I DIPPED into the BA Fine Art graduates exhibition, presently on show at Taigh Chearsabhagh, and slowed down to take it all in.

The immediate reaction was that a large number of individually strong works all had something very much in common. There was a wide range of techniques employed – video, conventional and digital photography, drawing, painting, performance, sculpture and installation but it really is a group exhibition rather than a dutiful showing of work produced to gain a degree.

Amanda Rae - Decommissioned

The degree course is itself a significant achievement. It seems to me to demonstrate the value of productive partnerships. Lews Castle College first linked with Taigh Chearsabhagh to establish a Foundation Course, giving the opportunity for emerging artists to pursue their arts education on home turf but also attracting visiting ones to become immersed in a situation where you cannot help but be aware of the natural environment.

Then a further partnership with Moray College of Art led to the possibility of the full degree course, awarded by UHI, working with the three partner organizations. But the teaching and studio work is done at Taigh Chearsabhagh, and the role of the North Uist environment seems to me crucial, as expressed in this fine body of work.

I’ve been aware of the work of one of these graduate artists so can comment on developments which appear to have happened during the course. There is no way of observing whether this is because new possibilities are introduced by teaching and by interaction with colleagues or whether  it is simply that the opportunity to focus fully on making art (rather than having to squeeze hours in between other priorities)  fosters the new work.

But Marnie Keltie’s wall-drawing and aritst’s book are the excellent products of a sustained approach to a subject – the interaction of the human and the natural on an exposed shore.

Marnie Keltie - Dislocation

The pigments which carry the lines have been hand-made from collected materials. In one way the work seems near abstract and in another it captures the original lines of wind and tide on the shore in a way that is indeed representational. It’s a fine product, where a strong idea finds a sympathetic medium.

I was reminded of the late Bob Callender’s astonishing recreations of debris on tidelines, when I encountered Marnie Keltie’s series of works  made with oil on linen. You might think it’s impossible to make anything new from the clash of detritus on a landscape but the handmade book rings out with one startling capture after another.

Laura Donkers - The Nature of a Finding

Deborah Ann MacVicar also uses the form of an individual book to communicate her quirky results of performances in landscape. Some of these are also realized as prints on fabric (cyanotype on cotton) and recall the eery quality of the blue men of the stream stories and other folk-tales.  A video installation catches  a shamanistic dance of antlers. The evidence made me want to see an actual performance work.

One single work brought you skillfully out of the gallery geography by making a spiral of the corner of the room. You were led along a curving installation – heavy paper stretched to entice you along a single drawing. This is realized by Laura Donkers in lichen ink, charcoal and graphite – so again the environment is producing the materials used to describe it.

The free drawing is bold and direct in one sense and yet the end result has delicacy within the robust framework. The style reminded me of the work of Laura Drever from Orkney, derived from observing birds and recently published by Brae Editions in a  collaboration with the poet Lesley Harrison.

The artist has been awarded an artists residency in Arteles, Finland, continuing well-established links between Hebridean island arts bodies and Finland. She plans to explore the idea of planting as drawing so we can hope to see subsequent results.

You are invited to do a bit of exploring along the drying and covering routes to tidal islands in the work shown by Lorraine Burke. There is a meeting of the contemporary – in digital sound recordings and an older technology in the use of large format camera. The artist describes building the visual work from the soundscape. There is the eerie quality of struggling memory in the transposing of recorded light to black vinyl print.

Deborah Ann MacVicar - Self-Portrait

The range of this show needs the space afforded by both main gallery areas. Unfortunately, some of the wear and tear and technical issues prevented me from engaging with some of the works described in the  interpretation material. But that’s part of the risks which balance the gains of the digital world.

Amanda Rae’s work is mixed media assemblage so only needed adequate lighting to reveal its intriguing qualities. It’s as if whole libraries of stories has been chewed and spat and re-assembled into arresting motifs – a caged bird or a struggling human form.

Mairi Thompson takes the title “Inside Out” for her video. You hear the balancing “Outside In” from the lyric by The Police. Now I have to say I somehow missed this work and am not in a position to return to Uist to see it so here is a quote from Mary Morrison’s review of the exhibition for the UHI website:

“The filming mixed close-ups with slight shifts in focus, pausing on iconic objects, such as the kitchen sink, for a moment only, enticing the eye to want to unravel more.  Everyday drudgery transformed into art, the focus on the necessary, anti-heroic business of housework both elevated and celebrated its performance.”

Anne Corrance Monk - Untitled

A large scale colour digital print by Anne Corrance Monk again balances the natural cycles of growth and decay with human intervention. It is a poly-tunnel – nearly as significant a mark on the Hebridean landscape as the peatstack or corrugated iron shed. I was reminded of photographic studies of American townscapes or interior landscapes of motel rooms. This art is all in the eye – close observation framing what is seen so it is all contained in its own harmony.

I was not able to see the glass book containing a complementary series of digital prints but I was able to thumb through the prints themselves. Just simply mounted on card pages and shown as an unbound folio. The form of presentation just didn’t seem to matter as you became lost in the gradual changes in human and natural signs, lit by  the famous darts of light between Uist clouds.

© Ian Stephen, 2011

Links

• Taigh Chearsabhagh
• Review on Lews UHI Website
• Ian Stephen

The 70-year-old singer was not only one of the great voices in Gaelic music, but a thoroughly nice person, and she will be sorely missed. Ishbel always seemed a little bemused by the praise which came her way – I recall Karen Matheson, then in the first flush of international success propelled by Capercaillie’s early chart hit, blurting out to the audience in the Barony Hall in Glasgow that she was overawed to be sharing a stage with Ishbel. Ishbel just shook her head and laughed.

She was a native of the Point area in Lewis, and grew up with the Gaelic tradition of that locality. She was not only a wonderful performer in many different settings – although never better than in unaccompanied song – over the decades, but also a hard-working advocate and ambassador for both Gaelic language and song, and a fine teacher through the Fèisean movement. Acting appearances in the Gaelic soap Machair brought her to a wider audience.

Ishbel MacAskill

She is survived by her husband, Bill, and their children, and we offer our condolences to the family and her many friends. Doubtless many tributes will follow in the coming days as the Gaelic and wider Scottish music community absorbs the news, but her singing ­ both on record and in the memory – will remain as the most meaningful tribute of all.

As I say, other topics can wait for a more propitious moment, but I cannot allow this month’s Editorial to pass without saying a huge thank you to Marcus Wilson, who stands down as the Development Officer at HI-Arts to concentrate on his own web services business for the cultural sector and creative businesses.

For an early example of his work out side of this website, have a look at the new Taigh Chearsabhagh website – and Catherine Turnbull’s article on a North Uist success story in this year of the Scottish Islands.

The new Taigh Chearsabhagh website

Marcus has done many excellent things in his time at HI-Arts, but from a Northings point of view, he is the architect of this new site that we are all enjoying, and we owe him a huge thanks for his work in developing and administering it. Happily, he will still be devoting a bit of time to that work.

Finally, we welcome a new blogger to the Northings community this month, Highland Council’s Events Office, Gerry Reynolds, a man of strong opinions and one we are confident will provide fascinating reading in the coming months.

For a number of reasons, including the amount of administration involved, we have decided to limit the Blogs to invited participants, and have amended our FAQs accordingly. My apologies to those members who have contacted us on that matter, but bear in mind that it is still open to any member to set up a group on a topic of their choice (again, see our FAQs for details).

Kenny Mathieson

Editor

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 its café, gift shop and busy post office, opened in 1995, the centre has been a focus of island life and has played a huge part in regenerating the community, both culturally and economically.

The Morning Star moored in front of Taigh Chearsabhagh

The art arm offers a creative programme through residencies, research, commissions, events and public programmes with an environmental focus.

Meanwhile, the museum, with its collection of over 1000 artefacts held by Comann Eachdraidh Uibhist a Tuath (North Uist Historical Society), supports a huge range of heritage activities and events through imaginative interpretation of the heritage and culture of communities in North Uist.

