One of his pieces was scored for “toy piano”. Gerry said he shared Cage’s fascination with the relationship between control and chance.

Raku landscape by Alison Weightman

This suggestion brought me back to a workshop led by the ceramic artist Alison Weightman. She has adapted the meditative process of raku firing to use of a blowtorch and oildrum. But the timeless and placeless works also involve an element of chance. She is never completely certain how the chemistry of the glaze will fall.

Gerry described an exhibition of Cage’s paintings, where again, there were variations in the way they were displayed so you approached from different angles. Cage and Loose also share a passion for collecting wild mushrooms. When once asked if this could be dangerous, Cage replied that statically there was more chance of being killed by a lion.

So you could see the work as an incentive to look rather than see and to listen rather than hear.

And this indeed give me a way into interpreting the experience of the celebration. My only slight discomfort was that it seemed a bit serious when the men on stage were glancing at their scores and turning the dials. This was broken for a moment when a very fine piece of fiddle playing came through just when we were all ready for a cheery note.

And when John Cavanagh read, this was indeed a performance. A bit of a coup – engaging a vastly experienced broadcaster used to striving for the continuity that suggests a completely dependable professional and calm broadcasting corporation. But John later said how challenging it was, to read the stories of Cage, with a huge variation in the number of words, to the same timing of one whole but single minute. Later, he alternated readings from the current Stornoway Gazette and Fishing News between the contributions from the radio-tuners. Here, you really did get a sense of a playful though thoughtful proposition. Each page was cast aside and fell where it did.

Peter Urpeth and Ian Stephen in a previous project at An Lanntair (photo Mhairi Law)

Just when my concentration was being tested, we were given a piece which placed the entertainment factor up front. Peter had been paying regular visits to the Bethesda charity shop and buying LPs to a formula which will ensure that the playing of them, to Cage’s score, is indeed random. The first performance was over in our neighbouring city, New York, in 1952, with of course a different range of recordings available for sampling. It was performed with a dance-piece by the choreographer Merce Cunningham. In this performance Andy Mackinnon contributed a film, assembled without hearing the piece of music.

“The score is block-graph, where each square equals three inches of tape. In total there are eight tracks, made from the 42 selected records.” Cage used the I-Ching to create a chart for the original work. It was astonishing how often it all appeared to be synchronized.

And there were thee short bursts of energy and skill when Urpeth on piano and Stuart Wilding on percussion, betrayed the fact that they have a long-standing working relationship – responding to each other but in a way that could never be exactly replicated. With all that experience and skill open to the musicians, it really is an act of dedication to keep it all under restraint, to serve the purpose of the evening.

That purpose was indeed a celebration – a little bit of an exploration and a bit of an adventure. I can’t remember feeling bored but I do remember being ready for something pleasing or humorous – and usually that arrived.

An Lanntair are to be congratulated on trusting Urpeth and his team to carry out their vision and one of their own staff, Jon Macleod, took part. Balanced programming has to transcend personal taste. Even if I had not found something to engage me, I think I’d be glad that Stornoway was playing a key role in an international programme to celebrate a guy who has provoked so much discussion.

© Ian Stephen, 2012

Links

David Morrison (1941-2012)

ONE of those writers, George Gunn, wrote warmly and perceptively on Morrison’s work for Northings last year, and we would like to offer that piece by way of a tribute.

Landscape by David Morrison

Read George Gunn’s article here.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2012

GILLY LANGTON is a highly regarded international contemporary jewellery designer living and working in Plockton.

ORIGINALLY from Chorley, Lancashire, Gilly first arrived in Scotland in May 2005 to take up the post of maker in residence at Plockton High School as part of the Highland Council Exhibitions Unit’s ‘Over the Hills and Far away’ project.

Gilly Langton at work in her studio

Gilly was seeking a new direction in her career and she immersed herself into a completely different cultural environment and surroundings. This proved to be a life changing experience, and the difference living and working in a Highland village compared to Manchester was understandably immense. The people, language, music, environment and daily rituals all influenced her work and herself.

Brooch by Gilly Langton

After her Highland residency she moved to Ayrshire to become artist in residence as part of the ‘Elements of Change’ project. At the end of this residency Gilly had to make a decision on where to move to next – back South or back to the Highlands where she had had such a positive time.

As Project Manager for the Highland Council residencies, I had supported and encouraged Gilly, and when she was trying to make up her mind on which direction to go in, it become clear that her heart was in the Highlands! However, she had to be practical and needed to make a living from her craft.

HI~Arts had just commissioned the Scoping Study that would lead to my post and, realising that there was support and that with new technologies she could actually live in Plockton and still be a successful jeweller, Gilly jumped and moved up permanently .

Jewellery by Gilly Langton

Throughout the ensuing years she has become a key person in the craft community of the Highlands and Islands, creating her jewellery here and exhibiting worldwide. Exhibitions have included Origin Craft Fair, London Fashion Week, The Museum of Art and Design, New York, Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show and Eu-nique, Germany. Everywhere she has gone, Gilly has spread the word about the Highlands and has been a true ambassador for us!

Gilly is one of HI~Arts mentors and has worked with makers on our Making Progress programmes, passing on her considerable skills and experiences.

Jewellery by Gilly Langton

To take the story full circle, she is now mentoring new graduate Heather McDermott from Sleat. Heather was inspired by Gilly when she attended one of her residency workshops back in 2005 and went on to study jewellery at Edinburgh College of Art. A key reason for returning home after her masters was the realisation that she would be supported by HI~Arts Craft Development and she was delighted to be awarded a place on Making Progress and to be back working with Gilly!

Throughout Gilly’s career in the Highlands and Islands she has been hugely supportive of the work we do and appreciates that much of what she has achieved would have been impossible without our assistance.

“Without the support and encouragement of the HI~Arts team, I would not be living and working as an international maker in the Highlands and Islands. My life would have been so different if I had not taken that first step off the train in Plockton and I have never looked back. Along the way I have known that there is always someone to discuss things with and having that in the background has allowed me to take risks, to grow my business and to feel an integral part of the community’

Gilly is very positive about her future here and we are proud to have been involved in her career and to now see her being such an inspiration for new makers shows how our belief in her has paid off.

© Pamela Conacher, 2012

Links

• HI~Arts Craft Development
• Gilly Langton Jewellery

AN uneasy mix of compassion and control governs the relationship between mental health professionals and their patients. So could an arts event involving representatives from each group help to kindle new found empathy and understanding?

THIS was the question posed by HUG – a network of people who campaign for a better life for people in the Highlands with mental health problems. ‘From There to Here’ was a day long event during which a group of participants based in Inverness met up on a houseboat for a storytelling and art workshop. At the same time, a similar group of professionals and people with mental health diagnosis set out from Fort William, stopping en route to meditate poetically on the day’s themes.

Workshop participants

In the afternoon the two groups came together and took a boat trip through a series of canal locks, out into the Beauly Firth. Going through the locks had symbolic significance; an acknowledgement that barriers have to be overcome in an attempt to cultivate new ways of communicating. And when one individual sometimes has occasion to physically keep another under lock and key, the stakes are high.

Student nurse Fraser Ross said, “I really enjoyed myself today. I see a key part of my nursing role as holding out the hope of recovery for people. In order to do that I have to be able to mix with people who have been mentally ill but are doing well. And I have witnessed first hand on the wards, how important the arts can be for people. I had one patient who was continually tormented by voices in his head but found that the voices completely disappeared when he made music”

Story teller Ian Stephen took one Inverness session, during which he related the traditional tale, ‘The Wise Grieve’. Afterwards, artist Christine Morrison urged the group to respond to the story by making pastel marks on paper with their eyes closed. She said, “When people can’t see they are under no pressure to compare their work with others and the results are always surprising.”

Christine Morrison

Poet John Glenday and poet and speech and language therapist Maggie Wallis encouraged the other group to express themselves with words. Some of these were texted to Inverness.

One read, “a bridge is the space between you and me… the width of a breath, the width of a universe”

Another said, “Waterlight plays freely on steel gates tickling them until their mouths open wide and water spills out, a roar, a cackle of sound”

As with all inaugural events there is room for improvement. Some who had reserved places failed to turn up, leaving the numbers an little short. It would also be good to encourage more senior health professionals to take part. Student nurses were well represented having been quick to seize upon the opportunity and making bookings early but there were no staff nurses, ward managers, doctors or social workers.

Ian Stephen

However the day was undoubtedly successful in taking a first step towards drawing a new template for using the arts to humanise medicine. HUG is a very influential pressure group, much respected within the UK by organisations like the Royal College of Psychiatrists and also internationally. So where they lead others tend to follow. What then, will HUG do next?

HUG manager Graham Morgan said, “We would like to do similar events and the canal meeting has already led to ideas for artwork and writing on a similar theme over the next few weeks”

The results of these endeavours will be showcased on the HUG website and will also be exhibited in Ullapool, Inverness and Fort William.

© Jenny McBain, 2012

Links

• HUG

MARYANN FREW is steadily becoming a respected and acclaimed artist at festivals and venues across Scotland, both as a solo performer and as singer and composer with acoustic ensemble Dorec-a-Belle.

SHE is a fine and prolific songwriter and an accomplished guitarist, often taking the instrument beyond the mere function of accompaniment, weaving intricate lines amongst mature and thoughtful lyrics with inspired tuning and finger-style techniques. Not the stuff of meteoric pop stardom perhaps, but then that was never intended.

Maryann Frew

Maryann left her native Ayrshire for Inverness as a teenager, but it was not until 2008 that she performed live in the Highland capital with her brother Alan at the city’s Hootananny venue in Church Street. It was an apt partnership, as both had been influenced in their younger years by their father’s own song writing and love of the blues and American artists including Ry Cooder, Steve Earle and The Band. Traces of these early, albeit unconscious, influences can certainly be heard in Maryann’s music today but despite having being part of such a musical family, Maryann’s own journey from home-based song writing to live gigs has been far from easy.

‘I wanted to be part of the music scene’ she explains, ‘but my goal was initially just to get over the anxiety and lack of confidence – not in the music, but in the performance.’ Shared gigs with brother Alan, she explains, were a supportive way of getting experience and included Belladrum Festival, Wizard Festival and The Bedford in London.

It was around this time that HI~Arts became aware of Maryann, quite by chance through a Myspace page containing some demo recordings with obvious potential. The timing was ideal. Just as Maryann was looking for a way to test reactions to her own music, HI~Arts was about to embark on a song writers development project that included a series of workshops, showcase gigs and a CD sampler. Even though studio recording was still a relatively unfamiliar world to her, Maryann recorded two original songs for the CD at Cava Sound in Glasgow (the same studio where one of her own early influences, John Martyn, recorded his 1986 album Piece by Piece).

Maryann then performed sets at two HI~Arts showcase gigs at the Ironworks in Inverness, whilst adding a string of solo festival appearances to her achievements and latterly working on her new band Dorec-a-Belle, with whom she appeared at the second of the HI~Arts events. She is adamant that the showcases, advice and occasional mentoring by HI~Arts have meant a great deal and that if the aim was to overcome anxiety about live performance, the support has been vital in achieving it.

‘It gave me confidence in understanding what other people’s opinions meant, and figuring out what was important’, she says. ‘HI~Arts was a crucial support, a kind of secure point to come back to when I was testing the water. It was also good to know it wasn’t associated with any other motive. I don’t think I would have been doing any of what I’m doing now without that’.

Maryann Frew and Liza Mulholland (photo Dougie Brown)

The formation of the all-female quartet Dorec-a-Belle with Liza Mulholland, Bev Fraser and Imke Henderson has opened up a whole new range of opportunities for tours and festivals. The recently completed 5 track debut EP, recorded in Dingwall by Gareth Ince, has already been played on BBC Radio Scotland, and the band enjoyed a highly successful appearance at the Danny Kyle Open Stage at Celtic Connections earlier this year.

It’s no surprise then that Maryann is very upbeat about the future and about the band in particular. ‘We practice every week,’ she explains, ‘and we’re getting more and more into production. We’d love to record an album, and we keep working on a good strong live set. We really want to be business-like, and it would be great to set up a small tour, maybe in Germany or Sweden, as well as in the UK.’

In listening to these words it gives pause for thought to remember when Maryann brought her home demo mixes into the HI~Arts office for that first meeting she had played live only once, and was not sure if she could do it again. Over time the quality of her work has shone through and with a little peer support and unhurried determination she has successfully challenged and overcome those first-step uncertainties. If HI~Arts has been able to help, then it’s been a privilege for us.

© John Saich, 2012

Links

• Dorec-a-Belle

RADIOSKILLS has been offering its unique broadcasting training course to radio enthusiasts of the Highlands and Islands for the last 13 years. The highly successful Radioskills course has been responsible for creating many top notch radio presenters and media personalities, including Clyde’s ‘Knoxy’, who began her career at MFR, and current afternoon presenter Jodie McCluskey.

Radioskills trainees gear up for Monster FM

Radioskills, which is based at MFR, is the only course in the country offering the chance to learn about radio broadcasting in a working radio environment. It offers training for anyone interested in radio with a particular focus on providing better opportunities for the unemployed, or those who have left school with limited job prospects. Encouraging more women to consider radio as a possible career is also a priority. Radioskills prides itself on its commitment to community radio and its support and promotion of the Gaelic language while working closely with various projects and people within the Highlands and Islands area.

In addition to the SQA ‘Certificate in Radio Broadcasting’ course, which generally takes one year to complete, Radioskills also promotes the radio industry through one day Introduction to Radio courses. These are always well attended, with the next course planned for Friday 5th October.

Monster FM 106.1 will air from 3rd September for the month, and will be manned and produced by the 2012 Radioskills trainees. The annual September broadcast of Monster FM is the culmination of months of dedicated training and provides the perfect platform for practising and fine tuning the skills the trainees have acquired. Monster FM will be broadcasting great music, chat and short feature packages throughout the month of September, and want to hear from you.

