All in Scotland
The Caledonian Pine or Scots Pine tree seems to symbolise all that is tough and hardy about Scotland. Through it I feel the tug and pull of my DNA, my ancestors voices in the wind, calling. I wrote a poem which became a drawing and then a video. I love the way the artistic process unfolds as you work.
Much of art research is collecting information or data, then conceptualising how this can be creatively expressed. Collecting data about the weather has become a rich source of inspiration in the Western Highlands for over a hundred years. I’m carrying it forward…
Why do people climb mountains? Is it because “they’re there?” In Scotland there is a tradition of ‘bagging a Munro’, climbing one of the mountains over 3,000 feet. My idea of climbing and bagging is a bit different….
Bodies of water and their crossing will always fill me with the siren call of adventure. The anticipation of exploration and (self) discovery are strong allures so I headed out to the small island of Lismore on my own kind of pilgrimage.
You can make art with any materials and any tools, but like writing a story, you need the right ingredients to start. When people ask me about artist residencies and what to create, my answer is the stories will find you. You first need to listen …
Being gifted Gaelic titles for some of my artworks while in Scotland has given me the key to a map of landscape. My accordion fold artist book Pilgrim Stranger with its Gaelic name Coigrich Taistealach has unlocked this landscape as a place of mystery which I have entered as a pilgrim.
You can never un-know what you know. In the midst of extraordinary beauty at my artist residency at Cove Park, I discover that just over the peninsular is the UK’s largest nuclear submarine facility. It is almost as if, in the midst of beauty, we need to scar the landscape in the most spectacularly catastrophic way. How to make art to reflect this?