Artist Chris Drury on Eaval, North Uist 2009, as part of his Land, Water & Language project at Taigh Chearsabhagh

And the stimulus for islanders and visitors goes way beyond what goes on within the walls of the renovated building, dated 1741 – one of the first buildings in North Uist to have a slate roof – through outreach and educational programmes, promotion of a studio trail and a centre of excellence for environmental art – including notable collaborations with Andy Goldsworthy and Chris Drury – that is spreading a message far and wide.

Arts officer Andy Mackinnon says Taigh Chearsabhagh is a very popular place, and one which is not only a huge focus for the community, but also lures many visitors to the island.

Taigh Chearsabhagh at night (photo Stephen Carter)

“There is no other café in Lochmaddy and we are right next to the ferry terminal,” he says. “There are two distinct sides to the centre. The history and heritage of the unique island culture and the contemporary visual arts are presented in the gallery and museum spaces.

“Uist Arts Association was instrumental in setting up the centre and plays a major part in running and developing the programmes. We have had ­ and will have ­ some amazing residencies here. For example, textile artist Deirdre Nelson used crofting and domestic artefacts from the collections of Comann Eachdraidh Uibhist a Tuath and Gaelic proverbs about working life as inspiration for a large scale knitting project that culminated in the exhibition A’ Fighe a Cheo – Knitting Fog, elements of which are still on tour in the UK.”

“We have a cycle of exhibitions amounting to about a dozen each year, and the Uist Arts Association organise a Uist-wide summer open studio trail.”

Lews Castle College UHI leases space in Taigh Chearsabhagh as its Lochmaddy campus, where students can study a BA in Fine Art levels 1 & 2, and an NC in Art & Design.

“Students get a lot out of feeding off our programmes and show their work here in our exhibition programme,” says Andy.

Taigh Chearsabhagh has fostered creative partnerships such as a collaboration between Tero Kontinen from Finland and Trine Pedersen from Denmark, who started drawing together in autumn 2008 on North Uist at an international artists workshop hosted by Taigh Chearsabhagh. This is a continuing activity, and the pair will exhibit ‘Island’ at the centre from June 4 until August 27, 2011.

Organic Growth, Trine Pedersen & Tero Kontinen, 2010

The artists say: “Each drawing has been created during certain period of time by layering different elements together and the work is finished when both of us agree about it. During the process the drawings can be filled up with spontaneous traces of pencil or brush together with more accurately and slowly drawn elements. Each visual element and color might have a reference to our daily lives, to our conversations or to a purely imaginary world of ours. The works have always double title from both artists.”

Also coming up is the inaugural Uist Eco Film Festival. The event is a collaboration between Taigh Chearsabhagh and Sustainable Uist which presents a weekend of screenings and related events focusing on climate change and sustainability issues in island and maritime contexts.

It aims to explore what we have got, what we stand to lose and how we can change the situation. The festival will show international documentary and fiction films and videos at Balivanich Community Hall, Benbecula between April 29 and May 1, 2011.

Chris Drury's Vessel, an installation in willow, ash, heather, and salmon skin, 2010

“The main focus of our arts programme is environmental, with artists working in the landscape and creating work about environmental issues,” adds Andy. “We are dependant on our unique environment here in the islands.

“We have an in-house production company for film, collaborating with artists on film projects, creating interpretative materials and training in editing, and we have a regular film club. We have been working jointly with Sustainable Uist on the Eco Film Festival. This will include the UK premiere of Climate and Change, narrated by Tilda Swinton, and a screening of the Oscar-nominated documentary Waste Land.”

An example of Taigh Chearsabhagh’s video work is the feature length Millennium documentary Passing Places – The Real Outer Hebrides. Contributors made short films about their lives and communities with support from the centre, and the result was a non-stereotypical view of island life with a soundtrack produced through workshops led by Fred and Deidre Morrison.

Now a sequel is planned, and the original filmmakers and new contributors will be asked what has changed over the last decade. Expected themes include community buy-outs, environmental issues, new technology, transport and outward migration. The film will be marketed locally and internationally to film festivals and will be accessible online to reach a global audience using social networking media.

There are many other community events hosted in the arts centre, from poetry evenings to a writing group, and facilities range from a print workshop and dark room to video editing. Outreach and education offers the Start programme of supported visits and workshops for school pupils and has led to work being shown at festivals and other galleries.

Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum’s 1000 artefacts represent the heritage and culture of communities in North Uist, mainly dating to the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Currently the artefacts are held in a museum store on Benbecula, but the goal is to create a permanent home with a viewing area. The collection is currently being digitally catalogued.

Gold Sheep Skull - Deirdre Nelson, 2008

Comann Eachdraidh Uibhist a Tuath also holds an amazing photographic archive of around 3,500 print and transparencies and a smaller sound archive.

The largest artefact held by the museum is the boat Morning Star, which operates regular educational trips for the public between May and September round the special marine habitat of Lochmaddy Bay. Built in 1928, the vessel served the community as a mail and supply boat and was restored between 2002 and 2007 by the Grimsay Boatshed Trust as part of a heritage, craft and community training programme.

The museum’s current exhibition is Communication and Transport, which will look at how people travelled between islands. This will include sea routes, traditional footpaths and track as well as air routes. The exhibition runs until January 31, 2012.

© Catherine Turnbull, 2011

Links

• Taigh Chearsabagh
• Taigh Chearsabagh on the Vimeo Channel
• Uist Eco Film Festival

Taigh Chearsabhagh presents an accessible and integrated programme combining contemporary art and the islands’ heritage and culture with interpreted exhibitions, events, residencies and educational programme.The unique landscape and culture of the Uists provides the context within which we are able to offer a very special creative programme.

Taigh Chearsabhagh aims to make a significant contribution to arts and cultural provision both locally and internationally.

Open all year, Mon-Sat 10.00-17.00

EILEEN BELL hears the story behind textile artist Alison Bell’s current exhibition at Taigh Chearsabhagh

Sea Silks / Sioda Na Mara by Alison Bell (photo - Alison Bell)

TEXTILE ARTIST Alison F. Bell has had a rough couple of years. Living away from home and family on her beloved Isle of Arran, Alison has spent months upon months working painstakingly with swathes of silk, attempting to turn the plain cloth into something meaningful, beautiful, inspirational.

It’s a classic tale of suffering for one’s art; a time-honoured process which is always worthwhile, as long as something has been gained at the end of it. For Alison, the results have been highly satisfactory: she now has an exhibition’s worth of textiles to marvel over.

Alison explains that the work was inspired by the beauty of west coast and island shores, particularly that of Arran. “I do actually think of it as ‘my’ shoreline,” she confesses. “I almost think of myself as a guardian of it.”

It was while walking up and down this shore daily, and noticing the changes which made it come alive, that she felt inspired to begin the sea silks collection.

“Going up and down the shoreline, we see changes day after day; they can be minute, or they can be enormous,” said Alison. “It’s fascinating, knowing that this power is there, is happening all the time.

“These surfaces that we walk over every day, we don’t even think about them – but when we turn something over and look underneath it, there’s a whole world of beauty. I want us to think more about the things we see every day, the fragility of it all – and to realise that if we don’t look after it, it will disappear.

“I basically took a two-year sabbatical from my life,” she said. “I was finding it very difficult to move the work forward, but I knew it had a lot further to go. It was as if I had become saturated with the beauty – I couldn’t see how to put it all into the work. So, I went to stay in places through Ayrshire, to open up my head a bit; and it worked.”

Alison deliberately chose places with no sea views, with no scenes of breathtaking beauty for her to look at; places with what one might call a very different kind of landscape. And somehow, taking a break from the distractions of sea and shore allowed her to finally spend hours upon hours manipulating small and large swathes of simple silk into something else.

“I almost became like a hermit in a very urban environment, and that cleared my head” she reveals. “I wouldn’t want to do it again, simply because it was really, really hard. Sensitivity-wise, and visually as well.”

The method used to make Alison’s representations of the sea from her raw cloth was a major artistic departure for Alison.