They are very interested in promoting the arts and would love to hear from anyone involved in the arts with a story to tell! If you can help them to inspire, educate and enthuse about local arts on Monster FM 106.1 in September, then get in touch!

For more information about Radioskills and the Certificate in Broadcasting or Introduction to Radio courses look online.

© Radioskills, 2012

Links

• Email: info@monsterfm.co.uk
• Facebook www.facebook.com/themonsterfm
• Web radioskills.org.uk
• Twitter @Radioskills1 and @themonsterfm

HER problem, however, is that the Scottish village which sits at the northernmost point of the British mainland bears nothing like the same iconic reputation as a tourist destination. Quite the opposite, in fact – those who have been there speak of it in quite disparaging terms as one of the least inspiring settlements in the country, and in 2010 it was nominated for a dreaded Carbuncle Award for just that reason.

GUNN’S job is to change that perception. As Head of Transformational Projects with Highlands and Islands Enterprise, she’s leading the campaign to put John O’Groats on the map as something other than one end of the longest journey in the country. “It’s a bit of a personal pilgrimage for many people,” she says, “and an emotional journey, especially for those who are travelling the length of the country. But then it’s visited by many locals as well, you can’t stereotype the people who go there.”

Environmental artists Louise Scullion and Matthew Dalziel

A 2009 report by GVA Grimley into the condition of John O’Groats made many recommendations in terms of infrastructural changes which might be needed, and eco-holiday company Natural Retreats are already building modern holiday chalets in the area. Yet a second report earlier this year attempted to get right to the heart of John O’Groats’ persona as a place and to figure out what signals it should be sending to the world by exploring the potential for landmark public art installations in the area.

“It was quite depressing when we first went there,” laughs Louise Scullion, one half of Scots artist duo Dalziel + Scullion, who wrote the latest report. “Matthew (Dalziel) said he felt quite angry, because it’s such a famous name and it made us angry to think, god, is this how we’re being represented?”

The intention behind the pair’s involvement, though, wasn’t to charge in and tell the local community what they’ve been doing wrong. “It did feel very down at heel,” says Scullion, “but I can appreciate it’s complex and very challenging to make a living in a place with a small population through something as transient as tourism. We weren’t trying to be judgemental – what was lovely was that the project involved a lot of evening sessions with local people who wanted to discuss how these commissioning projects evolve. They happened on quite miserable nights and they were all well-attended, so there’s obviously a lot of people who care and who feel equally frustrated about how things have evolved.”

What Dalziel and Scullion most clearly took away from these sessions was a wealth of local stories and locations which are unique to John O’Groats and which aren’t known about anywhere else. “Some were funny, some were quirky, some were poignant,” she says. “What came through was that with this incredibly rich resource, the stories weren’t being told. The image that’s being sold to people is very ordinary and generic, it’s not about what’s authentic to John O’Groats.”

“There’s a fantastic coastal environment, a big open sky, views across to Orkney,” says Gunn. “It’s quite spectacular, but people are tumbling out of cars looking for signposts telling them what there is for them to see and there aren’t any. We want to say hold on a minute, look at the landscape we’ve got here, look at the sea stacks at Duncansby Head, look at the bird colonies. You can see killer whales, dolphins, porpoises… the biggest predator in the world on your doorstep. But these things have been hidden, so we have to highlight them. It’s about supplying information, but not just handing people an A4 sheet, you know?”

John O'Groats Hotel transformed

Gunn describes everything that’s happened so far as part of a process, including a temporary graffiti exhibition using the old hotel as a canvas and a sculptural display of sails on lampposts by local artist Gavin Lockhart, as well as community and schools events involving storytelling and model boat building, for example. “These things are about making a statement that John O’Groats is changing,” she says, “that things are different and we’re moving forward.”

Paper Boats

Dalziel and Scullion’s report, which can be downloaded from the HIE website (see link below), is an aspirational document containing various suggestions and rough costing estimates regarding a range of potential works, including smaller permanent and semi-permanent installations designed to emphasise a sense of arrival and departure from what is a gateway into and away from the mainland, and other works which accentuate the biodiversity of the area and the coastal routes which might be found nearby. Most prominent is what they have provisionally named The Call, which is intended to be a large-scale public artwork that will become synonymous with John O’Groats.

Already the first series of works are due for completion in July 2012, again by Lockhart, this time a walking trail of commemorative sculptures which will be sited along the coast. “Around the time of the Second World War a lot of sand was removed from beaches for land improvement,” says Gunn, “so the beaches in some parts of the harbour area have gone. Gavin’s created some large stone works to commemorate them, because these weren’t just beaches, they were part of the local identity.”

Work in progress on Gavin Lockharts's sculptures

While work done so far has been funded by Highlands & Islands Enterprise and the Highland LEADER Programme, the potential of John O’Groats will only be realised through the gaining of public and private awards and sponsorship. “I suppose you have to be realistic about what’s feasible,” says Scullion, ”but there are very basic things which can be improved, like a messy aesthetic of different signage, so quite simple things can be done to give it a more holistic, a more interesting feel. Then with the art commissions that might happen, it gives everyone more confidence in what they’ve actually got there, which is just the beginning of the process of giving the place back its identity.”

“What we want,” says Gunn, “is for people who come to John O’Groats to feel a sense of welcome, that they’ve arrived somewhere, and to look back on it as somewhere that’s meant something to them. A bit like going to the Grand Canyon – that it’s an iconic place and a real destination.”

© David Pollock, 2012

Links

• John O’Groats Public Arts Strategy
• Dalziel + Scullion

IF YOU live on the north coast of Scotland, it might be worth a look, as Strathnaver Museum’s artist-in-residence, Joanne B Kaar, has been inspired to make 200 paper shoes and hide them in mail boxes and public places from Balnakeil to John O’Groats. She made the shoe drop last week.

Overwhelmed with objects and stories in Strathnaver Museum, Joanne decided to find out more on the objects which remain a mystery 40 years after they were donated to the museum. A ladies shoe and dogskin buoy were donated to the museum in the 1970’s; they had been concealed within the walls of a house in Melness along with a whisky bottle (which no longer exists). That’s all that is known.

Joanne's first batch of paper shoes

Joanne has since discovered there is a ‘directory of concealed shoes’ at the museum in Northampton. Northampton was known for it’s shoe manufacturing. They have over 1500 shoes in the ‘directory of concealed shoes’, and the Melness one isn’t one of them. Joanne is gathering as much information as she can, to add the Melness shoe. They were apparently concealed in buildings as good luck tokens or to ward off evil spirits, a practice carried out in secret and not talked about, which makes research difficult. They are usually discovered when a house is being renovated or knocked down.

Each of Joanne’s paper shoes contains information about the Melness shoe and also asks if you know any more about it or if you have ever found anything unusual concealed within walls, and if so, to get in touch. Joanne has already and a few interesting e-mails from finders of paper shoes and hopes that you might be intrigued enough to visit Strathnaver Museum and see the real one. She admits it’s also quite fun, trying to leave paper shoes in public places without being seen! Finders keepers.

The artist at work

Joanne has more paper shoe fun planned for workshops with Tongue Primary school later this month, and at Tongue Village Hall in August, when Strathnaver Museum will host one of their ‘road-shows’.

Joanne is one of five artists working at Strathnaver Museum during 2012, on a project “To increase heritage knowledge and involve people in development of heritage awareness through improvement of the Museums resources”. It is being part financed by the Scottish Government and the European Community Highland LEADER 2007-13 programme, and the Heritage Lottery supported by Comunn na Gàidhlig Highlands and Islands Enterprise and CVS North.

The other artists are Déirdre Ní Mhathúna, Liz Myhill, Will Sadler, and Lorraine Robson. You can follow their progress during 2012 on their collaborative artists’ blog (see link below).

© Strathnaver Museum, 2012

Links

• Strathnaver Artists Blog

THIS unique festival is set amongst the stunning scenery around Loch Shiel, west of Fort William, and Charles says his aim is to programme music with sufficient majesty to match the landscape.

THE Loch Shiel Spring Festival has been running for 16 years. This year’s event was somewhat pared down compared to previous years, because the chair of the festival committee, Hege Hernaes, has been taking a sabbatical, yet it included chamber music classics by Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert as well as an adventurous array of pieces probably never before heard live in the Highlands, by Offenbach, Bartok, Schnittke, Andreae and Arensky.

Charles Mutter, post-concert in Glenfinnan

The core of the festival was the Florin Ensemble, a remarkable string trio led by Charles, with Catherine Rimer on cello and Alistair Scahill on viola. Together with guest musicians, they performed a programme of chamber music of a quality that’s rarely heard live north of the Central Belt.

Charles is passionate about the need for more live classical music to be staged in the Highlands and Islands. ‘It’s well documented that children who learn a classical music instrument perform better in all other areas of their schoolwork and develop all kinds of skills – listening, co-ordination, self-discipline and teamwork. But there’s no point in learning an instrument if you can’t get to hear it live. That’s why it’s vital that live classical music is heard, everywhere. All my work demonstrates that if you put classical music events on, you reach people who don’t know that they like this sort of music. In a small village hall you can make the air throb – it really is an intimate and incredibly powerful experience.’

Originally from a fishing village called Piddinghoe, in East Sussex, Charles started to play the piano aged 3. He says that at the age of 6 he ‘clamoured for a violin’, then ‘like all children, I had to be driven to practice it until I was about 15′. Ever since then, though, he has been a more than willing musician.

He resisted music college, despite gaining offers of scholarships, because they insisted he would have to choose between the piano and violin, and instead went to Jesus College at Cambridge University, where, he says, ‘I had opportunities way beyond what I would have had at music college and met people who led me directly into the profession’. In common with many freelance musicians, he moved to London and began ‘an interesting but precarious career’, playing with a range of orchestras and travelling a huge amount.

The Florin Trio - Charles Mutter, Catherine Rimmer and Alistair Scahill

He says he fell in love with Scotland when he came to Edinburgh with a youth orchestra, aged 13. ‘Seeing Arthur’s Seat for the first time – you don’t get that sort of thing in Sussex!’ Later he toured with the Scottish Ensemble. ‘Our first concert was in Thurso and on my way there, I don’t think my mouth properly closed once. I’ve loved Scotland ever since.’

He moved to Scotland in 1999 to join the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. His wife played in the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and for four years he led the Edinburgh String Quartet.

It was through the quartet that he made his connection with the Loch Shiel Festival, playing as a participant for three years and then being invited to become Artistic Director from 2006. Although he moved back to London in 2007, to take up the position of associate leader of the BBC Concert Orchestra, he says that it’s not much harder to keep in touch from London as from Glasgow or Edinburgh, and he appreciates the festival as it enables him to keep his link to Scotland.

Inside the Ark in Noye's Fludde

Since becoming director of the festival, he hasn’t been short of ambition. The festival committee consists of people representing a range of educational and amateur music groups. Charles says, ‘This came into its own in 2010 when we put on Noye’s Fludde’. This musical drama by Benjamin Britten involved a big cast of local children, musicians and elaborate head-dresses as well as professional singers. Other spectacles put on by the festival have included a family gala day at Glenborrodale Castle, a concert at the historic Glenfinnan Railway Station and a specially commissioned piece, Lady Chisholm’s Songbook, where 5 very different composers were given a lament by the widow of William Chisholm, who fell at Culloden.

‘What I try to do is to create things you couldn’t hear anywhere else,’ says Charles. ‘I try to programme pieces specific to locations in the area, or music of sufficient grandeur for the landscape.’

He uses Scottish musicians where he can, but will bring musicians from far flung corners of the world to create the right sound, and often uses, or makes his own, arrangements of music to create the effect of a big orchestra with a chamber group. One example was an arrangement of Bruckner’s 7th Symphony, a huge orchestral piece, for just 9 instruments. ‘Because the venues are small, you can approach the physical impact of the full orchestra with a small group, achieving the same ratio of players to space.’

He is proud of the festival’s record of commissioning new music, with 5 new pieces in 2007 and 4 in 2010. Following the pattern, he says, ‘2013 should see some more commissions.’ Budgets are always tight, but, he says, ‘it always seems to be a triumph of imagination over resources. A lot of our most daring events have drawn the biggest audiences, rather than traditionally more ‘bankable’ programmes,’ citing Noye’s Fludde, which packed Glenfinnan Church for 3 nights.

‘This is in no way a little backwater where you can try stuff out before taking it to other places,’ he says.’The audiences here are as demanding as you’ll find anywhere, in the best possible way.’

At this year’s festival, he was particularly thrilled by the response to Alfred Schnittke’s String Trio, written in the dying days of the Soviet regime. ‘You’d be hard pressed to find an angrier or more thorny piece’, he says, yet the audience were rightly impressed by its power, communicated vividly by the Florin Trio.

Charles says that the Florin Trio would be delighted to get the chance to play more in the Highlands and Islands. The trio formed after the festival in 2008 and it provides Charles with an opportunity to play chamber music between the big orchestral works of his day job. ‘I relish the opportunity to put the string trio repertoire under the microscope,’ he says. He describes playing with the trio as like performing ‘with mutually-supporting acrobats’.

Composer Hugh Wood has said of the Florin Trio, that their ‘sense of ensemble and of balance is beyond criticism, their phrasing is elegant and immaculate and they have developed a beautifully nurtured overall sound.’ They certainly held the audiences at Acharacle, Strontian and Glenfinnnan rapt, and their performance of the Mozart Divertimento (available on their first CD) is world class. It is, Charles says, ‘arguably Mozart’s finest piece of chamber music, and one of his greatest pieces full stop. It’s a work of extraordinarily sustained invention and delight, but it wears its greatness lightly.’

Let’s hope that Glenfinnan Church remains in good enough condition to host many more festivals. With its beautiful views out over Loch Shiel, it is a superb music venue. ‘It’s magical,’ says Charles. ‘I just don’t know anywhere else like it.’ We will await the 2013 Festival programme with interest, and if music lovers can’t wait that long, perhaps other ways need to be found to invite Charles and his colleagues back to the north.

