I’m sitting in my hotel room watching the ferry sail to the Isle of Harris. Yesterday the ferry was cancelled due to high winds. So we sail on Sunday’s ferry which gave me an extra day in North Uist and an unexpected art opportunity.

A textile collage workshop was being held at Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Arts Centre and I was able to join in. I thought this would extend my collage skills and I was right. Give a group of adults permission to play with paint, fabric and glue and the hours pass in blissful abandon.

Led by tutor Sue Barclay, we were to create art from our four emotions: anger, fear, grief/sadness and happiness/joy. Anger led the session and so many stories came out as we expressed our angry selves, throwing around paint, ripping and cutting fabric and creating with no thought for right or wrong.

I wasn’t sure what I was angry about, but my hands soon led me into a bushfire landscape of blackened trees and searing flames. I hadn’t realised how angry I was about this, how I felt angry with a government who ignored all the dire predictions in the months leading up to the catastrophic events of 2019/2020. And how angry I still am at a government that denies climate crisis.

Next I felt the anxiety of fear of the floods and waters rising in a knotted landscape of fragmented greys and blues. I thought I would be creating landscapes inspired by the Hebrides but realised I had to finish with the Australian bushfires and floods before I could move on.

Even though sadness and grief were expressed, I found that I had started to introduce tartans and the colours of the moors, lochs and waves. I sense a sadness sometimes in this landscape of abandoned houses, and yet also a resilience amongst the islanders for continuing to live here as the rains and high winds increase each year.

Joy was an easy piece to create, sunshine and bursting happiness. We then created two huge collaborative collages as a group which reflected all of our stories and emotions. I was happy to keep my Hebridean landscape to bring home as inspiration for further collages.

My green shirt which I was wearing today, is cut up and pieces of it are in the collage created by us all. I feel like I have come full circle as I was drawn to the Hebrides through an inspired event run by Taigh Chearsabhagh in October last year about climate change. Now a small piece of me will remain in North Uist long after I leave the Western Isles.