“I used all of the tacit knowledge that I have in textile skills,” she says. “Digital printing, painting, dyeing, waxing, framing.

“I’m fundamentally a two-dimensional artist, so I had to learn to visualise by actually making – to draw out the images and the feelings I had in my mind. It was quite literally a new dimension for me.”

Each piece of silk was first painted with pigment: unlike dye, the pigment stays on the surface of the silk – coating and colouring it at the same time, and giving it a stiffer, more solid feel. It’s then waxed, etched, painted again; and then each piece is finally stitched.

“The most important element of this is time – and patience,” Alison reveals. “I do one part of it, then I go away and let it sit. Then I’ll come back to it, and discover what I want to do next – each piece will take days to make.”

She adds that bringing the work to Taigh Chearsabhagh was the perfect culmination of long months of effort.

“There’s something about North Uist,” she confides. “I went there for the first time five years ago, and I was deeply affected by the place. I felt very very much at home there.

“I have exhibited at An Tobar on Mull, but that has a different feel; and of course I’m at home on Arran, but that has a different feel too. Every island does. When I came back, I found my work was somehow beginning to shift – so I just went with it.”

This affinity with the island was strong enough for it to power its way into Alison’s work; but still, she wasn’t prepared for how right her work would look there. But after going back to supervise the installation of the Sea Silks in Gallery One, she found herself exhausted by it all.

“I hadn’t realised how powerful it would be, how the installation would look in 3D,” she said. “I was gobsmacked at what I had created, in terms of presence and power. I can’t go back to who I was now. That person doesn’t exist anymore.”

After the exhibition’s run at Taigh Chearsabhagh ends, Alison has no home for the installation as yet. She is completely opposed to the idea of selling it off piece by piece – it is, she says, one work of art. She would rather release a few of the pieces into the sea, to spend their lives floating along with the seaweed.

“I’m finding it very difficult to let that work go,” she confesses. “It had such a dramatic effect on me – I feel so torn. It’s like a bereavement, in a way; you are mourning the loss of something, but at the same time, you’re celebrating the fact that it existed.

“What I would really like is to see the work somewhere that people go who need peace,” said Alison. “A hospice, or a hospital chapel, or a place of worship. An intimate space where people go to reflect and where they need quiet and stillness.
“If you could sit beneath it, and it would slowly rotate above you, and you could be just filled with peace.”

Sea Silks / Sìoda Na Mara runs at Taigh Chearsabhagh in Lochmaddy until 28 March.

© Eileen Bell, 2009

Links

• Taigh Chearsabhagh
• Alison Bell’s Blogspot

Work by Allison Weightman

THIS IS a guy who never buys art because he’s got a house full of stuff from shows and swaps, but…. More than 10 years ago, I’d just completed the finishing details on a purpose-built studio, angled towards the Minch, and I bought two raku pots by Allison Weightman. Her work was known to me by the Scoraig connection – we may well have been at a demonstration together, but I definitely ended up lying in front of transit vans with her neighbour. As you do.

And when we chatted in the police van the subject of Allison’s pots came up. I remembered seeing them and feeling that they were partly a response to An Tealleach towering over Little Loch Broom and bleached bones, scoured rock and scudding hail. I imagined a ritual of driftwood drying in rotation and the moon being in the right quarter for the firing and the temperature being reached and the compulsive combination of craft and accident yielding these crackled glazes when the straw was lifted.

So when I saw the pots which seemed to fit that vision, also by that time filtered through the experience of attending renga workshops at the Ceilidh Place, courtesy of The Japan Festival, I bought a couple. And they are now installed in the kind of (sometimes) minimalist environment that’s my living room. And I never tire of living with them.

But when I met Allison doing a workshop as part of a pretty messy public art project linked to Ullapool High School rebuild, I felt the more transient experience of attending it stayed with me longer than most of the permanent works installed. I can say that this shaped my own approach to public art for a time to come.

The workshop intro went something like this: OK, Raku is usually done with driftwood and a ritual of building fires and turning them and all that but I find a decent blowtorch and this oil drum do the job pretty well.

And I took part in a similar workshop within the falling walls of a blackhouse on Tanera Mor as part of the Triangle Trust’s Three Islands project: OK, Green tea is usually thought of as the thing to drink while we’re at this stage of the glazing but I find a very moderate shot of Tequila works pretty well.

Just enough to free and relax the dipping and painting of the pre-moulded pots but not enough to add further danger to a process involving the aforementioned apparatus and significant temperatures. The pots as they emerged were exciting and quiet at the same time. After all these years there were still surprises in the colour and form of the decoration which emerged.

I thought of the composer David Graham’s description of asking a Cuban drummer if he ever tired of playing what was essentially the same beat, all his life. No, because I can always play it better, was the reply. I’m convinced this artist and her ease within this form could result in endlessly satisfying work for more than a lifetime. There’s no need to “move-on” or “develop”.

I don’t know when I first heard of her working practice of shooting at pots. I saw examples and did not know the process or the reasoning or purpose behind it. In De-struction Ceramics, which has just opened at Taigh Chearsabhagh, all this is clear.

The work of two artists is on show. Ehren Tool is a Gulf War veteran. He makes simple mugs and applies drawings which are a reminder of a recent history which is shocking. The drawings seem at first like decorations, like tribal scratchings on bone. But the scenes depicted on a practical domestic object are reminders of what this eye witness and participant has experienced. His practice is to continue to make these and give them away so they are not precious objects but the instruments of a mission.

All the Weightman ceramics in this exhibition have been shot when at the “leather” stage. That is when the drying clay has the characteristics of animal skin. The spray of shotgun pellets or the explosion from a high-velocity rifle disrupts the form which has been previously found. The new, marked piece is then fired so the history of the action is fixed.

Sometimes the process is applied to a harmonic shape, say a near-disc which seems a thing of beauty but abstract. Some of the most disturbing works are different. Weightman has taken clay castings from the torsos of some of her children and allowed them to dry to the skin-like stage. Then she’s shot the cast. Then fired it.

On the face of it this seems to have something in common with the “Sensation” exhibition where shock tactics were to the fore. It seems to me that this work is completely different. In the words of Yeats (who witnessed War and Civil War), “A terrible beauty is born.”

The really strange thing is that the work retains some of the quiet elegance which comes from years of craft. This makes it bearable. So you don’t switch off but look closely at the work produced by one mother. The cartridge or bullet is only part of the story. I don’t think this could have been achieved without a sense of compassion for all the other mothers.

I propose two possible comparisons. Some late works by Will Maclean have suggestions of barbs and suffering. Nothing new in his practice but the imagery has become more sustained so it’s like an anthropological archive. Again the work has accomplished craft behind it so it has some of the timeless quality of Innuit carvings. I’m thinking particularly of his Creative Scotland show at DCA which included the imagery of Jiggers – a whole tradition of making a specific fishing lure.

By contrast I propose a comparison with the work of Tracy Emin, seen in the recent retrospective at the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art. It turns out that Allison Weightman experienced being shot by an air rifle. What could have been a minor injury was infected and became serious.

So she witnessed the corruption of a part of her own body, caused by the impact of lead. But that personal experience is transformed into something different though true to the personal experience – the way a novelist or playwright can usefully distort the truth of an incident in a personal life.

Whereas it seems to me Emin’s work, derived from personal trauma, is all about walking as naked as possible in public. The expression is as raw as it needs to be, the form of sewing or composition or display being the minimum to achieve the purpose.

For me the transformations of form and story which take place in Weightman’s new exhibition are equally interesting. It’s a courageous piece of programming on Taigh Chearsabhagh’s part to mount this over the Christmas period. Matters of life and possible death.

© Ian Stephen, 2008

Links

• Taigh Chearsabhagh
• Allison Weightman
• Ian Stephen

Associated Page

• Allison Weightman Feature

Andy Goldsworthy (Photo - Stephen Carter)

ANDY Goldsworthy is not a name to be trifled with. As one of the leading environmental artists in the UK – not to mention the world – Goldsworthy has defined the art of the ephemeral. He moulds nature into something evocative, something beautiful, or something just plain odd – and then watches it disappear, his creation no match for our mother earth.