© Mandy Haggith, 2012

Links

• Loch Shiel Festival
• Florin Trio
• Mandy Haggith
• Mandy Haggith’s Blog

THE Glasgow-based six-piece are earning a growing reputation and have picked up some influential supporters in the likes of Elbow’s Guy Garvey and Guillemots’ Fyfe Dangerfield.

THE BAND, formed in 2006, have also notched up some successful festival gigs, including Glastonbury, and this summer will make their debut at the award-winning Hebridean Celtic Festival which runs from 11-14 July and based in Stornoway in the Isle of Lewis, with further dates in the north to follow.

Admiral Fallow are bound for Lewis and beyond this summer

Louis Abbott, the group’s frontman, said: “It’s been a slow but steady progression for us. We’ve always enjoyed playing together no matter how big the show or where it is geographically. In fact, often the smaller shows leave us more satisfied that people have had a good time watching it.

“That said, to be invited to play some slots on bigger stages at festivals is exciting for us. Last year’s run of festivals included great shows at Glastonbury and Green Man (in Wales) among others. It can be very daunting but there’s no better feeling when you come out the other side in one piece.”

The band are still playing small venues, particularly in England, on their current tour, but see it all as part of the learning experience: “The early stages in any band’s career is a time to learn from your mistakes, something we continue to do with every gig”, says Louis.

“But I have to say that apart from a few individuals at the odd gig we’ve always seemed to go down quite well with crowds even when they haven’t necessarily come to see us. The one exception was when we opened for a band over two nights at their request. The majority of their crowd, it seemed, would’ve happily taken us out the back and had us put down. We bravely soldiered on but we were fighting a losing battle.”

These occasions are rare and Admiral Fallow are now more used to plaudits: “I reckon success is measured by how you feel when you find out there has been a development with the band. Like being asked to open for a band or artist you admire, or being played by someone on the radio whose show you listen to a lot”, Louis said.

“We’ve been lucky enough to have had some spot plays on BBC6 Music which often comes along when the DJ wants to play you as opposed to being told to. Mark Radcliffe gave us a wee shout out on the Glastonbury highlights programme last year. Little things like that mean a lot.”

He said the use of social media nowadays can help a band to get recognised, but there is still the need for gigging, word of mouth and hard work.

“You can be tweeted about the world over and make a name for yourself before you’ve even made an album, but if the product is poor or you can’t play it well live you’ll disappear and be forgotten about awfully quickly.

“At the same time, it’s important for bands that want to be known outside their hometown to use these kinds of networks to do so. Not everyone embraces the likes of twitter – King Creosote, one of my favourite artists, doesn’t use it and gets by just fine.

“But there’s nothing like a whole bunch of shows back to back to get to the stage where playing together becomes second nature. If every show is as good as it can be people will appreciate it and hopefully tell someone about it.”

The band’s debut album, Boots Met My Face, released in 2010 was hailed by the critics and the follow up, Tree Bursts in Snow, is released on 21 May.

Louis says the process was more intense and fraught than the first album, but ultimately more rewarding.

“Because the songs on ‘Boots..’ were already gig ready, recording them was fairly straightforward. This time the songs were quite fragmented and the majority of them hadn’t been road tested.

“This album is a little more direct and, I’m told, more mature sounding as a whole. Like with the first album, however, there is a decent balance in styles. There’s perhaps a curveball or two on there but I don’t want to give much away.

“We’re currently on tour and we’re playing a good bunch of the songs from the second record so people at shows can hopefully come and hear for themselves.”

This year’s summer festival schedule sees them playing at Rockness, the Insider (Aviemore), Solas (South Lanarkshire), Downhill Downtown (Fort William) and Speyfest as well as HebCelt.

The 17th Hebridean festival will see the band return to Lewis where they played earlier this year and are expecting another great reception: “Having recently played a show in Stornoway we can expect a hearty reaction at HebCelt all going well.

“It was a very fun night and we were well looked after. That said, we’ll probably need to switch up the set a little so it’s a bit more festival friendly.

“We occasionally add live brass to our shows but it’s not always logistically easy to take that line up on the road. I’m sure the six of us will manage a fair racket though.”

So Admiral Fallow are where they want to be at this stage of their career? “Absolutely”, says Louis. “We get to travel around the world playing the music we’ve created to people who, most of the time, want to listen to it.

“It’s a great place to be in at this stage. We celebrate our sixth birthday in September and as long as we’re all still happy doing it and people still want to hear us we’ll be doing it for many years to come.”

© Heb Celt, 2012

Links

• Hebridean Celtic Festival
• Admiral Fallow

AS ONE half of the Right Lines team with Euan Martin, he is involved in the company’s new production, From These Parts, which hits the road in June.

BEFORE then, though, Cartoon Theatre will be touring the English version of their new show, A Sporting Chance, this month. Cartoon Theatre is part of Dave’s ongoing work with John McGeoch in the Evanton-based Arts In Motion, and arose out of an earlier venture, Clown Jewels.

Dave Smith at the controls

“That was a company we had touring kids shows around village halls in the Highlands, and making a bit of a splash,” Dave explained. “We then started to introduce computer graphics into the mix, in the tradition of circuses historically bringing in new technology, and John McGeoch and I got really interested in that side of it, to the point where we were basically doing a show that was based on animation and interaction.

“That show was called Cartoon Theatre, and it was set in an old music hall and was basically a combination of modern technology and old tricks. It had an old-style backdrop that came down, but the backdrops were animated. After that we decided to brand the whole thing as Cartoon Theatre, and we have now done several other shows in that style, but mixing live performers with animated projection.”

A Sporting Chance

The technical aspects of marrying live action with projections and music can be daunting, and I wondered if it was still something of a headache for them?

“We tend to keep pushing it until it becomes a headache, and if becomes too much of a headache, then we don’t do it! We are always trying to develop new ways of making the interaction happen, and there is a lot that has to be done as it were behind the scenes to make it all come together.

“We have done a lot of work in terms of show presentation software to make that happen. In some way the software does get easier to use, but it all gets more complicated as well, and there are more things you have to learn to do.

“You spend hours learning stuff that quickly becomes redundant, and on the one hand you regret the time you spent on that, but on the other it is all part of the process. I used to work in a printers back in the days when cut and paste actually meant scissors and glue, so we’ve come a long way.”

A Sporting Chance

A Sporting Chance is nicely timed to coincide with the growing Olympic fever. The show has received the Inspire mark as part of the Olympic Inspire programme, and they will be performing it in Mallaig on Olympic Inspire Day (16 May) as part of the tour.

“Yes, we are using the Olympics link, although we had intended to do a show that was about sport and was quite physical anyway. We had been thinking about that, and then it was actually only latterly that we realised the timing was going to sit quite well with both the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.”

That physical side of the show makes considerable demands on the sole live performer, Artair Donald, and Dave acknowledged that they had been putting him through his paces on their inaugural tour in the Western Isles with the Gaelic version of the show in April.

“I think he probably lost weight in the rehearsal process and then even more in the week we did in the Western Isles, but he was very willing to really get into it and try lots of things out. We’ll be taking the English version of the show out on the North By North East tour.

“It is very physical, but there is also a fair bit of speaking in the course of the show, and in the Gaelic version in particular we tried to get projected text up on the screen quite a bit from a language development point of view. We’ve also been developing the technology to allow us to switch languages quite easily as well, so we can change shows quite quickly.”

A Sporting Chance

Expect, then, a live performer, lots of animation, and original music by James Price (who provided the music for Right Lines’s very successful Whisky Kisses), but not too much by way of a physical stage set – one of the advantages of touring a show in which animation plays a central role.

“One of the joys of Cartoon Theatre is we have a scaffold rig and a few props, but the animated projections really create the set, so we don’t have to lug a whole elaborate stage set around. The visuals basically fit on a USB stick, and if we have a laptop and a projector we are in business.

“We needed this one to be pretty portable and to fit into a variety of different venues. It tours with two technicians and the performer.”

Although the show will appeal to kids, the target audience is much wider.

“We usually try to position them as family shows, and we find adults usually enjoy them when they bring the kids along. With this one we are also reaching out to the reluctant teenagers in the family through the techie side of it.

“We are also running animation workshops in each area where the show is taking place, and we’ll incorporate something the kids come up with in the show that night.”

A Sporting Chance

Meanwhile, Dave had literally just finished the final draft of the script he and Euan Martin have written for Right Lines’ From These Parts, a Scottish alien abduction comedy that explores the changing population in the Highlands – and what it means to be local in a cosmic context.

A fast moving four-handed comedy starring Ron Emslie, Vari Sylvester, Helen Mackay and Ewan Donald, it will examine the issue of migration to and from the Highlands on local, national and intergalactic levels. Questions addressed include why do people come, why do people stay and why do they go? And what exactly does it mean to be a local?

“It’s a kind of crossover between alien abductions and the wider issue of incomers of all kinds,” Dave explained. “The central character, Jack, is an alien abduction enthusiast who has got involved in an on-line community of fellow enthusiasts. He has been given the job of builidng an Intergalactic Communicator to make contact with life out there.”

Although the show features Ron Emslie and is directed by Ian Grieve from Whisky Kisses, it will take a very different approach from that musical.

“There is a bit of music in From These Parts, but it’s not a musical. It is a comedy, though. It’s not heavily based on projections, either – although we sometimes do a bit of that with Right Lines, I quite enjoy getting away from it in this side of my work.

“We do have a bit of pseudo-technology with Michael Start’s Communicator. Michael and his wife run a flea circus, among other things, but his main line is automata – he was part of the Oscar-winning team on Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. So he is building the crazy machine for the play.”

All photos by Thomas Bowman. A Sporting Chance is on tour in May, and From These Parts in June.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2012

Links

• A Sporting Chance (NxNE)
• Cartoon Theatre
• Cartoon Theatre on Facebook
• Right Lines’ From These Parts

AS well as classics from their back catalogue, the band will be performing numbers from the Appointment With Mr Yeats album, composed by Scott by setting to music the lyrics of Irish poet WB Yeats.

The concept dates from 1991 when the band’s writer and frontman took part in a Yeats tribute concert in Dublin and decided the poet deserved a show to himself.

Mike Scott

“The idea then slumbered for many years, during which now and then I’d set another Yeats poem to music”, said Mike.

It was re-awakened in 2005 when The Waterboys’  fiddler Steve Wickham did a show of his own at the Yeats Summer School in Sligo and an inspired Scott decamped to his music room with a copy of Richard J. Finneran’s edition of The Complete Works of W.B. Yeats, given to him as a wedding present in 1990.

The result was a “fabulous avalanche of songs and arrangements”, according to the Edinburgh-born singer, with 15-16 being completed in a month.

Yeats, who died in 1939, is regarded as one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. He first made an impression on Scott when he was a youngster growing up in a house full of books.

“I didn’t read him for myself until I was a teenager, when I found the poem News For The Delphic Oracle on a family bookshelf.  I didn’t understand the poem, but I loved it.

“Years later when The Waterboys first toured Ireland, I bought myself a volume of Yeats’ poems in a Dublin bookshop.  That’s when I started to become deeply familiar with his work.  I liked the combination of passion with his sculpted, almost surgically exact writing.  And I liked his subject set: love, metaphysics, politics, Ireland and myth.”

The album has 14 tracks which set Yeats’ words against a backdrop of full-on rock ‘n’ roll with the songs receiving acclaim from the critics and audiences during the band’s current tour of Europe.

“For Waterboys fans who wonder what on earth this is all about, I’d say listen to the music and forget any expectations you might have,” says Scott. “It’s a rock’n’roll record, and a majestic one at that.

“This isn’t a hack job of forcing two unwilling disciplines together, but something that wanted to happen artistically. My vision for this project always was that it should add up to a Greatest Hits album of killer stuff you’ve never heard before. Yeats’s poems demand nothing less.”  

Scott, whose first book, A Waterboy’s Adventures In Music, comes out in Ireland in June, is making a return to HebCelt after nine years but still has vivid memories of the occasion and can’t wait to return.

“I always love visiting the Western Isles and I have great memories of our last Hebcelt in 2003.  The place was hopping.

“I remember visiting Callanish, meals at our hotel in Stornoway and the sheer energy of the audience in the tent.

“I like (festivals) for different reasons.  Festivals are great fun, and I like to get a wander round the site.  They also pay well.”

So who is he looking forward to seeing this year? “I like The Proclaimers and Admiral Fallow, Roddy Woomble too.  I suspect the ubiquitous and very brilliant John McCusker will also be lurking with intent – probably in tents- waiting to sprinkle some fab fiddle on peoples’ music.”

The Waterboys will appear at HebCelt on Saturday 14 July.

 
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© HebCelt, 2012

Links

• Hebridean Celtic Festival
• The Waterboys

MOST of the crafts people I have interviewed are keen to be thought of as artists, so it is interesting to meet someone who views being seen as ‘arty farty’ as ‘a danger.’ Mike Ellis works as a woodsman, and though some of the things he makes may be beautiful, they are not, in his view, works of art.

IN Mike’s workshop, its walls lined with an extraordinary collection of tools, there is a gate, hand-made from greenwood, its shape coming from the natural bends of oak and ash branches held together with beech pegs. Such an object has both the value of scarcity and is refreshing to modern eyes, so used to the geometric precision of industrial products. I could easily be persuaded to call it art, but it’s not at all clear Mike would be pleased if I did.

Hand-made gate and hurdle by Mike Ellis

He shows me a stool. ‘Look. It’s made from a few bits of small wood, or underwood, as we call it. People look at it and say ‘ooh, that’s really nice, I like that’, as if it’s something special. But it’s not. It’s really simple. I made it in two mornings with a bunch of kids.’

There is a paradox in being a practitioner of a craft so rare that its products stand out as something almost unique, yet which for thousands of years was simply how most everyday rural objects were made. Mike is dismayed that in our society people have become so disconnected from the land that there is little understanding of where wooden objects come from and how they are made, and he is on a mission to change this.

