Northings | Catherine Turnbull | Activity

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Papay Gyro Nights Arts Festival, on the site Northings

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:12:44 +0000

Papa Westray, Orkney, 6-13 February 2012 PAPA Westray’s small population of around 70 on the tiny Orcadian north isle keep their traditions alive but these generally take the form of a community dance to indigenous tunes or spooting when the moon and tide is right (harvesting razor clams on the beach). THE Papay Gyro Nights Arts Festival […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, A Foy, on the site Northings

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:28:31 +0000

Orkney Arts Society, Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney, 3 February 2012 BEFORE the evening’s entertainment commenced I was stopped in the street by several people during the day who wanted to know what a foy is. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is “A parting entertainment, present, cup of liquor, etc., given by or to one […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, St. Magnus Festival Chorus and Orkney Camerata, on the site Northings

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:34:59 +0000

St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, Orkney, 11 December 2011 THE MEDIEVAL splendour of St Magnus Cathedral is the perfect theatre for this annual festive concert with its soaring red sandstone arches. WHILE the powerful pillars flanking the nave are not so great if you are seated behind them, the atmosphere is still compelling. I was one of the […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Tim Wootton, on the site Northings

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 10:19:39 +0000

THE WINNER of the Birdwatch/Swarovski Artist of the Year 2011 Award has spoken of how experiencing nature and drawing from life led him to winning one of the world’s top wildlife art prizes at the Society of Wildlife Artists’ annual exhibition. ORKNEY-based artist Tim Wootton’s expansive and naturalistic charcoal piece entitled North Haven, Fair…[Read more]

Catherine Turnbull commented on the post, Joanne B. Kaar: Paper Wrappers and Herbarium Sheets, on the site Northings

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 23:38:27 +0000

I visited this exhibition at Caithness Horizons yesterday. Joanne has created one of the most moving art shows I have seen. She involves us in the tragedy behind the story of this brilliant scientist Robert Dick. We mourn the brutal unfairness of his life through the artefacts she has made. There is something very pleasing […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Orkney Storytelling Festival 2011, on the site Northings

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:30:55 +0000

Royal Hotel, Stromness, and other venues, Orkney, 27-30 October 2001 THE YEAR of Scotland’s Islands has flung several performers, writers and artists our way in Orkney in the past months, and the Orkney Storytelling Festival has now reaped the benefit too. The Scottish International Storytelling Festival in Edinburgh has an island odyssey theme…[Read more]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, TMSA Young Trad Tour 2011 , on the site Northings

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 15:40:12 +0000

Orkney Arts Theatre, Kirkwall, Orkney, 23 October 2011 IT was a shame the audience wasn’t bigger, but I can report that those who failed to turn out on a wet and windy night or were away for the school holidays missed a treat at the TMSA Young Trad Tour 2011 concert. THIS was the chance to see […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Balfour @ 200, on the site Northings

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 15:31:14 +0000

Balfour Castle, Shapinsay, Orkney, 21 October 2011 AN evening out at an island castle was the stuff of fairy tales from the moment we stepped aboard the ferry to sail from Thomas Telford’s pier at Kirkwall Harbour. THE late engineer himself – in Victorian costume – emerged from the deck as managing director of EMEC, Neil Kermode, […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, The Poets’ Tour: Pauline Prior Pitt, Gordon Dargie and Rosie Alexander , on the site Northings

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 17:58:14 +0000

Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney, 20 October 2011 THE premise of this tour and its ten events across Scottish Islands is that each features a locally based writer with two brought in from other islands. So in Stromness we had local Rosie Alexander, Pauline Prior-Pitt of North Uist and Gordon Dargie of Shetland. All three featured poets […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Lesley Glaister Reading, on the site Northings

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:08:52 +0000

Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney, 11 October 2011 NOVELIST Lesley Glaister spotted several published and many unpublished writers in the audience for her reading from her novel Chosen – her psychological thriller about religious cults and what happens when a family member joins a sect. This set the theme for her presentation, organised by…[Read more]

Catherine Turnbull commented on the post, The lamp in the seaward window – the art of Sylvia Wishart , on the site Northings