The undeniable forces of nature to do exactly what it wills are nowhere more apparent than in the Hebrides; and Goldsworthy is the perfect artist to capture that tension, that energy, that impression that each and every dune or stone or machair flower is on the cusp of being altered somehow by the impressive forces of wind and tide. But despite Goldsworthy being the one of the few artists who can interpret the landscape of the Isles, his North Uist Works are nowhere near as good as he is.

Taigh Chearsabhagh’s exhibition obviously cannot include any element of the works themselves, these having been washed away soon after his springtime visit; so instead, the exhibition is composed of photos taken by the artist. These selections, a dozen or so framed prints of each work, are not art in themselves: they are the only record of the art, capturing its alterations in the stages of collapse.

These are, admittedly, fascinating. There is something mesmerising about watching the changing forms of a huge ball made from wet sand, stones and seaweed; or a ring of sheep’s wool on stones, which looks for all the world like a ripple on water; or seaweed making curving lines in the sand. But even more fascinating is the DVD of a lecture Goldsworthy gave after his week in Uist had come to an end, running on a continuous loop alongside the exhibition.

A maximum of two visitors at a time can sit down, pick up the earphones, and see a slide show of Goldsworthy’s works, examples selected by the artist himself, as he discusses his week in Uist and the processes of his other artistic works.

A great deal of this work is set in Dumfriesshire, the adopted home of the Cheshire-born, Yorkshire-bred artist. It’s seeing the work Goldsworthy had done there, in the woods and moors near his home, that really proves his credibility to those not familiar with him. He admits that even after working in a landscape for 20 years, he is continually finding new things – which is exactly the problem with the Uist material. He simply hasn’t had enough time to get to know the environment, to build up a fruitful connection.

The other major obstactle for Goldsworthy was the quite formidable Uist climate. In his artistic life, Goldsworthy has managed to coerce dozens of huge jagged rocks into performing a balancing act the likes of which is seen elsewhere only in cartoons, creating a mosaic more than 12 feet tall and just as wide: his huge heavy boulders defy gravity.

Goldsworthy has worked with elements normally considered unmovable, and in dozens of difficult landscapes; but the Uist wind was a match for him, keeping the artist battering on to make something that would remain a concrete piece of art, if only for a short period of time.

It’s understandable that Goldsworthy’s three major Uist pieces do not rise to the level of his usual work – the artist is just as powerless to overcome that fierce Uist wind and tide as the other elements of nature are. He admits to having to fight, give up, and fight again when confronted with the North Uist machair’s forces; and in only a few days, two of his cameras fell victim to wind and sand.

“I didn’t realise that coming to Uist would be that intense,” said Goldsworthy in his lecture. “Obviously, the total lack of trees is something I have never experienced anywhere. After awhile you get to like it.

“I didn’t make any great kind of mammoth step forward. This is a tough landscape to prise something out of it – one week is not enough.”

Goldsworthy does however admit that the elements reinforced his belief that working with nature is best wherever possible. “Those moments during this last week where instead of fighting the wind, turning with it – those are going to be exciting in the work,” said Goldsworthy.

Alongside the running DVD are several books and magazines provided by Taigh Chearsabhagh. Several focus on Goldsworthy’s various works, and some feature interviews with him. These allow visitors to get a bit of a potted history on Goldsworthy himself and the field of environmental art, enabling exhibition-hunters to learn a bit about why he does what he does.

“I feel like every time I go to work, the work comes to life – I bring it to life, and then it dies,” said Goldsworthy, in an interview with the art periodical 4th Door. “Every day, there is this great sense of loss; every day, we lose our youth as we grow, we are losing our parents, losing people we know – we are losing all the time.

“It hurts me to see these things die, fall down, collapse, decay. The changes actually make the work stronger, so it develops into something else. It’s not the material I’m interested in so much as the connection to the whole, and to the whole place.”

And as for his work in Uist, Goldsworthy seems to regard it as the beginning rather than the end.

“It’s not my job to improve on or enhance nature,” said Goldsworthy. ” I cannot do that. I cannot really understand the place unless I have worked with it – and I have learned so much about this place through the work.

“I feel like I have had some feelers out, and made some connection to build on in the future.”

© Eileen Bell, 2008

Links

• Taigh Chearsabhagh

• Andy Goldsworthy Digital Catalogue Project

Ettie Spencer - house at night

LOOK OUT into the sheltered bay from the Taigh Chearsabhagh arts centre. It’s a bit late in the year for dinghies but marker-boys for creels bob bright. There’s a tradition of improvisation as with many island things, but you probably won’t have seen a hoover used this way before.

There’s a twist. It’s a hardy polystyrene version of an upright hoover, but it’s moored so it stays upright, whatever the rise and fall of the tide. Ettie Spencer is responsible. She is an artist interested in juxtapositions. So the domestic icon is afloat in the sea-road out to maritime commerce.

Friday 30 October was a night of breeze, big moon and fast light. Our chattering gathering was composed of the curious who had come to see the products of the East Lothian-based artist’s residency in North Uist. We were all issued with a head torch and taken, group by group, in a mini bus which left us at a croft gate.

A grassed walkway lit by two trails of lights led to Ettie’s house. If you asked a child to draw a house in the country this would be it. Two gables with a chimney on each, one door in the centre, and two windows, equally spaced, one at each side.

The proper proportions of the ideal small home, but there was no roof. The walls were perfect. A team of helpers had overlayed the rough harl with shiny new aluminium. So the shape was sharp, in contrast to the hints of wear and decay you could glimpse inside when your torch lit a gap. A near full moon and all these moving torches played together on the new surfaces.

So we met a dwelling shape that offered little protection. It had a reflective exterior but also contained that thought-provoking dullness. The outline was perfect but the building was missing its original purpose and its people.

We were offered a dram. Norman Johnson, a local piper, got his cold fingers working somehow and delivered his tune. He said that a great uncle of his had gone to New Zealand and lived in a tree for a while.

Back in the arts centre, a proper huddle of buildings in stone, slate, wood and glass and metal, we met a house within a house. The high gallery was occupied with an echo of the shape we’d just met outside. This one was made of light cloth, tensioned enough to make the form. Again it had no roof, but the foliage and sounds of Southern Hemisphere jungle played on its interior and exterior.

It seems to me that both suggestions of houses are part of the same work. Both were ideas, superbly realised thanks to what must have been a grand team effort of technical and practical support.

The organisation of the event was as meticulous as the presentation of the idea. These home-shapes are suggestions, layered with allusions, rather than political statements. But the politics of environment, emigration and immigration are present.

In the light of day the aluminium cladding reflects clouds and landscape back. As a viewer I felt my own notions of what constitutes a home, playfully distorted and returned.

Dramatic juxtapositions run the risk of easy effects which don’t probe beyond the element of surprise. These works are thoughtful. They are also fine examples of the types of partnerships the Taigh Chearsabhagh project has fostered for many years.

© Ian Stephen, 2006

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Sollas Heabhal by Donald Ferguson

A SHORT FERRY ride from Castlebay, Kishmul Castle provided a truly unique setting for Donald Ferguson’s first solo exhibition Chun an lar (Into The West), which will transfer to Taigh Chearsabagh in October.

Standing within the castle walls listening to the wind howling through stone was the perfect setting for this exhibition. Presented in a space where nature clearly reigns, you can see the effects of fern growth through the walls and water penetrating stonework. Nature and her elements, the effect of light and landscape, are inspirations for this distinctive series of acrylic works on paper.

There are many painters of Hebridean landscape, but Ferguson’s interpretive works invite more than just a casual glance. They are concerned with paint quality, movement and a spirit of place that is as unique as the artist’s handling of materials.

Characterised by expressive mark-making using found materials and the immediacy of direct response to the environment, the artist successfully creates a body of work universal in its contemplative appeal. These paintings make the viewer consider the fragility of the island environment and our own relationship to nature.