Originally born into an army family, he went into the forces aged 17, and took up the trade of a woodsman when he left the army 17 years later. For years now, he has made his living as a woodsman: laying hedges, managing coppiced woodlands and making useful objects from the wood that he cuts. He came to Sutherland about ten years ago, living first in Rogart, now in Helmsdale. ‘It’s a strange place to be, northern Scotland, for a woodsman,’ he says. Here so much of the land is controlled by the Forestry Commission and huge estates with no interest in maintaining traditional woodland management methods.

He gained his own interest in woods from his grandfather, who was a forester, and he also has a history degree, which gives him access to the documentary evidence of how woodland management has changed over time. He is quick to dispel any dewy-eyed romanticism about the life of a woodlander. ‘We need to get rid of the myth that a woodlander’s life was idyllic. A lot of it was piece work to make the products that were in everyday use, very repetitive and physically hard, as in the case of charcoal making.’

Mike Ellis

He is currently working a coppice woodland called the Marrel, which he manages with a group of local volunteers called the Helmsdale Woodlanders. ‘It was coppiced in the past, for use in the thriving fishing industry, so it’s mostly hazel and willow. It hasn’t been coppiced for decades, although there are still people in the village who remember going cutting there, but the demand really died with the fishing.’ The products of this woodland would have been used to make fishing creels and baskets, along with a range of other practical household objects and all manner of things used on crofts – cart beds, gates, fencing, hurdles, tool handles and the timbers used for construction.

These days Mike’s emphasis has shifted from making and selling wooden objects, to passing on his skills to the next generation. He runs the only accredited woodsman skills training course in Scotland, in connection with the Open College Network. ‘What I try to do is to make the connection between woodland management and the products that come out of the woods as part of the thinning or management process,’ he says. The course covers coppice management techniques such as layering and stooling, use of greenwood tools for cleaving (splitting) and shaping wood, and charcoal production.

Tools of the trade

The array of tools in his workshop is extraordinary, with dozens of axes, draw knives, billhooks and tools, the names of which are from another era. ‘Each tool is specialised for a trade’, he says, pointing out a cooper’s draw knife, curved for making barrel hoops. ‘The scale depends on the job and the size of the material you’re working with. They go from small to you’ve-got-to-be-joking!’ They are all for working with greenwood, that is, wood that has not been seasoned so it’s still sappy and easy to shape with sharp-edged tools.

‘The important thing about greenwood working is not so much the product,’ says Mike, ‘it’s the way that it’s done. There are particular techniques we use, like cleaving, to split wood along the fibres to keep its strength.’

It is also integrally about the woodland management from which the material comes. ‘I find the act of making stuff satisfying on quite a few levels, but I can’t divorce that from the woodland.’ So he is saddened to see formerly managed woods being neglected. ‘What you see with non-management of woodland is a decrease in biodiversity, because as the canopy closes you lose a range of species that like different light levels.’

Sometimes after a coppice has been unmanaged for too long and become ‘derelict’, the stools can be too old to be brought back into full production, but selective cutting will improve its health and vigour. For this to happen, it’s necessary to keep woodland skills alive and hence Mike’s emphasis has shifted to passing them onto young people, in the hope that a future generation of woodlanders will have better access to woods. ‘It’s not that we lack the natural resources’, he says. ‘It’s the mentality of not recognising woodland culture that has to change.’

Making a livelihood as a woodlander these days is precarious, and Mike is sceptical about the current market in greenwood products, noting that the traditional rural markets have collapsed. ‘People have a propensity for nostalgia’, he says. ‘Greenwood’s niche has gravitated to the luxury end of the market because there are so few people doing it. But when you cease to have a connection with the working landscape it’s in danger of becoming arty-farty, and totally irrelevant to its traditional place in the working countryside.’

For the sake of the health of our woodlands, if nothing else, we have to hope Mike’s greenwood craft is prevented from becoming a dying art.

© Mandy Haggith, 2012

Links

• Helmsdale Charcoal & Coppice
• Mandy Haggith
• Mandy’s Blog

THEY were formed initially by Mats Melin for a gala concert at Eden Court Theatre in 1999, where he was joined by Frank McConnell, Caroline Reagh and Sandra Robertson. The group has continued to cultivate an exciting repertoire of traditional Scottish dances since that debut, and have established equally strong connections with the step-dance tradition of Cape Breton, which had Scottish origins.

INDEED, the revival of Scottish step-dance over that period was sparked in large part by the discovery of a thriving tradition preserved in Cape Breton. The authentic dances have been “re-imported” to their native turf, and Dannsa were very much in the vanguard of that revival.

Sandra Robertson and Caroline Reagh (top) with Mac Morin and Frank McConnell (photo Maria Falconer)

Interestingly, the current core group consists of Sandra Robertson and Caroline Reagh with piper and step-dancer Fin Moore. Fin is the son of Hamish Moore, one of the people very much responsible for the re-discovery and dissemination of Cape Breton dance in Scotland.

For their North by North East tour, that trio will be joined by Frank McConnell, Cape Breton dancer Mac Morin, guitarist Matheu Watson and Gaelic singer Catriona Watt. Sandra Robertson explained the genesis of the project.

“We had invited Mac – well, to be strictly accurate, Mac invited himself! He had some free time a year or so ago, and had worked with us in the past and fancied doing it again, although at that point he was really just coming over to try things out – there was no formalised project at that stage. We put something together and went out and did some workshops and very informal performances, and we all enjoyed that.

“From there we thought, okay, let’s put a more formal proposal together and see if we can get some funding, and that has become the Dannsa Connections show we are doing for North by North East.

“The connections with the group and Cape Breton dance go back a long way, and we wanted to take that on. It will be good to have Frank back with us again – he is very busy with his plan B company and took a step back from full membership, but always likes to come back and work with us.”

Dannsa's current core trio of Sandra Robertson, Fin Moore and Caroline Reagh

The new show will focus on their long-standing engagement with step-dance. The traditional Scottish style of step-dance does not involve the spectacular high kicking routines familiar to millions from Irish dance, and especially the popular adaptations in Riverdance and its successors.

The dances developed for ceilidhs in Highland farm kitchens and other cramped spaces, where wild flailing or kicking would have threatened your neighbour’s shins, or worse. Instead, they developed as close-to-the-floor routines, but with plenty of scope for embellishment, improvisation, and a degree of individual expression.

“Step-dance has been the main collective passion in the group,” Sandra agreed. “We all have different backgrounds – I’ve got quite a bit of Highland dance, for example, and Caroline has contemporary dance, and we bring those things in, but always with step-dance at the heart of it.

“From that we have been inspired or intrigued enough to try and take things a bit further. Sometimes when you look at the old-fashioned notations of how dances were done, it is fascinating to take that away from the paper and see how it develops into a different thing, especially when you take it on stage for an audience. We are constantly tweaking things.

“The new show is more like a concert-type format than many of our shows, by which I mean there isn’t really any audience participation in the dancing. We’ll be presenting a dozen or so fairly short pieces, and there will be opportunities for the musicians to have their own slots, which also gives us a chance to catch our breath!

“We have some new material that people won’t have seen before, and we are looking forward to taking them out, and we have arranged some pieces that were originally for Caroline and myself to include Mac and Frank. Lots of new stuff, then, which certainly ensures that we keep the brain cells working as well as the physical side!”

The full line-up for the Connections tour (photo Maria Falconer)

The process of creating new work within a traditional form can take many shapes, and Sandra reckons that there is no one set way in which that happens within Dannsa.

“It can start off in many different ways – I wouldn’t say there is a single process. It can start with a rhythm or a bit of music, or it can be a style of dance that we haven’t done. It can just be one person who has a particular interest and floats an idea, then we all work on it and it moves in different directions.

“Sometimes we reach a point where it becomes over-elaborate or we find ourselves adding in things without a real reason, and we have to unstitch it all because we are not happy with the way it is sitting, or we have come to a dead end, so there is a constant process of questioning and reconsidering what we are doing as we create a piece.

“Fin is probably our greatest critic when we are developing new work. He is very into the creative process in what we do – he doesn’t just turn up and play the music. He has had an immersion in step-dance from a very early age, and he loves to join in the dancing as well as playing.”

I wondered if any of the group had envisioned Dannsa reaching a second decade when they first launched?

“Definitely not, no, it has been a big surprise to all of us,” she laughed. “We just wanted to do it in the first place because we enjoyed it and had some ideas that we wanted to tackle, and we still do. As those ideas developed and we put in applications for funding we kept on being successful, and that gave us the momentum to keep on going.

“There have been lots of sources of inspiration for us over the years, whether it be collaborations or just coming up with a new idea that we fancied poking our noses into a bit more, and that has helped to keep our enthusiasm high.”

The group’s name is simply Gaelic for dance, and has caused occasional mis-understandings over the years, especially in Sandra’s native turf (she is originally from Barra).

“Back at the start we all sat round the table in my kitchen in Kingussie and came up with lots of different ideas,” she recalled, “but I can’t remember exactly who it was that suggested Dannsa. It does lead to a wee bit of confusion, especially in the Outer Isles, when events are advertised in a way that makes it sound as if it is a dance rather than a performance, so we have to be careful about how we word our posters and adverts!”

Following the NxNE tour, Dannsa will be reviving the Connections show for further dates later in the year. More immediately, they will be visiting schools in what will be the fourth year of their Gaelic project, giving workshops and demonstrations.

Dannsa Connections is on tour from 5-21 April 2012.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2012

Links

• Dannsa
• North By North East

CAITHNESS Horizons in Thurso has added The Gillie Mor to the cultural calendar of the Highlands.

LAST March saw the emergence of a three-day festival of talks, books, film, story-telling, folklore, music and poetry which put the spotlight on the life and work of folk icon, Hamish Henderson.  While keeping Hamish Henderson as the festival figurehead, organisers this year are keen to stress that the weekend is not about one man.  The 2012 programme of events and song workshops, which includes Dick Gaughan, Margaret Bennett, Essie Stewart, George Gunn, Nancy Nicolson, Kevin Williamson and Dr Fred Freeman, is designed to take forward the grass-roots ambitions of the man who did so much to discover, record and promote a wealth of songs and stories that might otherwise have disappeared from Scotland forever.

Dick Gaughan

Folk phenomenon Dick Gaughan’s presence in this year’s programme may help audiences understand how the festival got its name.  The Gillie Mor [The Big Lad’] became Henderson’s nickname after he wrote a song of the same title as a message of friendship and solidarity at the height of the Cold War from the Blacksmith’s Trade Union in Leith to the Blacksmith’s Trade Union in Kiev in the Ukraine.  The song is perhaps most familiar to audiences all over the world through its recording by Dick Gaughan.

Hamish Henderson by Jean Mohr (courtesy Birlinn)

A professional musician and singer since 1970, Dick Gaughan – like Henderson – was brought up and immersed in the musical traditions of the Gaels.  Over four decades he has been at the cutting edge of Scottish music. Guitarist, singer, songwriter, actor, musical director, composer, arranger, producer and engineer, Gaughan’s expressive voice and distinctive guitar technique are unmistakeable, and his orchestral work has been commissioned more than once for Glasgow’s Celtic Connections festival.

Explicitly in sympathy with the oppressed and the underdog, Gaughan’s songs, like the songs and poetry of Hamish Henderson, are Scottish in expression but internationalist in spirit, and share a burning passion for humanitarian egalitarianism.  As he has often sung in Henderson’s words, ‘You and me, the man, the brither – me an you, the Gillie Mor’.

Margaret Bennett

Margaret Bennett returns to Thurso this year with ‘Highland Exodus’, a talk and slide presentation about Highland emigrants to Canada during the Potato Famine of the 19th century. A writer and academic, Margaret is as well known as a singer and folklorist, and she worked with Hamish Henderson at the School of Scottish Studies in Edinburgh University.

The issue of roadsigns in Gaelic has created heated debate recently in Caithness, which is proud of its Norse heritage.  Boldly, Caithness Horizons has invited Margaret to run two workshops during the festival, teaching one or more Gaelic songs, which partipants will sing at an end-of festival ceilidh.

We are not being provocative. Folk culture is global, and I can think of no-one better than Margaret Bennett to demonstrate how folk song pushes right through cultural barriers.  We want Gillie Mor to become a festival of the people by the people, and to achieve that takes confidence in our own identity – or identities.

Essie Stewart (photo Issie Macphail)

Essie Stewart knows well the bi-lingual nature of Highland folklore.  Known throughout the Highlands as a traditional storyteller from Sutherland – one of the last ‘Summer Walkers’ of the travelling families – Essie Stewart is proud to be guardian of the stories of her grandfather, Ailidh Dall Stewart (1882-1968), and tells his stories in both English and Gaelic.  Essie hopes her return to Thurso might turn up new contacts with local people who remember the family when they camped with their horses at Glengolly.

Sharing a song and story session with Essie Stewart, Nancy Nicolson is now Edinburgh-based.  Still proud of her Caithness croft background, and of being what she calls a ‘Cultural Crofter’, Nancy enjoys involving people in song, music and story. At a recent Festival Fringe she arrived at Edinburgh’s Royal Oak folk venue, melodeon slung over her shoulder, to the announcement, ‘Here she is … the Instant Ceilidh!’

Her songs range from ancient ballads to funny, cheeky, political pieces from her own pen. One reviewer said: “NN writes songs that are cunningly temperate. Her well-honed humour sees Nancy apply the iron fist in the velvet glove.”

Fellow Caithness countrymen George Gunn and Kevin Williamson could not be accused of using stealth to subdue audiences, although they share the ability to charm as well as shock.  Both writers are known for their forthright views; both are social and political commentators as well as creative writers of poetry, prose and drama, and it is as poets they are billed together as ‘The Radical Bardachd’.