Sat, 17 Sep 2011 13:53:24 +0000

Thanks Morag. Your inside knowledge and insightful review has added weight to my appreciation of the Wishart show. I shall be back there for another gander

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Ivan Drever / Broken Strings, on the site Northings

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 08:18:12 +0000

Sandwick Hall, West Mainland, Orkney, 4 August 2011 ORKNEY-raised Ivan Drever returned to his home islands for his ‘world tour of Orkney’; a prelude to a forthcoming tour of Scotland in October. The former Wolfstone player is travelling solo, minus his Ivan Drever Band or his sometime duo partner, Duncan Chisholm. An enthusiastic home-grown…[Read more]

Catherine Turnbull commented on the post, Open Windows: 45 Artists in 45 Windows, on the site Northings

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 00:03:33 +0000

Excellent Morag, excellent. I hope the trail took people further on up the street to what was once the heart of Stromness.

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, St Magnus International Festival, on the site Northings

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 10:07:08 +0000

Orkney, 17 – 23 June 2011 THE theme for this year’s festival under the directorship of Alasdair Nicolson for the first time was: “the isle is full of noises”, taken from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which opened the show with a community production on a grand scale. We were thrown straight into the drama of the storm-tossed island […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Orkney in Colour: John Bulmer, on the site Northings

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 14:16:53 +0000

Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney, until 10 July, 2011 PHOTOJOURNALIST John Bulmer had made a name for himself in the Sunday Times as a pioneer of colour photography, transforming the gritty monochrome of cities in the north of England into pastel tones, when he came to Orkney in 1964 to work on a story, Britain’s Lonely Islands , with […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Alasdair Nicolson , on the site Northings

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 07:11:33 +0000

THE St Magnus International Festival in Orkney has a new artistic director. ALASDAIR NICOLSON talks to Catherine Turnbull about islands, funding cuts and creativity. ALASDAIR Nicolson chooses Orkney’s almost new Italian restaurant for our interview and ushers me to a table by the window. Last time I was in this place, in February, the composer…[Read more]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Orkney Folk Festival 2011, on the site Northings

Tue, 31 May 2011 08:39:40 +0000

Various venues, Orkney, 26-29 May 2011 IT’S a given that there is music pulsating from every nook and cranny in Stromness for nearly four days at the Orkney Folk Festival, but this year the pace was frenetic with artists lining up for – and sometimes giving up trying for – a coveted seat at the sessions in the […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Duncan McLean and the Driftwood Cowboys, on the site Northings

Tue, 03 May 2011 09:29:59 +0000

LeisureFayre, Pickaquoy Centre, Kirkwall, Orkney. 29 April, 2011 ORKNEY has a strong oral tradition of storytelling and has inspired many songs too, with more than a thousand with links to the isles deposited in the county’s archive. Recently more have been created as novelist, playwright and musician Duncan McLean has turned his hand to song…[Read more]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Orkney Book Festival: Simon Hall and Kevin MacNeil, on the site Northings

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:41:01 +0000

Simon Hall, Orkney Library, 16 April 2011 / Kevin MacNeil, Lynnfield Hotel, Kirkwall, 17 April 2011 SCOTLAND’S newest literary festival, the Orkney Book Festival, celebrated Scottish island writers and writing with diverse offerings from folk who were born or have chosen to settle in the isles . Simon Hall, whose book The History of Orkney…[Read more]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Laura Drever: Tooin, on the site Northings

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:12:42 +0000

19 Albert Street, Kirkwall, Orkney, until 16 April, 2011 AFTER taking time out from exhibiting while having two children, award-winning abstract landscape artist Laura Drever is now renting space above Argo’s bakery shop in Kirkwall for two weeks to exhibit new work completed in the last two years along with drawings made over the last ten years. […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Sea Level: Recent Paintings by Sylvia Hays, on the site Northings

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 09:31:50 +0000

Orkney Museum, Kirkwall, Orkney, until April 23 2011 ANYONE who knows Orkney knows there is a constant unfolding drama of weather played over huge seas and skies uninterrupted by wind breaks or buildings. Sylvia Hays admits she sets herself constant challenges in attempting to depict this environment, and battles with self-inflicted problems.…[Read more]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Taigh Chearsabhagh , on the site Northings