It is wonderful to see the movement and energy of marks made by the artist so much in evidence in these large gestural paintings. This method reveals much more than the scene we see with our eyes. What I loved about this exhibition was the artist’s ability not just to make the viewer see the local landscape but to feel its raw power, beauty, subtlety and scale.

The exhibition is an excellent example of how art can add depth to our experience of a particular site or environment

‘Tràigh Scurribhal – Fùdaigh’ is a stunning example of the expanse of the local landscape with gestural waves and tidal marks affecting the great sweep of sandy shore. There is strength and fragility in this image that seems very much a part of Island life.

“Tràigh Siar” is almost abstract in its treatment of blocks of colour and tone which conveys the golden grey shore under a span of low cloud at Hougharry, North Uist. This more minimal approach is appealing to the mind’s eye and is beautifully atmospheric.

‘Dùn Scribhal’ depicts the strength and defiance of the headland, protecting croftland against wind, water and storm. Cobalt blue and ochre, blackened low sky and a sea white with rage are the life and movement within this work.

‘Solas Heabhal’ an expansive view of Vatersay, Sandray, Pabbay and Mingulay, stretching seductively away into the distance in shades of turquoise blue. The glint of gold upon the sea, the richness of colour and shifting light leads the eye into the core of West Coast landscape.

The exhibition is an excellent example of how art can add depth to our experience of a particular site or environment. I hope that this first exhibition at Kishmul Castle on Barra will be one of many, and I look forward to Donald Ferguson’s next solo show.

© Georgina Coburn, 2006

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The Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Art Centre in Lochmaddy celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. FIONA PEARSON reminisces over the last decade.
 

IT HAS BEEN an exciting and challenging 10 years since two community groups joined forces to open the newly renovated building on the edge of the bay in Lochmaddy, North Uist.

It was a huge act of faith, driven by the needs of the Uist  Art Association and the Comann Eachdraidh Uibhist a Tuath  (North Uist Historical Society) to have a place to celebrate the environment and heritage of the Uists.

The initial building opened in 1995 and had to be extended in 1997 to accommodate the soaring visitor numbers. 23,000 then, this figure has risen to 32,000 and a further extension is actively being planned.

The meeting between arts and heritage has remained a lively arena for creative projects.  ‘Road ends’ where artists worked with 4 different crofting communities to make site-specific sculptures to reflect the specific character of their ‘place’, is a good example.

This notion of Taigh Chearsabhagh as a meeting place of people and ideas has led to a range of stimulating exchanges and residencies. Jose Smith, the Fulbright Scholar from New York, came in 1994 for a year, and since then we have residencies from Finland, Sweden, Ireland and France.

“Taigh Chearsabhagh’s future planning reflects a growing commitment to environmental issues.”

This international outlook was very evident in the ‘Comhla’ workshops held in conjunction with the Triangle Arts Trust in the summer of 2003. 10 international artists joined 10 Scottish artists to live and make work responding to the special nature of the Uist landscape.

Taigh Chearsabhagh offers practical workshops in traditional crafts such as papermaking, weaving and stone carving. The residential Environmental Summer School attracted over 40 participants from all over Britain, and Taigh Chearsabhagh’s future planning reflects a growing commitment to environmental issues.

The new creative project ’Landmarks’ will examine the intervention of man within the land, past and present. There are also opportunities to explore new digital and film media, and Taigh Chearsabhag has shown exciting work in this area.

Taigh Chearsahbagh remains a warm and lively meeting place. 98% of residents have visited the Centre and enjoyed a variety of changing exhibitions, the museum resources, the shop, and not least the large spacious café.

On one cold day in March two young strangers were made welcome. Oded, an art graduate from Israel, and Enrico from Columbia, studying World Heritage, were here only briefly. Both plan to come back, pleased to have made, in Taigh Chearsabhagh, a real connection to the islands and the people.

Taigh Chearsabhagh’s ‘Carn Chearsabhagh Project’ is one of 10 museums projects shortlisted for Britain’s biggest arts prize, The Gulbenkian Prize For Museum Of The Year.

© Fiona Pearson, 2005

Related Links

• Taigh Chearsabhagh website 
• Gulbenkian Prize website 

NORMAN MACLEOD temporarily foresook Taigh Chearsabhagh to cast an expert eye over the recently ended Liverpool Biennial

THE LIVERPOOL BIENNIAL began in 1999, or so the catalogue says, but I’m still scratching my head to why it is on in 2004 and not 2005. Having been lucky enough to secure funding from HI-Arts to visit Britain’s best biennial (pronounced ‘beeinally’ in Scouse), I wound my way from Lochmaddy on the last week of the event.

Not having been to Liverpool before and having only heard the stories – “they’ll steal your wheels”, “you’ll get mugged” – I was pleasantly surprised (although to be on the safe side I did lock my car away for a couple of days).

There was a real buzz about the city – the event had been a real plus factor to this city, which has certainly seen better days.  Listening into a conversation between a taxi driver and a couple visiting the city for ‘ART’, he remarked “I’ve never really liked art, I’ve never really understood art, but now I admire what art can do for a city”.

This maybe sums up the gut feeling that I got in my stay in Liverpool.  It was by no means perfect, and I think that the committee organising the event would be the first to admit this.  They are nowhere near what is shown in Venice (pronounced ‘Veenice’ in Scouse) but should this be what they are aspiring to?  They certainly have their own identity and a grass roots way of doing things, so I am certainly looking forward to another visit in 2008 when Liverpool becomes the Euroepan Centre of Culture.

The use of different venues throughout the city was interesting, to the extent that you wondered if some of the work was graffiti or was it art – or is it all art?

Empty shops were used, banners were hung. and sculptures spread through the city centre. There is an interesting story regarding the Yoko Ono banners, which hung outside Bluecoat and throughout the city.  Rumour has it that some adventurous Scally pinched a few and allegedly tried to sell them on ebay.

“Beethoven, the Headbangers by Amanda Coogan was compulsive viewing when a volunteer choir headbanged for ten minutes to the stirring strains of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

There was no way that I could visit the fifty plus venues in my stay, but I certainly got near the half-way point.  Unfortunately some of the smaller independent venues had decided to shut up shop for the last few days of the biennially.

The Tate Liverpool
The Tate Liverpool had an exciting and diverse range of art. Worthy of mention was Carl Michael Hausswolff’s ‘Red Mersey’, and Sanja
Ivekovic’s ‘Liverpoll’ (which incorproated a poll of Liverpudlians on certain subjects), and not only showed at the Tate but also spread through the city centre. Donit Margreiter’s ‘Grandeur et decadence d’un petit commerce de cinema’ remade the Lumiere Brothers film footage of Liverpool, but in this case showing Liverpool as Dublin.

Bluecoat
Bluecoat was possible the best venue for me.  There was certainly a tongue in cheek element to whoever curated the exhibition.  You certainly felt uplifted after your visit.

‘Trigger’, an eight-minute loop multi-channel projection by Wong Hoy Cheong re-enacted the event in 1954 when Roy Rogers, his wife and their horse Trigger stayed in Liverpool’s Adelphi Hotel following an appearance at the city’s Empire Theatre.  As the singing cowboy lay in bed with the flu, he was paid a visit by this horse Trigger who had made his way through the hotel and up to his room.  This was after he had signed the hotel register with a pencil between his teeth.

A friend of mine who was brought up outside Glasgow he remembers Roy Rodgers visiting Glasgow (possible on the same tour) and was given the honour of pressing the button when a local castle was too be demolished.  Possible another work for Wong Hoy Cheong.

‘Beethoven, the Headbangers’ by Amanda Coogan was compulsive viewing when a volunteer choir headbanged for ten minutes to the stirring strains of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Open Eye
The Open Eye showed a series of photographs as well as a film by Italian artist Francesco Jodice.  The work investigated UFO sightings around the Mersey Valley.  Personally I found the exhibition slightly dry for my tastes.