Kevin Williamson

Kevin Williamson will deliver his one-man hit show from last year’s Edinburgh Festival, ‘Robert Burns: Not in My Name’, which uses film sequences by Alastair Cook to complement and sometimes counterpoint the less familiar poetry of the Ayrshire bard.  Highly praised for his delivery of Burns’ language, Williamson supports the vision behind the festival:

‘As someone brought up in Thurso,” he said, “after twenty years organising and participating in arts and literary events all over the world I’m excited about finally doing something in my hometown.  It’s appropriate, too – the show begins with a ferocious Burns poem about the people of the Highlands.  Caithness has long had a vibrant arts and folk scene and the Gillie Mor festival keeps this and the Hamish Henderson flag flying proudly.  I’m looking forward to it.’

George Gunn is the other ‘radical bard’ on the bill.  The festival was originally Gunn’s idea.

‘The Gillie Mor Festival in Thurso is now in its second year and is quickly establishing itself as one of the most important cultural events in the Highlands, if not Scotland,” he said. “Hamish Henderson had strong Caithness connections as his father’s people came from Braemore.  He always considered himself a proud member of the Clan Gunn. I am proud that in my home town we can add to the stock of the carrying stream of Caithness culture and bring it forward, and at the same time keep alive the work and memory of a vibrant world-spirit.”

George Gunn

Gunn credits his own development as an artist to his friendship with Henderson.

“I was greatly encouraged by Hamish Henderson and without his generosity of spirit and constant support I doubt I would have had the confidence to undertake what I have as a writer.”

Thurso High School Pupils and members of the public will have the opportunity to work with both Dick Gaughan and George Gunn in an innovative attempt to generate new songs, written in the spirit of what Henderson described as the ‘Carrying Stream’ of folk culture.  As with Margaret Bennett’s Gaelic songs, the idea is to perform this material at the end-of-festival ceilidh on Saturday 31^st March in Thurso’s Pentland Hotel.

Currently Fellow in English at the University of Edinburgh, Dr Fred Freeman has extensive experience of teaching literature, folk music and history.  Dr Freeman will deliver a key presentation during the festival, outlining the contribution Hamish Henderson made during his lifetime to Scottish Culture.  Shortly after Henderson’s death, Dr Freeman produced A’ the Bairns o’ Adam for Greentrax Records, a highly regarded CD of Hamish Henderson songs, recorded by many artists who were personal friends of Hamish, or greatly admired his work.

Nancy Nicolson with a famous friend

The Gillie Mor 2012 aims to set a marker for folk culture in the 21st century.  As organiser, I believes there is an appetite for entertainment that is rooted in community activity without being parochial or backward-looking.   Communities have always come together to sing, play music, speak poetry or tell stories about shared experience.  All we’re really doing is having a three-day ceilidh, and reminding ourselves of the value of that, as well as having fun in the process.

Funding support for the festival has been awarded by Museums Galleries Scotland, Highland Council & Bòrd na Gàidhlig.

Christine Gunn is Education & Community Officer at Caithness Horizons.

© Christine Gunn, 2012

Links

• Caithness Horizons
• Festival Programme

THERE IS something instantly recognisable about Peter White’s paintings of empty bowls, open books and garments billowing without wearers. In the absences he creates, his presence is unmistakeable.

HE MAKES these often huge paintings in his studio in Ullapool, where, he says, he spends much of his time. It’s a tidy workspace, comfortably heated with a woodburning stove: a place for both profound work and laughter. He moved to Ullapool in 1994 with his wife Eleanor, who teaches art, after about 17 years in Edinburgh.

Peter White

His paintings are created in groups of about 10, and when I suggest the collective noun for them might be a ‘flock’ he laughs and sets me right – it’s a ‘bunch’ of paintings! He will spend up to four months working on one bunch, rotating around them as he takes each through many layers of development.

The paintings are made on board, because canvas is too pliable, and begin with a couple of layers of acrylic medium and chalk, setting up an initial texture which feeds right through the ensuing months. Next he begins working with the image in acrylic. He uses layers of wax cooked up in a deep fat fryer.

“I really like working with wax,” he says. “It has that translucence. I use a blow torch quite a lot, to melt it again, so it changes shape. Then I’ll use oil paint on top, and you can scrape back through to reveal a wax surface, like glass, with the lower colour coming through.”

Book 2 (58x122cm. Oil, acrylic, wax)

Gradually the painting proces becomes more delicate. He describes himself scumbling over rough patches, refining the light by applying washes of colour in solvent, detailing with more delicate brushes as the painting moves towards completion.

“That whole business of texture is always really important to me,” he says. “There’s a tension between the illusion of looking into the space created by the painting, and the texture you are making on the surface – a tension between the illusion of the object in there and the objectness of the painting itself, so at some level you’re going in [to the 3-dimensional illusory space] but you’re also brought back. So the surface has to be a coherent, exciting, living thing itself as an object, while the space within has to be a living space too.”

All of these techniques reflect years of patient experimentation, in a career as an artist in which he says he has never had ‘a real job’.

“I took art as a kind of joke in my sixth year at school, then I went to do business studies at University, but the first day I was there I knew I hated it.”

After a year he dropped out. “I gradually felt I wanted to do art, so I got a portfolio together and went to Art College in Edinburgh. It was good for me to do – being among others doing the same thing gives you confidence and confirmation of what you should be doing.”

Garment 2 (122x186. Oil, acrylic, wax)

Largely self-taught, there are no gurus or teachers he can identify who were particularly important to his education.

“I get things from people,” he says, “but I tend to think I’ll work it out for myself. I’m sure I’ve missed things, but the positive side is that in struggling through things for yourself, you find things you wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. I do a lot of reading, and looking at other’s work is important. I respond to a work in itself, but also I think, how do they do that? Quite often I get really excited by the process in a piece of work and exploration comes out of that.”

His narrowness of focus of subject is very important to him. He cites Darwin, who spent 8 years studying barnacles. “The people I most respect are people who are digging away at one little patch,” he says.

His paintings are particularly limited in theme. They are currently all of singular forms: a bowl or a bottle or an open book with blank pages. Peter describes them as archetypes. “Bowls are probably one of the first objects created by man. A bowl means so much: its ability to carry, its inside and outside, but it retains that archetypal form. A book’s another archetypal form, another vessel.”

Bowl 1. (123x200cm. Oil, acrylic, wax)

The other archetype he uses a lot is the human head. “They work best when it’s not a particular person,” he says. “They’re not portraits. They’re not  pictures of a person at all, at some level. I don’t think of them as existing outside of here. They don’t have a narrative.”

As well as the big paintings, Peter also does pencil drawings from identity photographs from concentration camps from Germany, Russia and Cambodia, which are “a different process entirely” from the painting, but a hugely important exploration for him. Again he says he is not drawing the people.

“The photographs are the subjects. These people are no longer and all that is left of them is just the photograph, along with that whole knowledge of the history of where the photograph came from.”

These incredibly powerful drawings place the viewer in relation to the victims of human atrocities on a vast scale. Asked if there is a moral purpose in these drawings, he says: “It’s deeply about what man is, how man relates to one another, and who am I within that. The photographs are partly about who is in power and it’s important to me that these were taken by the perpetrators, so the person behind the camera is the powerful one and this person here in the picture is the absolute victim. Then me using them as images – who am I within that? In the whole holocaust story, who are we? Are we perpetrators or victims? We could be both. Is this part of the same manipulation?”

Head 3. (15x13cm. Graphite)

There are deep questions at stake here about whether art is a selfish act on the part of the creator, using material to further their own aims, and whether there is room for generosity within that.

“I think our true exploration is generous. Creative exploration may appear very selfish, from the outside, but I believe in communication in art, and that the more focussed you can be, somehow, in that exploration, the more potential you have to give back. And at some level that can give back to these people – and I don’t mean back to that particular person and his life, I mean back to that space.”

He says he does not have any words for that space that sound right, yet he talks of “honouring the bigger picture – using the specific in order to not be specific.”

The fact that art can raise questions of this depth and complexity suggests that it has the capacity to play a more prominent role in society, other than simply as a form of capital investment and a commodity for trade. Peter describes art as “fundamental for our growth as humans”, but doing justice to this potential may take a different kind of approach to arts development by the powers that be than the current bureaucratic top-down programmes.

A really powerful painting can move us, quite literally, in the sense that it can change the way we behave, Peter believes.

“I’m doubtful that art can change the world. At some level I’d say it definitely can, but not at the scale the question’s often asked at. I think the times I’ve been spoken to by a work of art, the sense of a meeting gives me a different slant on what life’s about. And when that happens I think we do change, even if it’s just slightly; not necessarily dramatically, but truthfully. And I believe that these small shifts are absolutely fundamental to the way things change, even though on the surface it looks like nothing’s happened. I believe in small being big, and that one person’s small shift is a huge thing.”

Gazing into the eyes of the faces in his drawings, we are drawn into our own reflections. How do we see ourselves in relation to others? Who are we, standing looking at the drawing of the photograph of an unknown victim? What do we really know about anyone?

© Mandy Haggith, 2012

Links

• Peter White
• Mandy Haggith
• Mandy Haggith’s Blog

Chris Stout (photo Michelle Fowlis)

NEW music by fiddler Chris Stout lies at the heart of the RSNO’s latest residency

CHRIS STOUT will have a new orchestral work unveiled on his native Shetland as the culmination of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s Out and About in Shetland project, but the fiddler won’t be there to see it.

INSTEAD, he and regular collaborator Catriona McKay will be in Nova Scotia, where they will be playing in performances of their own orchestrated version of their White Nights album with Symphony Nova Scotia.

“It’s hilarious,” Stout said. “Two of my dream gigs come along on the same day! It’ll be a bit bizarre knowing that the Shetland one will be happening as I’ll be coming off stage in Canada, but it is great to be involved in both projects.

“I’m delighted that the RSNO are bringing this project to Shetland. I think it’s fantastic, and it can’t help but benefit everyone, as far as I can see. It will take the orchestral musicians out of their usual context and let them experience something different, and it’ll be great for the Shetlanders to have the chance to welcome them into the community and work with them.

“For me that is a win-win situation, and I’m delighted that it will be Shetland getting the benefit.”

The Shetland commission is part of what the RSNO describe as their most geographically ambitious residential endeavour within the UK. Out and About in Shetland offers five days of rehearsals, education, community activities, workshops, masterclasses and performances. It is part of the Music Nation weekend happening across the UK, and inevitably qualifies as the most northerly component. The RSNO has been carrying out its Out and About programmes since 2004, bringing the orchestra to places they do not normally visit, and involving the community in various ways.

Chris Stout was commissioned to write a tune for local musicians and the orchestral musicians to work with in various contexts during the week, and also a 15-minute composition that will premiere in the final evening concert that brings the residency to a rousing conclusion.

“I composed a a small melody that was given to musicians in Shetland to work on,” Chris explained, “and they will then collaborate with members of the orchestra on it – the tune was really just a way of moving the creative process forward.

“I was also commissioned to write an orchestral piece around the tune for the final concert. I’ve called it Tingaholm, which is from the Tings, the old Norse name for their Parliaments, as in Dingwall and so on. They seem to have been very much gathering places where people traded ideas and even goods, and I liked the idea that my tune could be a kind of musical gathering place for the exchange of musical ideas.”

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra (photo Tom Finnie)

Although Stout is primarily known as a traditional musician, he is no stranger to formal composition. A graduate of the RSAMD (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) in Glasgow, he has composed orchestral music before, including Dynrøst, a Celtic Connections commission with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in 2008, and Drive with the RSNO in 2010, also a Celtic Connections commission.

He was involved in performing on both those pieces, but for Tingaholm – and the whole Shetland project – his role is purely that of composer.

“I’ve done it very much from my own point of view,” he said, “but I’m trying to allow the orchestra to access some of the features of traditional music as I see it, but in an orchestral context. I’m keen that we work quite a lot of the style of our unwritten tradition into the score, so we’ll see how that works out.

“I’m quite happy working on paper – I need to write things down anyway, or I forget them, so I’m used to doing that. I like the process of working with classical musicians – traditional music and classical music were the two things I was brought up with, and I like to try to erase the boundaries a bit. I usually start composing by ear, and once I’ve got something, I’ll get the score paper out and start to think about that. With so many instruments involved, you have always to be aware of what is going on right across the music, and where you are trying to go with it. I’ve always felt quite comfortable writing for strings, but this time round I feel I’ve been able to identify a bit more with some of the other instruments and what they need.

“I suppose I would have to admit that being only a composer on this project is a little odd for me. Although I compose a lot, what generally drives me to compose is the fact that I am then going to play the music on stage. This time it’s quite strange to only be a composer and not experience the end result. Of course, that is what most composers do, but I’m used to playing at the end of the process. In traditional music the composer wasn’t really important in the same way – most of the older players didn’t really think of themselves in that way, and when they wrote a tune it more or less got absorbed straight into the tradition.”

Catriona McKay and Chris Stout - the White Nights album cover shot

By the time this article is published, the fiddler and harpist Catriona McKay will be hard at work in Nova Scotia, preparing for the premiere of the orchestrated version of their most recent album, White Nights.

“We did a gig over there two or three years ago,” he explained, “and we had been chatting to them about the album, which I don’t think we had even recorded at that stage, but we were already thinking and talking about maybe doing some of it with strings at some point. Lo and behold, six months later they were inviting us over to do the whole album with the symphony orchestra. Catriona and I worked on the orchestration – we have shared skill sets and also different ones, so it works well in that respect.

“We are doing three concerts with them over there, two in concert halls and one in a church. It seems to be our thing just now, because we just did a gig at Celtic Connections with the Scottish Ensemble playing Sally Beamish’s Seavaigers. That was a great experience – it was definitely playing music from a master. Her string writing is so effervescent ­– it’s constantly moving. We are doing that again in Edinburgh in April. The Ensemble were really fired up about it, which was great, and we are going to do a bit of it in Halifax with Symphony Nova Scotia as well.

