I was reading an interesting article in Gift Focus Magazine recently about getting the price point right for your creations. Gift Focus is a gift ware trade magazine sent to retailers throughout the UK. In the first edition of 2012, an ‘Industry Insight’ article was focused on getting the right price point for your goods. […]

In the run up to starting on my fourth and final Making Progress maker’s film I was pretty excited for a variety of reasons, not least because finally I was to be working on my home turf! Throughout this project I have loved very much travelling around new and strange parts of the Scottish Highlands, meeting […]

Another slightly late blog entry although if truth be known I’ve been struggling to write about my day filming with Nick without it looking like I just copied and pasted the blog I wrote about filming with Patricia and changed a couple of words here and there… In short it went like this: the original plans […]

Ok, so stupidly this will be a photoless blog entry. I got so carried away with the moving pictures I completely forgot to get any not moving ones. Lesson officially learned. Although this is very much in keeping with the rest of the entry as it was a day of learning lessons all round. For example, […]

My third visit was to Caroline Dear, in Fangan which is a wee collection of houses a few miles on the other side of Portree if you come from the direction I did. The run to Skye from Fort William was as beautiful as my drive to Caithness and reminded me again that there is […]

Last Friday I made my way to Aberdeen to meet with Nick Ross and chat about his maker’s video. He’s currently the artist in residence and a tutor in Gray’s School of Art and, having only graduated in 2008, I was impressed before I had even arrived at how he had become so established in such […]

This month,  having recently been taken on board by Screen HI to make films about the artists showcased in the HI-Arts Making Progress mentoring scheme, I’ve been really keen to get stuck into the project and am very enthusiastic about learning all about the process involved (and, of course, meeting lots of new people along the […]

NIGEL MULLAN works as a visual artist. Between 1997 and 2007 he helped to set up and run Another Space as well as developing his own practice. ANOTHER SPACE received funding to show new work in various venues and spaces in the Highlands. Historical and cultural materials were used to mediate artworks for audiences, providing contexts that […]

KENNY MATHIESON sees some familiar paintings in an unaccustomed setting in Edinburgh. ANYONE WHO KNOWS the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness will be familiar with their collection of British – in fact largely English and largely linked to the group of artists associated with Cornwall – abstract art bequeathed to the gallery by the late Margaret Gar…[Read more]

MORAG MACINNES overcames her maths block to enter the imaginative world of Steven MacIver. PAY ATTENTION at the back there! My abiding memory of the maths class is of the teacher – a clever, good, nice teacher – running his hands through his hair in despair and saying ‘for goodness’ sakes girl, it’s obvious!!! ’ Not to […]

MORAG MACINNES enjoys a trip down memory lane WELL, THIS is a nostalgia trip for me. I was that fifties bairn with me socks and sandals, me navy blue knickers and me Saturday sixpence, off down the street to enhance the coffers of the local entrepreneurs. The Stromness Museum is a jewel for lots of reasons – […]

ALEXANDER SMITH checks out a band on a rising curve. HOOTANANNY’S hosted one of April’s most eagerly anticipated gigs with the visit of much-hyped Glasgow band Woodenbox With a Fistful of Fivers. Support came from Inverness’s own James Mackenzie and the Aquascene. The local act delivered a fine set of languid, string laden folk-rock, which at […]

MORAG MACINNES heard Dr Donna Heddle trace connections with the Sagas in the poet’s work THE GEORGE Mackay Brown Fellowship instituted a Memorial Lecture on the poet in 2007, to be held on or as near St Magnus Day (16 April), as possible. Aficionados will know how important to the author the saint was – the […]

MANDY HAGGITH beat the volcanic plume to get to the inaugural George Mackay Brown Festival EVERY festival organiser must hope the event will go off with a bang, but when the proceedings begin with a volcanic explosion, the results are bound to be somewhat unpredictable. When Eyjafjallajoekull erupted the day before the first George Mackay Brown […]

ALEXANDER SMITH caught up with some rising local talent WITH THEIR debut album scheduled for release in a couple of weeks, much-hyped local act Bronto Skylift brought their two man sonic assault to Hootananny for a mid-week outing, supported by super-cool French rockers Mr Protector. The French band quickly disarmed the initially apathetic crowd…[Read more]

GILES SUTHERLAND admires a fine Turner at the heart of this exhibiiton. IT WOULD be easy to miss this quiet, apparently modest and small exhibition but for one thing – it includes a magnificent, accomplished watercolour by John Mallord William Turner, painted in 1833 when the fifty-eight-year-old artist was at the height of his powers. Although […]

JAMES MUNRO finds a mixed bag in the Choral’s latest ambitious outing. MORE YEARS ago than I care to admit, when I started writing about these musical events, my then mentor, sadly no longer with us, emphasised that I was a reviewer, not a critic, and that when reporting on local performances, err on the side […]

JENNIE MACFIE ponders the many facets of the harp in Celtic tradition. CELTIC CULTURE has always been particularly fond of harps; the harp is the national instrument of Ireland, in whose tradition Turlough O’Carolan holds a place comparable to that of the legendary MacCrimmon family of Skye in ours. The bass sound from a full-sized harp […]