“Certainly the Biennial has a cultural and financial impact on the city of Liverpool.  Can it happen in Scotland?  Can it happen in Inverness?”

The Walker
The Walker Gallery hosted the John Moore 23 exhibition.  It was good to see a contemporary painting exhibition and to tell you the truth I can hardly remember the last time that I visited one.  There was a good range of work from figurative to total abstraction.  From the initial entry of nearly 2000 it was whittled down to 56 paintings.  The winner of this year’s award was Alexis Harding with his abstract and very textured painting ‘Slump/Fear (orange/black) 2004’.

Lime Street Station
A railway station may seem to have been a strange location for the work of Choi Jeong Hwa.  In fact the fantastic colourful garland of blossoms called ‘Happy Together’ was removed from the station for a few days (allegedly the train drivers thought them too distracting and may have led to an accident).  The piece was later rightly reinstated.

Peter Johansson
The trip to Liverpool would not have been complete without a visit to the Swedish artist Peter Johansson’s brightly painted red house.  In fact all the internal and external features of the house are bright red.  To add to the ambience, the sound of Abba plays day and night.  His work aimed to reflect the ready made prefab culture that Sweden is becoming.

Certainly the Biennial has a cultural and financial impact on the city of Liverpool.  Can it happen in Scotland?  Can it happen in Inverness?

I would certainly like to think so.

© Norman MacLeod, 2004

Installation by Gunilla Hansson

I’VE SAILED TWICE from the Baltic to the Outer Hebrides. Each time the conditions dictated getting the north bit in first. Then you realized you were on the same latitude. You just had to get west and take a skip to clear the Pentland Firth and Cape Wrath. You also realise that there is a natural sea-route from Kiel or Sweden or Norway to the Hebrides. Taigh Chearsabhagh, the dynamic North Uist arts centre, have built a programme of residencies and exchanges along latitude 57 degrees north.

Gunilla Hansson represents the Konstepidemin organization in Gothenburg and Olwen Shone plays for Uist.

Both are part of artist-led movements. Both have sought out and developed buildings, converted for both studio/workshop space and exhibition space. Konstepidemin is an old isolation hospital – think of the old County Hospital outside Stornoway or its equivalent all over Europe – set slightly apart from the centre of town and a village-like series of buildings rather than a single institutional building.

Taigh Chearsabhagh has also developed as a series of linked spaces rather than as a Gallery with a central exhibition venue. So the Swedish/Hebridean association here is a natural and productive link. But in this show, which will go on to the Swedish end of the chain in October, the two artists also gain from each other’s angle.

Gunilla Hansson and Olwen Shone are both students of water. Each can return again and again to stare at a Sound (which either links or separates landmasses according to your point of view) or a wave-break. That colour seen first as “blue” has a complex mix which is quietly changing all the time. And what seems at first to be a still sight has within it elements which are responding to natural but also complex currents in air or water.

“It all amounts to an art-village set near the maritime edge. And prompted by it.”

Then there is a list of the Sounds. There has been at least one attempted crossing by a refugee or asylum seeker in an inadequate vessel on each of them. The information is very simply displayed. The clarity of expression is the result of analysis.

Olwen Shone’s work seems to have moved  from an emphasis on showing large still images to small videos which at first seem still. She has designed a gallery within a gallery so your view is directed in turn to 3 spaced scenes. Leaves or weed move in air or water. First you have to slow down – it’s the antithesis of Olympic Games – type superb shots of gymnastics or sailing. You have to overcome a reluctance to give the small simple images the space and time they need. Then you’re drawn in and it’s a meditative experience.

It’s no accident that the upstairs Gallery is given over to another of Robert Callender’s obsessive installations. Much of his recent work has focused on the leavings above the tideline of one bay in Sutherland. One you look towards as you pick up Stoer Point light, en route from Sweden to Uist.

This time the focus on objects, reconstructed in paper and glue, is all on plastic. The narrowing-down makes Callender’s mission even stronger and stranger. Colour prints (maybe one or two too many for the space) along the walls catch the particular arrangement on the bank of boulders which again is the result of the complex mix of wind and tide. And the floor is occupied by another arrangement of the objects, though this time they are mirrored by craft.

So all three artists restrict their width of view. One uses great skill in making, one uses well-aimed digital photography and one uses analytical thought. It all amounts to an art-village set near the maritime edge. And prompted by it.

© Ian Stephen, 2004

Related Links:

• Taigh Chearsabhagh website

Visual artist OLWEN SHONE travelled to Bangalore, and discovered a world far removed from – and yet connected to – her home ground in North Uist, where the project began.

ARTISTS FROM Brazil, Argentina, India, South Africa, Japan, Nepal, Tibet, Cuba and Trinidad standing on the sand dunes looking with astonishment at the stunning landscape behind Newton House near my own house in Lochmaddy, North Uist.  It’s a memory that will stay with me.  The Triangle Trust artist’s residency, Comhla, was the first of its kind in Scotland and was an incredible event to have happened, particularly in our remote corner of Scotland, which became the stimulus for most of the work made there.

Four months on, and the communications between the artists taking part has led to myself setting up a short residency in Bangalore, in a place called ‘The Land’ run by an artists’ group called Labyrinth.  This is situated in a small village on the outskirts of Bangalore. The purpose of the residency was to further develop a film installation project called ‘Moving Images’ which will first be shown at the gallery ROOM in Bristol in May.

Bangalore is supposed to be the fastest growing city in Asia.  It is on the tip of everyone’s tongue involved in big business and call centres.  Experiencing the roads alone is something else!  As I set out across the city in one of India’s famous Auto-rickshaws, I soon realised that there was mostly no rhyme or reason to the constant blaring of horns from the heavy traffic.

I passed many a family of five squashed onto the back of one small moped, and women in beautiful Saris sitting side-saddle on the back of them seemed to me the epitomy of elegance and then disappearing again, lost in all the dust and smog of the traffic.  The pollution from the petrol fumes is clearly a problem in Bangalore, as many people had masked their faces.

One of the arts projects currently underway is a campaign to bring new awareness of this problem to the local people through commissioning artists to decorate the public transport buses with artworks dealing with these issues.  Plans for a new underground train network are also in progress to help ease the weight of traffic.

To make the Triangle Trust link, I first went to see the site of the Triangle Trust Residency that had just taken place in Bangalore in December, where some of the work from the exhibition still remained.  The site couldn’t have been more public, set in the grounds of a Contemporary Art Gallery along one of the main roads through the city.

The three illuminated tops of yellow auto rickshaw’s lying in a river was Mexican artist Betsabe Romera’s response to Urban India.  Sheela Gowda had made an outside display of a collection of objects and distorted personal photographs placed on shelves behind glass; the sculpture was then distorted further by the drifting smoke from burning ashes.

Scotland’s Anias Wilder was also participating in this residency and made large-scale posters in the style of the Indian film advertising boards.  Apparently, the event stirred up a lot of curiosity, with 5000 visitors over the two open days!

Back on the road again, and although the city had been a very exciting experience I was grateful to be taken out to the rural setting for my residency.  The journey took me through villages where local people were herding goats, making bricks, grinding corn, and other jobs that consisted of basic hard labour.  Houses were simple basic structures lining the roads, there seemed to be a lively community spirit.

Eventually I arrived at ‘The Land’ and knew immediately that this was an environment that I would be able to respond to.  Set in half an acre of woodland at the edge of a small village, ‘The Land’ functions as a base for artists’ residencies or a place for groups from schools and colleges to stay and take part in workshops using the facilities here for making crafts, such as ceramics.

People from the nearby village are employed here to help with the production of ceramics, having taken training courses at one of the art schools in Bangalore, Shristi School of Art, Design and Technology.  The centre has the gentle atmosphere of a spiritual retreat that allows the space for artists to make their work.

I was here to continue a project I had begun whilst artist-in-residence in Sweden in 2002  – a series of films called ‘Moving Images’.  The looped films show abstract images of different layers and surfaces found in nature.  Presented on wall-mounted flat screens in a gallery space, the films are closely linked to The Still Image; the experience of viewing them, however, is interrupted by tiny droplets or other subtle interventions.