“I would love it if the Shetland piece went well and it could also be done again sometime, if only so I get to hear it! I’ve learnt a lot doing it, and I hope the orchestra and the audience get something from it as well. As for myself and Catriona, it’s all bigger forces at the minute for us, and when you do the duo music for a bigger ensemble it feels a bit like letting go of it, and it’s hard then to come back and do it in duo format again, so I think we need to get some new material together and make a new album.”

RSNO Out and About In Shetland runs from 1-5 March 2012 (see RSNO website for details).

© Kenny Mathieson, 2012

Links

• Chris Stout
• RSNO
• White Nights in Nova Scotia

NOW approaching its 20^th year, Glasgow’s Celtic Connections festival has grown from what was deemed an improbable idea to the largest winter festival in the world.

It is an event that inspires music makers and creators: each year people from all over the world turn their eyes and ears to Glasgow for inspiration and ‘connections’. The 2012 line-up included artists from Mali and Senegal, Cuba, Israel, Japan, Bosnia, Canada and Ireland.

A fact worth noting is that among a total of nearly 180 main-programme shows, more than two-thirds featured a wholly or substantially Scottish line-up, with over a third of these featuring artists from the Highlands and Islands, including Lochaber Gold, Skipinnish, Cuairt nan Eilean, Session A9, Kris Drever, Blazin Fiddle and The Wrigley Sisters.

Session A9 (photo Martin Heron)

Scottish music really is the backbone of this Festival. Another fabulous thing about Celtic Connections is that it allows artists to stretch their creative wings, experiment with boundaries and explore new musical territories. Partnerships, collaborations and connections are all at the heart of the festival.

I attended this year as a delegate of Showcase Scotland. Now in its 13th year, it is the nation’s largest international meeting of music industry professionals. “An integral element of Celtic Connections, Showcase Scotland offers artists a unique opportunity to perform in front of over 200 promoters, record labels and agents from 20 different countries,” says Festival Manager Jade Hewat.

Showcase Scotland is a five-day event, scheduled during the busiest weekend of Celtic Connections (as if the organisers hadn’t enough to be getting on with!). Produced by Active Events, with support from a steering group of 22 industry professionals from across Scotland, Showcase Scotland is an opportunity for promoters, record labels, agents and festival organisers to meet both the Scottish industry and each other, as well as seeing and hearing Scottish artists from a wide swathe of genres in optimum performance conditions.

Ian Smith, the Portfolio Manager of Music and IP Development for Creative Scotland, who are a key funding partner for Showcase Scotland and Celtic Connections, said in his welcome speech to visiting delegates: “We want you to be inspired and enthused and most importantly to book our artists!”

Breabach (photo Martin Heron)

Five days, 12 venues, over 60 performances plus seminars, discussions, talks, networking events and a trade fair: Showcase Scotland is no free, slap-up easy ride. Here results are expected – acts are booked, record deals are negotiated, partnerships formed, all playing a significant role in the development of the Scottish music industry both nationally and internationally.

Two hundred delegates from 21 countries attended this year. In 2011, each delegate booked an average of four Scottish artists for their own festival, venue or event. An estimated overall spend on artists was between £1,528,871 and £2,222,721!

Seudan (photo Martin Heron)

Another ‘connection’ made via Showcase Scotland is that each year the event features an international partner – this year the spotlight was on Catalonia. Supported by Catalan Institute for the Cultural Industries, six of Catalonia’s top musical acts were featured in the weekend’s programme.

The Minister of Culture of Catalonia said that “our presence at Showcase Scotland will also reinforce the networking between Catalan and Scottish professionals and open new possibilities for collaboration.”

Celtic Connections is all about connections – connections with friends, connections with music, family connections, national and international connections, industry connections, connections through stories, song and music, and most importantly meaningful and lasting connections.

I returned home to Moray and – as well as having tired feet from dashing from venue to venue and a croaky voice from talking and sharing ideas with the other delegates – I was truly inspired from hearing a range of musical talent from Scotland.

I have secured bookings for acts; I have raised seed-money and support towards an event currently being planned to showcase Moray’s artistic community (watch this space!) and rekindled business relations and networks. Showcase Scotland – money well invested!

Kresanna Aigner grew up in Findhorn Village, and now lives in Moray once again, where she works with the Moray Art Centre and is part of a vibrant artistic community in the area.

© Kresanna Aigner, 2012

Links

• Moray Art Centre
• Celtic Connections

HOW many pieces of wood does a violin contain?

I’M asked this question by violin maker Alan Beavitt when I visit him on his remote croft in Wester Ross. I guess, and I’m wildly wrong. Is your guess any better?

Alan Beavitt made his first violin when he was still at school in South London and now, more than 100 fiddles later, he is one of this country’s most respected violin makers, widely known among big city orchestral string-players but pretty much a secret closer to home. The fact that he lives in a remote corner of the Highlands, a five mile walk from the nearest road end on the peninsula of Scoraig, he says, “adds a little to the mystique”.

Alan Beavitt

Mystique is not something to be taken lightly in the world of stringed-instruments, where it can be worth millions. A Stradivarius violin recently sold for £9.8 million simply because it is part of this antique brand, and the value of such instruments continues to rocket from auction to auction, despite research that shows that, in blind tests, some modern violins sound better than the Cremonan classics.

Alan tells an anecdote about a London dealer. “I needed some money so I took him a violin to see if he would sell it. He said I was one of the best makers in the country and that he would have taken the violin like a shot, if I had been dead!”

He smiles ruefully at the knowledge that his instruments will long outlast him and will probably soar in value once he is no longer around to benefit. It must be the kind of scenario that could persuade someone to fake their own death!

Instead of pursuing his vocation as an instrument maker when he was young, Alan was persuaded to study science. He became a physicist and worked in Australia and England before getting to know someone who lived on Scoraig, visiting them and deciding to give up his career in science for a life of self-sufficiency.

He moved there with his wife and children in 1973 and established himself as a violin maker to supplement their living on the croft.

The view from Alan Beavitt's workshop on Scoraig

Alan is a calm, soft-spoken man, and each of his few words are well-chosen, seeming to result from deep thought. He brings to his work the rare combination of a physicist’s precision with an artist’s flair. In 1984 he won the Facta Britannia (Made in Britain) violin prize, and he remains at the top of his field.

He makes violas as well as violins, and baroque as well as modern instruments, sometimes making what he fancies, other times working to commission. His customers are mostly advanced level students embarking on professional careers, and the only marketing Alan needs to reach them is word of mouth and the recommendation of those who already play his instruments.

They have sold to violinists in Argentina, Australia, Italy, Sweden and Germany, and both classical and folk players seem to like them.

Alan’s workshop is a shed beside a vegetable patch sporting impressive cabbages. Small and orderly, it smells of wood-shavings and is lined with a neat array of tools. In the store-room next door there are stacks of wood blocks, seasoning for several years before being used.

The wood Alan works with is crucial, and when I suggest he must be regularly eyeing up trees as potential raw materials, he gives a wry nod and says, “I’m always on the look out.”

I am surprised to learn that a tree I consider to be a weed is most highly prized: the back and sides of violins are made of sycamore, although not any old tree will do. Around one in a hundred have a particular rippled characteristic in the wood, which polishes up to give a gorgeous pattern of golden stripes. I will never look at a sycamore the same way again!

The front view of one of Alan's violins

The front soundboard is made of European spruce, and Alan says he has enough for the rest of his life, having bought an ideal tree from the Dolomite mountains. He shows me a block of rough, honey-coloured timber and it is hard to credit it can be the source of the delicately curved, shell-thin, lustrous instrument that is his finished product.

On the violin he is currently playing, he has made the chin rest from box wood, the bridge is maple and the finger board and pegs are ebony. When Alan talks about ebony he makes a point of saying that it is a tropical wood that is not in short supply, contrasting it with pernambuco, a tropical hardwood used for bows, which is now rare. These things matter.

Each piece of wood is shaped with utter precision and working to this kind of accuracy with a living material requires a remarkable amount of time. “If someone wanted a violin urgently,” Alan says, “I could make one for them in a couple of months.”

His total production is around 4 instruments per year, although he admits to not working full-time, being diverted by the garden and livestock. “It’s a pretty time-consuming place to live,” he says.

Once the time required to make a fiddle becomes clear, the price tag of £5,000 seems remarkably good value. The sheer work involved in constructing a violin is brought home by another anecdote, which is also an instructive story about the relationship between instrument makers and their players.

In 2008, he and eleven other makers were brought together at the RSAMD in Glasgow (now the Conservatoire), and together they made a violin. Working flat out, it took them a full week. They did it in full view in the refectory, as a kind of performance, in order to give the students a chance to see what is involved in making their instruments.

“We did it for our expenses and for the fun of it, and I was surprised to find that I was by far the best player among the makers. Some of them can play a bit, but others not at all.”

It is in fact quite rare for makers to be good players, but for Alan, being able to play his instruments is an important aspect of the process. He plays both folk and classical and has just formed an amateur string quartet with three other Highland players.

So is instrument making an art or craft? “Both,” he says. “And there is science involved as well.” Alan has pioneered understanding of how humidity influences violins and has published the science of ‘humidity cycling’, the result of painstaking research into the range and sequence of moisture levels a new instrument requires to go through in order for the wood to settle into its final state.

So he brings to bear his physicist’s knowledge of acoustics and humidity cycling, with a craftsman’s skill in precision woodwork. “I’m pretty consistent these days,” he says, with typical understatement. “I try to learn something from everything I make. I don’t vary the instrument acoustically, but I do make aesthetic changes with each violin.”

There is more than simple skill involved in making these instruments. A Beavitt violin is an exquisite object to hold: glowing, taut, its burnished curves catching the light and highlighting the grain of the minutely detailed wood. “Making it beautiful is a kind of art, I think,” he says.

By the way, altogether the art of violin-making involves 78 pieces of wood. How close were you?

© Mandy Haggith, 2012

Links

• Alan Beavitt
• Mandy Haggith
• Mandy Haggith’s Blog

THE artwork comprises a subtle circle of light surrounded by stones in a clearing deep in  Strathmashie Forest, just outside Laggan in Badenoch, with surround audio from speakers in the trees. I created the soundscape  using extracts from recordings made with the young people from  Fèisean a’ Mhonaidh Ruaidhand and percussionist and sound designer Dave Martin.

Gill Russell with her exhibition Uamh (photo Murdo McLeod)

The work makes reference to the winter solstice – the circle of light and the returning sun. The cairn of stones is a meeting place, a memorial, a marker, reminiscent of structures built by our early ancestors who were keenly aware of the position of the sun, but were also acutely conscious of a transparency between this world and an ‘otherworld’. The name Sòrn means ‘hearth’ or ‘chimney’(amongst other things)  in Gaelic, and in this context describes  some sort of transformative or liminal meeting place.

Sòrn is designed to be seen in darkness (although the audio will play during the day ) as the glowing light is very subtle and only visible in total darkness. It  is reached by a five minute walk along a good forestry track from the Wolftrax centre near Laggan. Visitors will need to bring a torch as the path is well signed, but unlit.

Marking the rebirth of the returning light on the shortest day, 22 December, the winter solstice, and to launch the artwork, a lantern parade will be held through the  forest to the Sòrn installation site, followed by singing performed live at the site. The parade  and opening starts at 5pm, with refreshments provided afterwards in the Wolftrax car park. The event is free and anyone of any age is welcome to bring their own lantern to join the parade.

Sòrn - photo simulation of work in progress

As an installation artist working with light and sound, I have worked on a wide range of unusual and innovative collaborative projects with other artists, writers, musicians, poets,  and astronomers. I am intrigued by the relationship between the human and the cosmic, and how contemplation of the human/cosmic juxtaposition alters perception of time itself and kindles reflections on a ‘world beyond’ and desire to connect and explore that in some meaningful way, whether by scientific enquiry or through religious encounter. My work brings together sculptural elements, light, audio and video, and places these in outdoor settings, or in low light environments.

I have a strong affinity with the special qualities of the Highland landscape, which lends itself – both in symbolic and mythological terms – to this kind of exploration, and many works have been set in outdoors locations, including Solas in Glenuig, which featured glowing globes set on a rocky and remote headland, and Long Wave, an audio installation soundscape with poetry by Rody Gorman and Brian Hill, in Skye in the summer of 2010.

Detail from Solas in Glenuig

I was Artist in Residence at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in Skye in 2009-10. The residency culminated in Uamh,an exhibition at the  Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh in January 2011, inspired by ‘Uamh an Ard Achadh’ or  ‘High Pasture Cave in Skye, where notions of history and humanity were explored through the use of light and audio.

Uamh an Ard Acahd is an underground cave used since Mesolithic times, and  latterly  as a religious and votive site, possibly to the Celtic Earth Goddess Brigid. My exhibition featured low level light pieces in total darkness with surround  audio. The soundscape I created was  made from recordings inside the stream passage in the cave, and featured the musicologist John Purser playing ancient instruments – bone flutes, bronze horns and harmonic singing.

Colin Herd,  in a review about ‘Uamh’ in Aesthetica magazine, wrote: ‘’One of the most interesting aspects of Russell’s installation is the way her interventions in sound and light alter the viewer’s perception of time. The piece has a timelessness that stretches back (by evoking the ancient rites performed in the cave) and outwards (by simultaneously suggesting the otherworldly and cosmic).”

Sòrn, set deep within the forest, rather than in a gallery setting,  follows on from Uamh – a piece of work exploring connections between worlds, time, land and sky. The forest – a place of shelter and reflection – is central to the work.

Solas light installation

Sòrn is part of  Where Long Shadows Fall, an Arts  project funded by the Cairngorms National Park Authority, Cairngorms Local Action Group and Scottish Natural Heritage in conjunction with Laggan Forest Trust. It is managed by Fiona McLean, Community Heritage Officer for the Cairngorms National Park Authority. The  project celebrates 2011’s UNESCO Year of the Forest, and sets out to combine a number of artworks and installations in the natural forest environment with events in outdoor locations in the Cairngorms National Park which enhance awareness of  the heritage of the forest environment and the people who live there.

