Arbour

This collection was started for an exhibition of work at the Macphail Centre, Ullapool, in December 2014 and entitled "The Spirit of Trees".  The theme was inspired by the work of David Young, who lives a few miles inland of Ullapool.  He makes beautiful organic furniture out of the ancient and windblown trees from the garden of his house, which is the old manse of Clachan, Lochbroom.  The contrast between the textures of the embroideries and the grain and polish of the wood made for a lovely, balanced, exhibition and we both sold many pieces. 

This exhibition was such a success that we exhibited together again in December 2015 under the title of "Enchanted Wood" and in December 2016 under the title of  "Arbour".

Of course, this theme is one to which I will return again and again, inspired by the myth-laden woods of Perthshire, where I used to live, and by some sites closer to home, such as the arboretum at Leckmelm, the community woodland at Little Assynt and by my own garden, which is full of brave little trees that are making a young wood of themselves.  In the meantime, the gallery below shows a selecton of the work created for those early exhibitions and a few more recent works on the theme too. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please click on each image to see the full picture.

 

 

 

Oak Tree Poem

I have spent some time over this winter making this large textile panel of an ancient oak tree, in response to a poem by Mandy Haggith.

oaks

eggcups propping up the pastry sky

now you're gone

there's nothing

to prevent

the clouds caving in

nothing to stop the fields flapping

This work is a bit of a departure for me, in that I used only recycled wool blankets, which had been bound up with leaves, boiled up in a huge pot over the bonfire and then overstitched.  I enhanced the dye marks on the tree surface by using a soldering iron.

This mighty oak panel stands at 1.5 metres by 1.5 metres and will be on display, along with work by other artists using a wide range of mediums, at Inverewe Gardens in the spring, and then at Dundee Botanics in the summer.  For more information, go to the Inverewe Gallery website page.

February 6th 2022

 

 

The Fabric of the Land

 

This gallery charts the first fifteen years of my experience of settling in to this corner of Assynt, in the North West Highlands of Scotland. It includes examples of the development of my textile work, through mark-making in dye, print and stitch. Early work is predominantly representational in the form of collaged images of the landscape, but later work contains more drawing and reveals signs of the shift towards the abstract, a result of having internalised the character of my surroundings and going deeper in my connection to the land.

 

With every year spent living here, over and again have I walked the paths that take me through and into the landscape, exploring features that hint at its ancient, geological history as well as those that reveal the history of human occupation, from the Iron Age through to the crofters of recent centuries. Study of local maps and historical documents, such as the New Statistical Account of Scotland (1845), have greatly influenced the direction of my work, providing some of the visual language and narratives that are starting to make their presence felt.

 

And this gallery reveals my endless fascination for the ecology of this wild region of Scotland, which is the result of its particular geology, climate and systems of land management. It is a fragile and rare environment, which is constantly being re-assessed in terms of its value to humans, wild animals, crofting practices and climate change. The long story of this land and a reverence for all the life it supports, is my focus.

 

These concerns have led on to further work expressing my understanding of my place on this earth. To see more recent work on this theme, please go to Earthworks.

 

Please click on an image to see the full picture.

 

 

 

 

Biography of the Earth

(after reading Anam Cara, by John O'Donohue)

 

Sift and turn,

Sift and turn.

Through blackened sun

on the pages of his book

a word

glances. Then another.

A mining light picks

each mineral thought.

 

Now they lie gathered

In my hand's eye

rough

in unthinking chronology.

Yes, these are precious extractions:

words of crystal clarity,

small windows

looking into

the biography of the earth.

 

Jan Kilpatrick, the Summer Isles, July 2013 

 

 

".. its as if this landscape were suddenly  to become aware  of the existence of its own elements -  possessive rock, possessing  only itself: huge lumbering sea -  that fat-fingered lacemaker who,  by sitting on shells, gives them  their shapes: mountains  reaching half way to somewhere or other: "

 

 

From "Waiting to Notice",

by Norman MacCaig