I spent the following few days walking, and eventually found an area of wasteland just outside the village and set about my work. Over the three weeks I gathered enough material to create some contrasts and variation in colour and movement between the films I had previously made in Sweden.  The landscape of India, the dried earth, vivid colours and strong sunlight offered the ‘Moving Images’ project a new dynamic.  I also worked with the natural light on a new film project experimenting with large-scale projections.

Finally before I left for Scotland, I was invited to give a talk on my work to Fine Art students at Shristi School of Art, Design and Technology.  I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of the School, the atmosphere seemed vibrant and the environment was bright and spacious.  The school’s ethos, like much of the Contemporary Art in India, is based on socio-political and socio-economic issues, so I felt that by talking about my ideas, which touch more on a visual experience and the experience of place, I have offered the students a different direction in which to think about taking their work.
 
Olwen Shone’s work will be shown in a joint exhibition with Lesley Punton at ROOM, 4 Alfred Place, Redcliff, Bristol  from 14 May –11 June 2004; in a touring exhibition with Gunilla Hanssen at Taigh Chearsabhagh, Isle of North Uist, from 20 August – 17 September 2004; and at Galleri Konstepedemin, Gothenberg, Sweden, from 25 September – 23 October 2004.

© Olwen Shone, 2004
 

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• Taigh Chearsabhagh

Còmhla was a major International Artist’s Workshop that took place at Taigh Chearsabagh Arts Centre in Lochmaddy, North Uist, in September. JULIE BROOK was one of the participating artists, and now reflects here on her experience.

Còmhla Artists Shelter in Julie Brook's Work

CÒMHLA (“Together”) was initiated by the Triangle Arts Trust, and took place over a fortnight at Taigh Chearsabagh.  Founded 20 years ago by Robert Loder and Sir Anthony Caro, the Triangle Arts Trust enables artists from all over the world to meet in their different countries and exchange ideas and methods of practice.

It has also created longer term residencies and studio buildings.  Audiences and local communities have participated through workshop open days, open studios during residencies, and exhibitions.

Taigh Chearsabagh is a vibrant arts centre set in the wild and dramatic landscape of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides.  It runs an ambitious programme of exhibitions each year, residencies, a number of educational workshops and a one-year diploma course with consideration now being given to a further education course in environmental art.

It provided an ideal base for the Trust’s first workshop in Scotland: ideal for its unique and exciting environment, for the dynamic and efficient organisation of the centre, and for its relationship with the local community.

Anne MacKenzie, Arts Officer for Taigh Chearsabhagh, responded enthusiastically, raising funds through Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council), Western Isles Enterprise, and the Scottish Arts Council, as well as providing an ideal location for the workshop to take place and organising local people to help with cooking and other practicalities.

Catherine Chan discussing her work with Melina Berkenwald

Ten artists were invited to participate in the workshop from Scotland, and ten respectively from Tibet, Brazil, Nepal, India, Japan, Argentina, South Africa, Indonesia, Cuba and Trinidad.  Travel and living expenses were paid for, plus materials.

The artists lived together in Newton House, a big homely place situated on the machair between a long sandy beach to the west and a group of rugged hills to the east.  The first few days were spent exploring the island, which gave everyone an insight into the geography, landscape, history and culture of the island as well as helping to form a relationship across the group, which then developed.

On the second evening we participated in an event at Taigh Chearsabhagh where the artists met local people.  In a Gaelic-speaking community mutual curiosity about each other’s cultures was graciously satisfied through conversation, music and song: Gaelic waulking songs demonstrated with a piece of St Kilda cloth, a Xhosa click song, an Indian love ballad, a Japanese drinking song.

Things like this made the artists feel welcomed guests amongst the community and landscape, realising the ambition of the Trust to promote understanding and communication of the arts across the world.

Langa Magwa at work

A natural rhythm evolved where daily experiences with one another became an integral part to making work.  Sharing meals, helping one another out with practical creative issues, walking, sailing, razor fish gathering, swimming in the sea, and plenty of open exchange.

For some artists there were intense periods of working alone, complemented by rejoining the group. For others it enabled a genuine ongoing collaboration.

The presentations given by each of the artists in the evenings of the first week demonstrated the differences of creative approach, providing stimulus for lively discussion, debate and ideas. These were usually followed by a kitchen ‘ceilidh’.  As one Scottish artist said – “ The amount of cultural exchange that took place at this time had to be experienced to be believed.  Both serious and light-hearted expressions of music, art, dance, and hunter-gathering techniques flitted across the floorboards in dazzling fashion.”

I found the whole experience inspiring. Having come directly from working in solitude on an uninhabited Hebridean island, I had reservations.  But right from the start a sense of ease was felt amongst us all.

The presentations were rewarding and interesting – a privilege to hear other artists speaking about their work, allowing a greater depth of understanding. Inevitably, given our recent acquaintance, the discussions tended towards the positive and friendly – in retrospect I would have appreciated a more rigorous and critical discourse. Perhaps this is unrealistic within a two week period; or perhaps this simply reflected the particular dynamic of our group.

Windbreak/Notched Wall, Diameter: 3.00m Height: 1.5m by Julie Brook

On the second day, many of us climbed the ridge of hills above where we were staying.  It was exhilarating to be up there – the sea on both sides of the island, the Harris hills to the North and below the myriad of lochs that break up the flat plains of moorland in North Uist.  Enhanced by seeing it through the eyes of the landlocked South African, Nepalese, and Tibetan artists and sharing it in our different languages.

I chose to work on an exposed shoreline nearby with a good source of broken stone.   I wanted to make a sculptural work that addressed the continual presence of strong wind in North Uist.  Windbreak, Notched Wall, proved to be more ambitious to realise than I had anticipated.

I worked intensively every day eventually finishing the work with local help.  The workshop significantly influenced the conception and scale of the work and it was wonderful to return at the end of each day to stimulating company.

The open day was a celebration of our time together.  It was remarkable to see how much work was made in a relatively short period. The local audience engaged fully with the process as well as the work itself.

Live performances punctuated the day and one of the artists had compiled and edited a film from each participant’s short video diary made during the fortnight to give a more intimate flavour of what we had exchanged.  Another open day was organised in the Glasgow Sculpture Studios for a wider audience, and funding for a residency is already in place for one of the international artists to return to Glasgow.

The combination of disciplines and inclinations in our practices clearly helped to create a good balance. Whether urban or rural based, many artists do experience isolation in what they do.  I felt the sense of communality and team spirit surprised and delighted us all, forming continuing friendships. In the context of so much global conflict it is good to experience the similarities of our human concerns and observations on life in spite of coming from such apparently diverse backgrounds.  And how art can provide the common ground for this.

Julie Brook is an artist based on Skye with current projects in Ireland, Glasgow and on the island of Mingulay in the Outer Hebrides.

Taigh Chearsabhagh plans to publish a catalogue and CD to document the workshop. If you would like a copy or wish further information, please contact Andy MacKinnon, Arts Officer, Taigh Chearsabhagh T: 01876 500 240 email: andy@taigh-chearsabhagh.org or consult www.taigh-chearsabhagh.org.

Location:  Lochmaddy, North Uist, Western Isles

Details:  Community-based arts centre and museum on the island of North Uist, situated 100 metres from the ferry terminal in Lochmaddy
Programme:  Visual art, new media, arts educational courses

Manager’s Statement from Norman Macleod

Having lived with the Taigh Chearsabhagh concept since the early days of the project in the early 1990s, firstly as a director and latterly as the manager, I sometimes have the feeling of looking outwards from a gold fish bowl as everyone looks in.

Since two organisations, Uist Art Association and Comann Eachdraidh Uibhist a Tuath (North Uist Historical Society), got together to save and convert a derelict 17th century building the project has certainly grown in size. The first renovation in 1994 cost £264,000.  In 2002 a new extension funded by the Scottish Arts Council was added at a cost of £500,000.