In September, as the first  part of the Long Shadows project, in collaboration with the Glenbuchat community, I created an audio installation in Glenbuchat woods inspired by oral history recordings collected from the community by local resident Isobel Gilchrist. Extracts of voices were mixed with ambient and natural sounds.

Sòrn opens on the evening of 17^th December 2011, and will run through the winter months.

© Gill Russell, 2011

Links

• Gill Russell CosmicSky website
• Where Long Shadows Fall
• Laggan Forest Trust
• Cairngorm National Park Authority
• Sabhal Mòr Ostaig
• Northings Review of Uamh

NETWORKED was a conference that celebrated 30 years of Triangle and its achievements.

IT OPENED with an introduction by Alessio Antoniolli, Director of Triangle and David Elliot, Chair of Trustees of Triangle Network, who welcomed a sell out conference with over 300 participants from different parts of the globe. They stated “… there is no centre and no periphery… Triangle networks aim to be non hierarchical with a diversity of connections that is organic in its form of communication and ideas”.

The 6°WEST artists (photo by Shannon Tofts)

The conference recognised the issues of mobility, and that many artists/creative practitioners could not be present due to visa restrictions and border controls. For this reason the conference was being filmed and will be shown on the Triangle blog along with all the information available.

My report here is essentially a personal overview with highlights and added observations. The links below include a copy of the conference schedule and speakers for further information, and my full report on the conference..

The first panel, Triangle Network, a conversation between Anthony Caro and Robert Loder, the co-founders of Triangle Network (UK), and Sonia Boyce, Artist and Trustee of Triangle Network (UK), gave a fascinating insight into the origins of Triangle.

Caro described how it began with a search for storage space in New York that resulted in providing the initial venue for the first two week workshop. It was called Triangle because it comprised of artists from USA, Canada and UK. The workshop was incredibly successful and showed there was a need for artists to come together and exchange ideas and process without any pressure of outcome, to be experimental, playful and out of the ordinary. Caro made the point that being an artist can be a lonely occupation, and the two week workshop gave support and confidence to the ‘madness’ needed for creative freedom.

A conference session underway

Triangle went on to inspire further workshops that mushroomed around the world, leading to an extraordinary set of global networks. No two workshops are the same and creativity is valued in its own right with the emphasis on process rather than product. This is the key to Triangle’s success, and its legacy has made crucial contributions to the development of many individual artists’s practice. Triangle is a space where cultural diversity and context are at the core of a laboratory of ideas. It is a dialogue that is unique to its time and location which will resonate long after the end of the workshop.

There were numerous panels in the conference that went on to address different areas of networks. One panel explored the concept of ‘spatialising practices’ where the interface of place and process are the work itself, with no stable entities.

There was the notion of ‘cultural neighbours’ and the nature of growth in diversity through expanding global networks. Artists are the priority and organisations should recognise the ‘bottom up’ rather than the ‘top down’ notion of policy making. There was discussion on how language is built in to interact within a framework, and its potential for ‘possiblisation’. This was linked to Robert Loder’s reference of seeing Triangle as being a ‘cultural postman’.

The role of relentless networking was outlined in seeking shelter for hosting artists in distress. Creative Resistance Fund and Arts Rights Justice are organisations that provide a safe haven for artists fleeing persecution and war zones, in liaison with Amnesty International.

Getting networked

Presentations took place around the constitutions of museums with reference to artists and the curatorial process. Triangle’s conference was cited as an example of the paradoxes of capitalism (at Bloomberg with the anti-capitalism encampment outside) and that the most successful network was our host building ‘Bloomberg’. Borders are convenient tools for control of the poor and thereby maintaining the status quo. The values of a network are crucial to its effectiveness in challenging the issue of borders for creative practitioners.

There were powerful accounts of artists and writers in Egypt, the Republic of Cameroun and Zimbabwe, who face being detained by oppressive regimes. This has led to the much needed African Charter of Human Rights being established.

In the context of the Arab Spring, revolution has instilled urgency to a creative questioning process and the role of contemporary art. ‘Makan’ in Jordan showed work where paperwork becomes an artform of resistance.

Different philosophies of funding were discussed and centred around how you keep connected to the creative frontline, ‘the eyes and ears of what is happening in a country’; raise funds and direct resources in a climate of austerity. ‘Seed funding’ and interest free loans have proved to be effective funding strategies, along with a diverse and skilled workforce. Cultural complicity was floated as an issue to be looked at in relation to keeping power structures in place whereas cultural intervention challenged power structures.

The conference heard from a range of speakers about initiatives such as The Asia Art Archive, a living and active resource for artists. It is an independent, contemporary documentation of artists across China who have engaged with complex fields of conflict regarding identity and authority. Also Art Moves Africa, supporting the mobility of artists within Africa and facilitating meaningful exchange.

Wefund, a website for ‘crowd funding’, and The One Minutes Foundation works with submitting videos online. It is about ideas that can inhabit this format and aim to have an open strategy of top down structure for showing work.

The ‘role of a curator is to be a team player not a shopper’.

6°WEST making their presence felt

The Artsadmin campaign ‘Thought Police or Fighting Terror’ seeks to establish a distinct visa for artists and performers coming to the UK – this will provide the key to expanding future cultural exchange. If the vision of what Triangle has built up in the last 30 years (from the idea of Loder and Caro) is to succeed as a Global Art Ecology; then this campaign must succeed.

NETWORKED was an extremely successful event and inspiring to be at. I hope this summary gives you a taster for my full report, which can be downloaded (see link below) with links and aims to be a useful tool to visual arts practitioners everywhere.

NETWORKED: Dialogue & Exchange in the Global Art Ecology, Triangle Network Conference, 26 & 27 November 2011.

Veronica Slater is an artist and member of the  6°WEST collective.

© Veronica Slater, 2011

Links

• Triangle Conference
• Triangle Conference Blog
• Triangle Conference – Speakers
• Triangle Network Conference – Veronica Slater’s Report
• Creative Resistance Fund
• Arts Rights Justice
• 6°WEST

ORKNEY-based artist Tim Wootton’s expansive and naturalistic charcoal piece entitled North Haven, Fair Isle; dark and intermediate phase Arctic Skuas received the award, along with a prize of £1,000 plus birding optics from sponsors Swarovski. The prize was presented by wildlife documentary presenter and conservationist Mark Carwardine and SWLA president Harriet Mead.

Tim Wootton's prize-winning North Haven, Fair Isle; Dark and Intermediate Phase Arctic Skuas

Wootton, who in true artistic style couldn’t afford the high travel costs to go to the ceremony in London, said: “It’s just as well I didn’t go to the presentation. I was in bits, very emotional, when I found out by email that I had won. This is the most prestigious award in bird art in Britain.

“It’s 20 years since I was shortlisted for the Swarovski Young European Bird Artist of the Year award in 1991 at the SWLA. That was a culmination of five years consecutive exhibiting for the Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA). At the time I thought, my career is on track. I will be a wildlife artist.

“From then on I started to be an illustrator and that pinched my art off me. I was using the same tools and doing interpretations for wildlife parks and suchlike, but it was prescriptive as opposed to being art-led. But over the last 20 years I have been doing paintings in between but it has been image led.

“I’d have to think about finding something to paint and then go out to find the reference material for it, which could be sketches or photographs. For example, for a painting of a merlin on a fencepost I would find the post and then the reference for the merlin.

“It was only when I started working towards a submission to the SWLA about five years ago, and kept getting rejected for paintings which I thought were good, which I thought were meaningful and honest, that I realised I’d gone wrong.

“It was all because I was putting the cart before the horse. So I went out and started drawing from life.”

Tim Wootton

Writing and drawing for his book, Drawing & Painting Birds, published last year by the The Crowood Press, also helped him clarify what he thought about wildlife art.

“I realised what I was about was drawing from life. Now I go out with the sketchbook, drawing and experiencing wildlife, birds and the habitats, being a part of them. I come back with a whole conglomeration of images, writing and ideas. The ideas for paintings were then coming from nature itself. That’s made a huge difference to my work.

“I was going out and something would strike me. Perhaps an Arctic skua chasing a common gull. It’s like the Impressionists who would go out to look to nature. The essence of the finished painting is different. There’s an undefinable vibrancy to the drawing. The only thing of any value for me now is experiencing what happens in the natural world.

“Then I have to use guile and craft to recreate what I have seen with integrity and honesty. If you look at my paintings now, I have seen each of these birds. You have to work quickly to sketch outlines. Working from the back of a boat is brilliant because things move so quickly. You have to work fast and can’t get proportions completely dead on. It’s all about GISS – general impression of size and shape – catching the character as opposed to worrying too much about the detail.”

Tim Wootton's Bit o' Ruff - Lapwings and juvenile Ruff

He also camped out in a derelict farmhouse on the uninhabited Orkney isle of Swona this summer with a group of fellow local artists. “I had never been on an art fieldtrip with other artists before. I had three full days and the chance to pack a lunch and sit on the cliffs from about 9am till 6pm just with the birds and the light. I became absorbed in the whole place. When I came back I painted constantly for four weeks with all the ideas.”

Does he consider that his art is useful for conservation and recording habitat and bird populations? Twenty years ago he raised money through selling bird paintings of 113 species to raise money for a campaign to save species in the Spanish steppes. All the paintings sold in 15 minutes and raised £780. And this year he went to Sark in the Channel Islands following an invitation from the Artists for Nature Foundation. “That was all about using art to raise awareness for issues. It is useful.”

Tim has been based in Orkney for nine years and has witnessed big declines in some bird species in the isles. “The maritime habitat seems to be in flux at the moment and we are pretty sure it is due to global warming. There has been a big decrease in sandeels which are the food for many of our birds, such as the puffin, razorbill and guillemots, who are all suffering. Where there were 3000 pairs of Arctic terns on North Hill, Papa Westray, there are now 200 at best. It looks like Arctic terns are on the way out in Britain.

“I love that whole interaction between Arctic terns and Arctic skuas, which are piratical and parasitic. You would never see an aerial battle quite so dramatic as an Arctic skua chasing a tern for a sandeel. However there isn’t that many dramatic moments from the birds in my paintings. The drama is usually the environment like great seas or moorland.”

His drawing which won the PJC Award for Drawing 2010 shows gannets plunging into the sea and this year’s Birdwatch award entry shows Arctic skuas flying just above the waves. Both are monochrome. Of this approach at certain times of the year, he says: “The change in the season manifests itself in big seas and dramatic cliffscapes, subjects ideally suited to this approach. In fact, when considering these charcoal paintings it would be difficult to see how they would be enhanced with the application of colour as they depict scenes of rock and foam, swell and spume; all fundamentally about value and key and relating less to hue.”

In the last year he has also won the title BBC Wildlife Magazine Wildlife Artist of the Year 2010, and was shortlisted for the David Shepherd Wildlife Artist of the Year prize. And he has just been elected an associate member of the Society of Wildlife Artists.

Wootton was born and raised in a small rural village in South Yorkshire, but Orkney is the place for him to be in order to chase his passion for drawing from life.

“It’s all about Orkney and being here. There’s inspiration everywhere you look, in amazing scenery and exceptional birdlife, every time I go out. Now nature itself prescribes what I draw and paint.”

Tim Wootton’s Wildscape Gallery is at 126 Victoria Street, Stromness.

© Catherine Turnbull, 2011

Links

• Tim Wootton

NORTHINGS: Crowdfunding has risen in popularity in recent years can you explain the concept?

ED WHITING: Crowdfunding is a great way to build a broad base of micro-funders for your work, turning your audiences and supporters into funders by offering them unique incentives to give, using social media tools to build an exciting ‘buzz’ around your project. The idea behind crowdfunding is wonderfully simple- exhibit a pitch for your creative project that tells an inspiring story of what you’d like to achieve, offer everyone who funds you a special ‘reward’ or gift in return for their support, and spread the word far and wide to find your funders.

Because every crowdfunding campaign is aimed at a specific goal and is time-limited in duration (e.g. on WeDidThis, all projects have 30 days to raise the funds they need), so it’s a very tangible and transparent way to raise funds. And for many platforms (including WeDidThis), projects only receive the funds they raise if they reach their funding goals, so your funders have a strong incentive to get behind your project and spread the word.

WeDidThis website - www.wedidthis.org.uk

NORTHINGS: ‘WeDidThis’ launched in January, what can you tell us about your first year?

ED WHITING: Sure- since we launched, we’ve received over 1,200 donations to WeDidThis projects, fully funding 28 projects so far and raising over £55k in the process. Funded projects have ranged from dance to theatre, opera to arts festivals, visual arts to arts education projects, and everything in between.

Since June we’ve been trying out a new approach to crowdfunding, launching ‘collectives’ of projects each month which all start and finishing on the same day. We’ve hosted parties every month to give projects and artists the chance to meet new funders and to enjoy great arts performances (which have raised over £850 in micro-donations on the night), and offered funders the chance to win prizes on individual days throughout each month. We’ve found that this approach has increased our donation rate and project success rate, bringing a new sense of momentum to the projects on WeDidThis.

NORTHINGS: There have been a number of crowdfunding websites launched in recent years what makes ‘WeDidThis’ different?

ED WHITING: WeDidThis was established to help the UK arts sector, and we believe that we are best equipped to do so.

– We are a platform for arts projects only- so you won’t be pitching alongside tech or business ideas, for example. We think this leads to greater ‘cross-funding’ between projects, because everyone visiting WeDidThis does so to view arts projects.

– By starting and finishing projects on WeDidThis at the same time each month, we encourage projects on WeDidThis to collaborate with each other, sharing in the ‘journey’ of running a crowdfunding campaign and making a greater impact than the some of their parts.

– We offer projects on WeDidThis feedback on their pitch and support in running their campaigns.