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 07:37:36 +0000

CATHERINE TURNBULL looks at the remarkable success of the adventurous Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre in North Uist THERE MAY be only 1300 residents on the Isle of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides, but Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre draws 35,000 people through its doors every year. Since the thriving museum and gallery with […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Beautiful Being: Cy Twombly and Alex Katz , on the site Northings

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 09:47:52 +0000

Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney, until 4 June, 2011 AMONG celebrated American painter Alex Katz’s series of small painted studies there are several beautiful beings, including his friends and family who also appear among a sequence of portrait heads perched atop a green table. A crowd of bodiless people vying for attention. Part of the…[Read more]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Echoes from the Past, on the site Northings

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 10:08:54 +0000

A Musical Recital featuring John Rae’s fiddle, Stromness Museum, Orkney, 6 March 2011 THE STRAINS of a fiddle are heard among the stuffed birds and animals collected by avid Victorians, while downstairs the wax figure of Arctic explorer Dr John Rae appears to cock an ear to hear his old violin played in the Stromness Museum. It […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Papay Gyro Nights 2011, on the site Northings

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 10:44:56 +0000

Papa Westray, Orkney, 14-21 February 2011 LIVE PAINTING to music performed by folk band The Chair and the folktales of storyteller Tom Muir were the highlights of an international arts festival on the tiny island of Papa Westray in Orkney, known locally as Papay. Papay Gyro Nights saw residents of all ages and visitors witness cutting edge […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Celia Clark Exhibition, on the site Northings

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 10:31:08 +0000

Orkney Museum, Tankerness House, Kirkwall, until 26 February 2011 A RAPID spurt of plant growth and the bleached bones of a seal are two of the details artist Celia Clark has zoomed into with her camera lens. Here is nature close-up and personal in a series of stunningly attractive studies created by digitally manipulating images, reworking […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Test Trenches, on the site Northings

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 11:14:32 +0000

Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney, 24-29 January 2011 HUDDLED together in the foyer of an old storehouse, on the street and on the pier, the harbour lapping the stone wharves, occasional cars surfing down the flagstoned road meandering through Stromness, we waited for the geopoet to begin reading. We were told the room wasn’t quite ready but […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Carmina Burana, on the site Northings

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 11:07:02 +0000

St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, 12 December 2010 THE CHRISTMAS concert in St Magnus Cathedral was full as usual, and no wonder; it must be one of the most atmospheric venues on the planet with its soaring Gothic arches and Viking girthed pillars. This year was no exception with hundreds of concert-goers making the most of the […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Simon Hall Celebrates Saltire First Book Prize, on the site Northings

Sun, 12 Dec 2010 15:25:41 +0000

SALTIRE Society Scottish First Book of the Year joint winner Simon Hall has spoken of his delight at winning the award and revealed his book has already had to be reprinted. The History of Orkney Literature was praised by judges for its excellent writing and passionate discussion, but Dr Hall told of how he almost didn’t make it […]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Stromness Christmas Art Shows 2010, on the site Northings

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 15:39:08 +0000

Christmas Open Exhibition, Pier Arts Centre, until 24 December; Book Stone Voe, Northlight Studio, until 11 December; Christmas Open Exhibition, Waterfront Gallery, until mid-February 2011 CREATIVE ENERGY output must reach its peak in October in Orkney in the countdown to the Christmas art shows, which have a staggering number of arts and crafts…[Read more]

Catherine Turnbull wrote a new post, Celebrating 50 Years of Ola Gorie, on the site Northings

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 13:03:02 +0000

Orkney Museum, Kirkwall, until 24 December 2010, and from 5 January until 29 January 2011 ORKNEY has the largest concentration of craft jewellers in Scotland, inspired by the islands’ rich heritage of ancient carvings and the imagery of ancestors, landscape and wildlife. Designs from many Orkney jewellery companies, drawing on Celtic and Norse…[Read more]

Catherine Turnbull became a registered member

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 08:46:59 +0000