The centre has been very successful, or so we have been told. We have won many awards and we have been seen as an example of what rural museum and arts can do to revitalise a small community.

Taigh Chearsabhagh has also generated new employment, and this has attracted young graduates back to the island.  Through our arts education outreach programme and our arts programme in general we have introduced a new interest in the arts.  The Comann Eachdraidh must also not be forgotten, with the collection work they have done in oral recordings and their photographic collection.

None of this could have been possible with out the amazing dedicated hard work behind the scenes from the committees of the Uist Art Association and Comann Eachdraidh Uibhist a Tuath.

Norman MacLeod, former director and now manager of Taigh Chearsabhagh, supplies the answers this month

When was the venue established?

Norman: The venue was completed in 1994 and opened in 1995.  In 2002 we opened our new extension.

What are your big ideas for the future of Taigh Chearsabhagh?

Norman: On the arts side we are in the early stages of deciding on our future plans.  One of the thoughts is to move more towards environmental art, but we have to decide what part of environmental art would suite us best.
Does the venue have a ghost?

Norman: Of course we have a ghost !!!!!!!!!!!!!

A few years ago as I was hanging the exhibition by Angus MacPhee and another artist from Shetland called Adam Christie (Angus made clothes and objects from grass. He was also institutionalised for over 50 years.) The BBC were wanting to film part of the exhibition before it opened so I put up a display for them on the Friday night so they could film next morning.

When we arrived next morning the photograph of Angus MacPhee which I had securely hung on the wall was lying on the floor about 6 metres away. The sculpture by Adam Christie was lying on the floor intact.  If it had fallen from the plinth then it would have broken.  After the BBC crew had stopped rolling about with laughter they started filming. They took the lunchtime flight back to Glasgow.  Later that afternoon I got a phone call from the director to tell me that the first tape that the cameraman had filmed was totally black. Maybe our ghost got the last laugh.…
What was your worst disaster as director?

Norman: Having my computer crash and not having most of my files backed up.

And what was your biggest triumph?

Norman: Winning the BURA Regeneration Award in 2001. This was an award for the whole of Britain.

If you could have any artist in the world for a one-off special, who would it be, and why?

Norman:  I would love to show half a dozen large Jackson Pollock paintings and the reason is probably quite selfish. I really like his work. In gallery 2, Michal Rovners work would be impressive.

Why should people look forward to visiting Taigh Chearsabhagh?

Norman: For our great setting.  The excellent exhibitions. And our wonderful staff.

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• Taigh Chearsabhagh

So what went on when a group of international artists gathered at Taigh Chearsabhagh in Lewis in September to participate in Còmhla – North Uist International Artists Workshop? Many strange things, it seems, if this mysterious missive to the Arts Journal is anything to go by…

POLICE IN the Uists are continuing investigations into a series of incidents thought to be linked. Officers arrived at Newton House, North Uist to examine a satellite-dish thought to answer a description of one gone missing from a house in the local area. They did find an object resembling the missing property but it was fixed to a lawnmower chassis and carried a text which read “ART SPACE?”

Whilst in the area, police turned their attention to multiple reports of objects which had appeared on a nearby hill. They discovered that a series of fluorescent green dots, clearly visible from the garden of Newton House. These initially followed the lines of disused peat-banks but then  bent round to go close to disappearing over the horizon.

Further investigations revealed bright yellow posts with a rectangular viewfinder fixed to the top. These provided clues to turn the eyes of the police towards more discoveries. Most disturbing was a listening device stationed at a loch in the vicinity. The sound of deep animal breathing, emanating from the bottom mud, could be distinctly heard. This has prompted speculation that the last water-horse is still to be slain.

Coloured sponge bands on a fence encouraged investigations further up the hill to the summit which looks from the open west to the moorland of Uist. A light but sophisticated bridge structure traversed a pool in the plateau but failed to join anything to anything else.

On descending again, the officers investigated several outbuildings, again assisted by the yellow viewfinders which diverted their attention from the fine September light which was glancing on the hills, dykes croftland, machair, shore and bright seas, broken by waves described by a Japanese bystander as “white rabbits”.  A series of animal skins, not thought to be indigenous to the area, were found to be scraped in places and scarred with what appeared to be very large human thumbprints.

At the top of a stairway into a loft, the officers halted in their tracks at the site of  the floor mapped with areas of contrasting colour to an armchair where an elderly woman huddled, separate from all the activity below.

The entry into a barn was signed by a white plinth, bearing the handwritten phrase “this is not a work”. Inside, two films were showing. One revealed manufactured rain which brought wipers to move across a painted landscape. The other was a dance-piece where a close-up of fishing gear was tumbled through angles so sea or sky entered high netting.

Numerous bystanders were sighted carrying painted stools, in the Japanese style. These had been taken from an Information Centre, housed in a military tent. Local visitors had been encouraged to remove these, use them and be prepared to meet their designer, on revisiting the island. Maps, dispensed at the centre, directed a growing crowd of investigators into the house. In the kitchen an arrangement of previous conversations was playing over a continuing series of conversations.

In the dining room a film jumped clumsily around the horizon of a nearby beach while heavy boots beat out a wet but rarely-erring rhythmic march. Intricate Tibetan paintings occupied the porch. These projected cameos of ethnic symbols such as the Orcadian cowboy.  Indeed further reports were being received of a sighting of exactly that creature, wandering the neighbouring barns at night in the company of a pale ghost which moaned, in Portugese, “We fell off our horse.”

The echoes of a hundred birds, some indigenous, others less so, flipped through fabric charts of colour, in the hallway.  Near the photo of a fallen Cavalier, with several centuries growth of moss, a box of red and white duck-eggs confused a crisp snooker game.

At the rear of the house, a young artist-in residence was stationed up a tree. She claimed to be the daughter of the cook.  Corncrakes were struggling to be heard above the cries of a music machine, installed in a fallen dyke. Harrows and slate, wire and oxidised scraps produced a dangerous hypnotic state. The scene was littered with the carnage of those who succumbed but most were awakened by  tinkling glass. Some of the bottlenecks came from indigenous whisky bottles but there appeared to be an influx of foreign Brandy, possibly Trinidadian in origin.

Further sponge protectors hinted at a trail to a headland found beyond the wide natural bay down from the house. A roofless broch, providing shelter and a view to the Atlantic snuggled into a natural hollow. Informed local opinion dates the structure at approx 2000 BC but there was no evidence of any such monument in place before the 8 September 2003.

To date the only one of these mysteries to be conclusively solved is that of the missing satellite dish. The object was stolen on or about the 15th September by one Norman Chalmers, artist by occupation. He apparently claims that the object was taken in error, to allow him to make a possible work of art as part of an International Artists workshop, hosted by Triangle Trust in partnership with Taigh Chearsabhagh, the North Uist Arts Centre.  The other 18 artists deny any involvement.

The Artists:
Julie Brook (Isle of Skye)- installation in stone
Norman Chalmers (Edinburgh) – music and provocation
Nicola Gear (Glasgow) – soundworks
Brian Kelly (Glasgow) – bridge
Colin Kirkpatrick (Orkney) – Orcadian Western
Andy Mackinno (North Uist) – the big movie
Shauna McMullan (Glasgow) – green dots on hill
Olwen Shone (North Uist) – video/photography
Ian Stephen (Isle of Lewis) – performance/film
Stephen Skrynka (Glasgow) – cavalier installation/eggs/films
Analia Amaya (Cuba) – underwater sound installation/film
Melina Birkenwald – bird-book/viewfinders/performance
Kathryn Chan (Trinidad)  – sound sculpture
Langa Magwa (South Africa) – scarred skins
Ashmina Ranjit (Nepal) – installation
Raghavendra Rao (India) – film
Saki Satom (Japan) – Information Centre
Ga De (Tibet) – painting
Carla Zaccagnini (Brazil) – film:walking distance

The artists wish to thank:
Robert Louder and Triangle Trust, Taigh Charsabhagh, The Scottish Arts Council and Glasgow Sculpture Trust for making the workshop and sharing possible.