– We offer more to funders of projects on our platform- including the chance to come along and enjoy great parties and win arts goodies on our ‘prize days’. We also make funds go further by giving each funder the opportunity to allow us to reallocate their donation if the project they have backed does not reach its goal, in so doing helping someone else succeed.

– Because all WeDidThis project rewards are hosted on Culturelabel.com, WeDidThis projects can pitch their rewards alongside the very best gifts from galleries and cultural institutions- broadening the audience for each project.

Finally, uniquely among crowdfunding platforms, we are a not-for-profit company and are committed to reinvesting the profits that we make back into the arts.

NORTHINGS: Do you think that crowdfunding is having an effect on the awareness and connection of audiences with projects?

ED WHITING: Definitely. We are seeing examples every week of projects building deeper relationships with their funders, often with unexpected and exciting results! For instance, there’s the travel writing project where as well as reaching his target, the project leader was inundated with offers of places to stay through the course of his tour (http://wedidthis.org.uk/projects/after-woods-and-water). Similarly, there’s Hokoloko’s campaign (http://vimeo.com/23365122 ), that didn’t succeed in reaching its goal but did succeed in galvanising support and new volunteers, such that their project will now happen anyway! We think that crowdfunding is a really great way to start a new, long-term relationship with your audiences- and that this opportunity is as exciting as the money that projects raise.

NORTHINGS: What scope do you think there might be for attracting new donors who’ve had no previous contact with an applicant?

ED WHITING: Well, every month we have seen this happen, and we have a small but growing community of regular donors to WeDidThis projects. We also from time to time hear of projects who have received generous donations out of the blue. However, while both of these things do happen, the backbone of successful pitches tend to be the friends and fans of the individual or organisation leading the pitch. That’s not to say that every WeDidThis funder must already be a donor to that project- our research has suggested that many WeDidThis donors are new to funding arts projects, even though they may know about the people leading the project they have supported.

NORTHINGS: How could crowdfunding and ‘WeDidThis’ work for projects in the Highlands and Islands?

ED WHITING: We’d love to work with creatives in the Highands and Islands to put together a ‘collective’ of local arts projects for funding during a month in 2012.We think that a platform like WeDidThis could support local artists effectively to reach out to a wide audience of arts lovers across the area, using the collective appeal of a group of artists working together to shout louder and secure more funding than individual projects might manage by themselves. If you might be interested in forming part of this ‘collective’, do get in touch at projects@wedidthis.org.uk

NORTHINGS: What are the essentials of a good pitch?

ED WHITING: Although successful crowdfunding pitches can vary enormously, we think that there are some common characteristics to the really great ones:-

A personal touch- if you’re leading a project, put yourself in the pitch video and tell everyone (as passionately as you can) why they should support you. Remember that in funding a project, your supporters will be backing you as much as well as your project. Reach out to your supporters using personalised messages through the course of the campaign, and when you receive a donation, thank each supporter personally. The time it takes to do this will be more than repayed in the loyalty you’ll build from your funders.

A clear and strong offer- Be absolutely explicit about what you’re trying to achieve with the project, why it is worth funding, and whatyou will spend the money on. Your funders need to know that their money will be put to good use if they donate!

Interesting rewards- Crowdfunding offers a great opportunity to offer your funders something kooky, inventive and inspiring in return for their support, so be creative! Give them gifts and experiences they couldn’t get elsewhere, and ways to get closer to you and the project. And make sure there’s something interesting on offer at each price range (e.g. a cup of tea and a hug for £20, a guided tour round the project for £50, the opportunity to experience rehearsals for £75, etc).

Commitment to the cause- Not strictly speaking about the pitch, I know, but a really important one- you’ll only succeed in getting your pitch fully funded if you work hard to reach as wide an audience as possible. Communicate regularly in as many different ways as you can, thank everyone each day and ask directly for their support. As I hope I’ve made clear already, it will be worth it!

NORTHINGS: What does the future hold for ‘WeDidThis’?

ED WHITING: Quite a lot- We’re working on some exciting new features for the site, expanding the service we’re offering the arts sector, and looking for new ways to continue building a movement of arts supporters committed to making great arts projects happen. We’re not quite ready to announce all of these new features yet, but watch this space- exciting times ahead!

© Northings, 2011

MY name is Joanne Kaar. I live in Dunnet village, on Dunnet Head in Caithness. With  views  to the village of Brough, where I grew up. The Pentland Firth and the Orkney Island of Hoy are in the distance.

Earlier this year I visited Joyce Laing  in Pittenweem, Fife, to take a closer look at the grass garments made my Angus MacPhee.  I had seen his incredible work while it as on display in Stornoway many years ago.   Angus was a crofter. He lived in South Uist, but spent almost 50 years in Craig Dunain psychiatric hospital in Inverness.

Joanne at work plaiting the grass

He chose not to speak; instead he made garments from grass and leaves growing in the hospital grounds, twisting the plants into a rope or simmans. A traditional technique he would have learnt at home in Uist.  When he’d finished making, Angus just discarded them and started another one.  It was fortunate that Joyce Laing discovered Angus and saved some of his work.

Angus became known as ‘the weaver of grass’. Exactly how he made his garments was a mystery, and one that Joyce wanted to solve. I’ve plenty of grass in my field to experiment with!

The grass ‘weavings’ made by Angus are now old and fragile.  With the help of my husband Joe, who made a sketch of the construction by looking at a patch of more open weave, and the information from Joyce with her first hand experience of seeing Angus work, I made notes and took measurements in my sketchbook.

Joanne with replica garment for Joyce Laing

Next, with a ball of cotton string, I made a few test pieces.  Back home, I drew out a full size paper template to work from. Starting at the waistline, I made a grass rope to fit the width, then, by opening up the rope at regular intervals, I made a series of loops, threading the grass rope in and out of the gaps, using dried grass as this will help hold the twist in the rope.

Using a looping technique, I worked upwards towards  the neck of the garment, the same direction as in the original.  The loops were small and pulled tight at the waistline, getting larger towards the chest.  I used my fingers as a gauge and pulled the rope to the size I wanted.

While keeping the same number of loops in each row, the  garment widened at the chest, because each individual loop was bigger. This made a flat  section for the front of the garment.  The arms were to be added later. Working with a short length was easier, as didn’t have to pull so much rope through the loops. When I ran out of rope, I simply made it longer by twisting in more grass.

The cuffs of the sleeves and base of Angus’s garment were deliberately frilly. The loops on these parts were too matted and too confusing to understand how they were made.  So I decided to use the same looping technique for everything as this was the only one I was sure he had used.

Working from the original waist band, I made two large loops into every one in the row before  – this instantly made it wider and uneven. Working from the waistline down, I followed the paper template and adjusted the loop size to complete the front side.

Making the back of the garment was easier.  I started with a waistband as before, but  at the end of each row, I looped through the sides of the front piece, connecting the two halves together as I worked back and forth, leaving gaps for the sleeves and neck.

Time to admire her handiwork

The construction technique is easier to see on these larger  loops. The garment was getting quite heavy, so I made the sleeves separately.  Again, starting with a rope I made a series of loops, but this time I tied it into a circle, the same diameter as the sleeve, working in the round, not two flat pieces.

This was stitched with a grass rope to the main body section.  It’s difficult to see on the original garment if the sections were made in the round, or sewn together later. I used a combination of both.

With the sleeves attached and only the neck to do, I worked this in the round, picking up loops from the back and front of the garment until it was finished.

Code cracked! Over the years, Joyce said, many people had said, oh yes, I can make that for you, but no-one had ever managed it, until now.  I’ve now made two of these garments – one was for the Horse and Bamboo Theatre’s production about Angus (still in development), and their director, Bob Frith, drove all the way here from their studio in Lancashire to collect my Angus replica.

And the second one is now with Joyce Laing in Fife.  How it was made was just as important as the final garment, so I made sure the process was well documented with photos and  a short DVD.

See Joanne’s blog (link below) for more on the project.

© Joanne Kaar, 2011

Links

• Joanne B. Kaar
• Joanne Karr’s Blog
• Art Extraordinary Trust

THE book is a collection of poems and short stories inspired by his childhood growing up in Ness, and is a tribute to his late father, Angus Murray, who was a weaver in the village.

It is illustrated by photographs by Carol Ann Peacock, from Glasgow, and published by Acair, who said the collaboration between writer and photographer had resulted in a “stunning” book.

Writer Donald S Murray

This collaboration was, in fact, originally suggested by Harris Tweed Authority chief executive Lorna Macaulay, who knew both artists were working on distinct but complementary weaving projects.

For Donald, who has enjoyed critical acclaim for previously published works Small Expectations, The Guga Hunters and And On This Rock, the book is something of a labour of love and a tribute to his late, beloved dad. It is also a celebration of Harris Tweed itself, with this having been the 100th year of the famous Orb trademark. It was this centenary, in fact, which inspired Donald to compile a book about weaving and its place in his own childhood, growing up on a croft in Lewis.

Donald, now 55, will be known to many as a former English teacher at The Nicolson Institute. He left Stornoway to work in Sgoil Lionacleit in Benbecula and moved to Shetland in 2006, where he still lives and works. While a small number of pieces from Weaving Songs had been written individually over the years, the rest took only a couple of months once Donald had decided to write a whole book.

He said: “I think the book had been lurking for a long, long time. One of the stories goes back about 10 years but the book itself didn’t take that long. About six pieces had been done beforehand, and then it was as if a switch was turned. There were some nights I was doing two or three a night. Norman MacCaig was once asked, ‘how long does it take you to write a poem?’ He replied, ‘two fags’. I’m about the same – though I don’t smoke, it doesn’t take me long at all. It’s as if, when I get the rhythm right, the words choose themselves.”

He added: “I am conscious that there was a compulsion in me to write from an early age, like there is a compulsion in some people to make music or draw.”

That impulse first showed itself at the tender age of five, when the young Donald was sitting on the floor at home, with crayons, designing a comic.

“It’s one of my earliest memories,” he said. “I gave it to my dad and asked him, ‘can you sell this in the shop?’ He came back the following day with thruppence. “It was obviously an important memory because it was stored away. Otherwise, I’d have forgotten about it.”

Image by Carol Ann Peacock from the book (© Carol Ann Peacock)

Some 20 years later, and Donald’s creative work was once again in the spotlight. This time it was a short story read out on Radio 4. He continued to write prose as he progressed through teaching. In 1998, he was shortlisted for a Saltire Award for a collection of short stories called Special Deliverance. Interestingly, he was late in coming to poetry, not beginning to write them until he was 41. He describes his poems as “not really poems; but narratives in verse”, and his new collection has already attracted the attention of literary editors.

Coincidentally, the same poem, ‘Weaving Song I’, was chosen by both The Herald and The Scotsman for their respective ‘poem of the month’ slots. It tells of his father practicing his precenting while working the loom, and was also the poem that “sparked the whole thing off”. It is also one of Donald’s personal favourites, as is the poem called ‘Weaving Stars’, about a neighbouring weaver in Ness, Donnie Gillies, who would work by night “when moon was clear and full / as if his shuttle was a sky-rocket / trailing in its slipstream a cloudy plume of wool”.

Many childhood memories are woven through Weaving Songs, but it is, primarily, a song for the late Angus Murray, dedicated to his memory, with love. Donald said: “My dad brought me and my brother up, which was really unusual. It’s much more acceptable now – we blur the genders a bit more – but way back in the Sixties and early Seventies, it was almost an unthinkable thing for a man to do.

“This book is a tribute to my dad. He was certainly the most paternal man I ever met; he was a natural father. I’m not saying he was flawless, but he had extraordinary patience and gentleness.”

Of the finished product, Donald said: “I think it’s a lovely book. Carol Ann’s photographs are wonderful and I’m very happy I went with Acair as a publisher. There’s something appropriate about having a book about an industry that is so basic to the Outer Hebrides published in the Outer Hebrides. It’s almost as if it matches the Harris Tweed definition – woven and published in the Outer Hebrides.”

It was natural, too, to choose Stornoway for the launch. Donald said: “Stornoway is where the book belongs and it’s where I belong. At the end of the day, I am a Lewis writer and Lewis made me what I am, with all its complications and complexities. It’s where my family came from for generations; it’s where my dad used to weave, day in, day out. I suppose, at the end of the day, Lewis is my favourite place on earth.”

Photographer Carol Ann Peacock

Carol Ann’s contribution to the book grew out of a college project she did during the last year of an HND in Digital Photography and Imaging at what was then Glasgow Metropolitan College. She had decided to do a photographic project on Harris Tweed and its weavers after finishing a previous project which had focused on fishermen in the Uists.

She took photographs of every stage of the Harris Tweed journey: from the weaving in the loom sheds, to the machinery in the factories and the finished pieces in Savile Row. Some of the photographs are striking contemporary studies, such as snatches of dye pots and swatches of fabric.

For Carol Ann, though, it’s all about the weavers. She said: “Obviously, it’s a beautiful process to photograph but the most important thing for me about Harris Tweed is the warmth of the people involved. It’s also such a uniquely Scottish product: the level of craftsmanship is unbelievable.”

Acair manager Agnes Rennie said it had been, for them, “a great pleasure to work on Weaving Songs and to see a gorgeous book emerge from two distinct and separate pieces of work. Donald’s writing is visibly contemporary but firmly rooted in the cultural landscape which was the Lewis he grew up in. Donald doesn’t write Gaelic but the rhythms and melodic sounds of the Gaelic language are firmly imprinted in both his poetry and prose writing.”

She added: “Carol Ann’s photography documents the process of Harris Tweed production from mill to loom to the tailor’s shop and provides a timely reflection on an industry which is both synonymous with the crofting economy of Lewis and Harris and driven by the mercurial economy of the fashion houses of London and New York.”

Weaving Songs cover

Donald S Murray will be launching Weaving Songs in Stornoway Library this Friday (November 18) at 5.30pm. Weaving Songs is available, priced £14.95, from Acair and all good book shops.

© Katie Laing, 2011

Links

• Acair
• Carol Ann Peacock