Pushing The Boundaries

PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES does exactly that. Whatever your impressions of a basketmaker’s circle may be, this exhibition will challenge and expand your ideas about the art of working with willow.

The combination of age old techniques and contemporary exploration of natural materials successfully breaks down the popular divide between visual art and craft. The art of woven willow is convincingly merged with the disciplines of drawing, painting and sculpture.

Membership of the Scottish Basketmaker’s Circle extends beyond our borders, including artists from Scotland, England, Denmark and New Zealand.

My first impression of “Pushing the Boundaries” was the wonderful earthy smell of natural materials which hit you the moment you step into the exhibition space. There is something basic and sensual about experiencing an exhibition (at least in part) with your nose!

This sense also led me through the Brahan Estate to Patrick Dougherty’s large-scale sculptural work as part of the ‘Big Willow Project’. ‘Pushing the Boundaries’ also coincides with a series of classes and activities for school children at the Brahan Estate, led by artists in residence Caroline Dear and Tim Johnson, who are also represented in the exhibition.

Juliet Arnott’s creation of ‘Nests’ constructed from Norfolk willow prompts the viewer to consider the “simple beauty and genius in nature.” Awareness of nature and its cycles are central to harvest and work with a material such as willow. For me personally this show highlights the role of art as integral to life, something that earlier societies understood far better than our own.

Linda Soo’s ‘Arrow Basket’, constructed from white horse hair, Harris wool, willow and natural dyed sisal, pushes the boundaries of a loom-woven object into 3D form. As an object it connects with ancient systems of belief. Reverence for the earth and ritualised hunting practices created this kind of vessel / art which has both a sacred and practical function. The materials themselves when woven together in this manner have a purity which is quite beautiful.

Many of the artists of the circle have been influenced by the indigenous art of other cultures. Eva Seidenfaden’s ‘Sunshine I, II and III’ take their form from a spiral weave learnt in Africa and there are also references to Maori and North American traditional creative techniques and use of natural materials. The exhibition combines ideas of heritage, traditional craftsmanship and the origins of materials and their creative use in an innovative way.

this show highlights the role of art as integral to life, something that earlier societies understood far better than our own

Jane Wilkinson and Liz Rowley have created a screen of willow panels and fused glass. Introducing light-reflective materials into a densely woven solid structure, the wavy organic form of woven willow in deep green, ochre and brown is both functional and beautiful.

The biggest surprise for me was the way in which drawing, painting and sculptural processes merge with willow as a medium. The work of artists Tim Johnson, Caroline Dear and Lizzie Farey best sum up this approach.

Inspired by Abstract Expressionist painter Jackson Pollock’s assertion that “The painting has its own life. I try to let that life come out,” materials reveal themselves” in Farey’s ‘Currach Series I, II and III’. The progression in this series from a traditional floor weave into abstraction allows the materials to exhibit a life all of their own.

Tim Johnson’s ‘In Under’, ‘Snare’, ‘Shard’ and ‘For Hukwe’, a series of slabs made from experimentation with crushed chalk and scorched willow, create the effect of human marks emerging out of sediment. These scorched willow marks in low relief are part sculpture, part elemental drawing.

This idea of willow as a drawing material is carried further in Caroline Dear’s work. Her composition ‘From Square to Circle, Heather Triptych’, develops sequentially woven heather roots from formalised pattern into an abstraction.

‘Explosion;, constructed from birch trimmings, creates sweeps of line and points articulation from seed pods. It is a wonderful 3D object drawn with dynamism by simple lines of birch. Dear’s exploration of her materials leads to a new understanding of what constitutes a “drawn” image.

American artist Patrick Dougherty’s response to location, landscape and the ancient standing stones in the region have created an amazing group of large scale sculptures created for the Big Willow Project on the Brahan Estate. These sculptures are to be in place until they are deconstructed as part of a performance for the 2007 celebrations involving fire, dance and music.

I was fortunate to visit Brahan on a beautiful sunny day and was happy to meander along the walking trails that lead down to a small loch where the sculptures are situated. The path and route to the Big Willow Project could, however, be better signposted, with more information for the visitor on the range of activities taking place and information about the artists involved.

Along the way in a small clearing were examples of basketry and a circular wreath, signs of human activity amongst the sound of birdsong, wind moving through groves of trees and the smell of freshly cut grass. Fields of bluebells and the heavy sweet scent of honeysuckle line the woodland path. The loch itself is surrounded by fields of yellow rapeseed so vibrant and saturated with colour that it is impossible not to have your spirits lifted.

The site of these huge structures by water is a wonderful respite or breathing space. The forms themselves are grouped together like large standing stones woven in thick strong sweeps of movement. There is shelter in their cocoon-like structure, you can move within them and view the surrounding area framed by openings in their sheltering form.

The smell, texture and feeling of protection within them are intoxicating. Sunlight streamed through fronds of willow catkins against the blue cloud filled sky. The presence of birds, dragonflies and the way the wind funnels through the forms hitting your body as you stand inside them is living nature.

From the far side of the loch and at a distance the sculptures are like a magical gathering open to the elements and formed by them. I am sure that children would respond to the stimulus of this work in its natural setting and it is a great way of introducing them to environmental sculpturally based art.

Both exhibitions in the museum space and in the landscape are engaging on many levels, whatever the weather they beg further exploration.

© Georgina Coburn, 2006

'The Girl with Red Hair' by Joan Eardley (Oil on Board, 24 x 20 inches)

JOAN EARDLEY (1921-1963) was born in Warnham, Sussex. She moved to Glasgow in 1940 to enrol in the Glasgow School of Art. Winning prizes, she travelled to France and Italy on a Carnegie bursary, and began to absorb the influences of Van Gogh and others. She returned to her studio at Cochrane Street, Glasgow, and began to sketch and paint the tenement life nearby. Later, she lived and worked in Catterline, Kincardineshire. until her early death in 1963.

Her Glasgow studio in Cochrane Street became so well-known that local children came to pose for sketches and photographs. These sketches are both poignant and challenging. Children in poor and ill-fitting clothes are frozen in time, “No Mean City” seen through an artist’s eyes. Her rich seascapes inspired by Catterline sit in sharp contrast to the Glasgow work, but have the same vibrancy and defiance.

Eardley’s work suggests both the toil of slum survival and the toil of life on and by the sea. The transition from Eardley to the other section of this exhibition, “Toil: Images of Rural and Urban Working Life”, is a smooth one because the hinge is toil itself. It’s a pleasure to see Robert McGregor’s familiar “Gathering Stones” alongside Peter Howson’s more disturbing “The Noble Dosser” which could well depict the adulthood of one of Eardley’s young Glasgow subjects.

McGregor’s work is one rare example of a painting with delicate colour in an unromantic setting: three women gathering stones from a beach. Howson’s paintings bulge and threaten to burst the canvas like the Incredible Hulk, and their power is in the lurking menace of huge biceps and hands. Howson and Eardley, both shaped by the industrial centres of Central Scotland produce work that has special relevance for Highland people who know plenty about toil on land and sea.

The exhibition can be seen at the following galleries:
St. Fergus Gallery, Wick Library, until 14 June 2003.
Iona Gallery, Kingussie, 21 June – 19 July 2003.
Inverness Museum & Art Gallery, 26 July – 30 August 2003.

Admission free.

© Tom Bryan, 2003