Fades

I’ve updated my website recently to show some things that are finally finished.

Over the past two years I have settled into a productive balance and studio time. It felt like I found a new creative stride, in part due to a perceived and impending big changes ahoy! Balance once found, it’s now lost by the recent house move, insulating the shed for a new studio and having a beautiful little being/ family to care for.

But when things were productive… I focused on a few new things, finished some old pieces that have hung around the studio for some time AND tried to address the fading issues in a number of pieces I made for the Taiwan exhibition.

The fading has been interesting and annoying. I have always been careful about light fastness until work for Taiwan began. Bear in mind that cameras and screens cannot pick up the neon quality of these paintings.

The coral/magenta colours of the original pieces were made with a pen that I purchased when revisiting a local art shop in Taiwan in 2016. I realised that by adding varnish, the dye based ink would break apart and melt into neon orange hues. This chance discovery became the main exploration in the studio for a few years, whilst preparing works for the solo show at 182 Artspace, Tainan, Taiwan. There was something refreshing about removing and melting carefully drawn line work, this is something I find difficult to do. Something that my old tutor and big inspiration, the late Graeme Todd had completely mastered and turned on its head many times over.

The original images from 2016, click and have a look…

The fades from last year. These images are not a great comparison as the below images were taken on my phone camera, but you get the idea, washed out.

A lack of contrast in forms that were previously well defined but also melty.

For both of these pieces I knew I had to go back in with ink and a drawn/tight approach to bring out the details and textures that existed or I could see needed to be developed. It’s a strange thing to work back into an old piece, however the steps were clear, this is something I have noticed over the past few years, there is more decision and desire to finish an image. To hunt it down actually.

The reworked images…

With the piece below (Joke’s Glen) I came at it with a different approach. Using a brush and paint to define forms in a loose and larger way.

I’ve tried to ensure lightfastness with these reworkings. It is time intensive to see how they will age. But for the most part I have been impressed with works from 2012 til now - excluding this series. Four years for the dye based pigments after varnish infused chemical alteration was probably a good innings and something I did wonder about at the time.

The challenge now is to find something a vibrant and fluid that will last the aeons!

A recent adventure up the side of Braeriach

From the blurb under the youtube vid…

This was the second journey we have made to swim and gaze into the crystalline azure of this loch, the adventure inspired by Nan Shepard's book, 'The Living Mountain'. The music, 'The Senses' by Jenny Sturgeon It was July, after a week of solid sunshine making the water warmer than our previous visit two years ago in September, which involved wetsuits and multiplied 'the slog' on the ascent. In a Shepardian way, this was our second visit to the near summit of Braeriach without actually having summited yet! Its an 7-8 hour trip on this route depending on how much nature contemplation your in to, biking up to Glen Eanaich, walk up from the other side of the Beanaidh Bheag ford, sort of follow the curved saddle to avoid thick boulder field that is more dense under the right side of the coire when walking up. Then as much time as you can at the loch before the return. If its not been sunny for a solid week the cold shock of the loch is quite significant, on our previous visit with wetsuits it was really chilly despite it being a sunny cloudless day. There are no fish, not much algae, water boatmen seem to be the only things swimming about.

Apart from the obvious clarity, colour and beauty of the place, it is the following words from 'The Living Mountain' that provoked lasting curiosity...

'We were standing on the edge of a shelf that ran some yards into the loch before plunging down to the pit that is the true bottom. And through that inordinate clearness we saw to the depth of the pit. So limpid was it that every stone was clear. I motioned to my companion, who was a step behind, and she came, and glanced as I had down the submerged precipice. Then we looked into each other's eyes , and again into the pit. I waded slowly back into the shallower water. There was nothing that seemed worth saying. My spirit was as naked as my body. It was one of the most defenceless moments of my life.'

On our first visit the water was glassy with the lack of wind, making it easier to see into the depths from the edge, it was so still the reflections of the coire interrupted the view. On this visit the surface was rippling and distorting with the wind. I wanted to try and work out where Nan had her experience so walked around to the left this time to inspect some sandy golden fan like deposits of the far side. I couldn't see a likely place as the shelf of boulders around 3-5 meters deep seems to go out for around 10 meters at least before the significant drop off happens. So not sure where she had that existential moment. That's what the experience of wild nature is all about? On this snorkel the water temp was starting to creep in (one handed crawl) by the time I got to the drop off so I returned for fear of the freeze after a few moments hanging in the sky like abyss, but even a brief gaze down there is incredible, the sense of distance and colour is the thing to behold. The slightly wrong upward facing camera angle on the way out did not convey this in its true enormity!

The music, 'The Senses' by Jenny Sturgeon, is from her great album 'The Living Mountain' which explores structure and perspectives shared in Shepard's book. It also reflects Jenny's own experiences of the cairngorms and her melodies and song writing have become a soundtrack for the past year, since its release.

Almost there with some new pieces.

I've been working on these 3 paintings and a few others for over 18 months. More on the others in another post. The third piece, ‘Meditations on the Mountain Pass’ is uploaded in the 2021 part of the site. Still scribbling away on the big piece in the first image. With all of these ‘paintingdrawings’ the fun has been squeezed out of them through too much time looking at them. However, the finishing stages have found more joy, the end in sight. Bringing these works into completion feels significant, the time spent in China, then the year in Glasgow for teacher training put the studio practice on hold for a while. However, since my probation year here in Grantown on Spey (now half way into my second year here), I have found a rhythm and pace again, all be it at a fairly slow one. But the highschool pupils need art classes and afterwards the wilder woods that surround up here also have to be witnessed and explored, after all this area previously used to be a significant adventure/ research trip a few times a year. So the studio work slowly grows, at lichen like speeds.

Here’s a link to the cairngorm adventures…

https://www.flickr.com/photos/87900946@N08/albums/72157717987824416

Sacrifices for the Grouse Gods

Recently we had some rare moments with a few mountain hares. On a hilltop, the wind was wild, so we sheltered behind some stones for lunch. During our luncheon four hares ran very close to us and stood still almost within touching distance, apparently unaware of our presence because of the wild wind. There is a beauty and oddness to these elusive creatures.

A few months ago we found some dogs with snares around their necks, they had been caught on the entrances to a stink pit. A stink pit for anyone who is interested is a pile of dead animals with  a wall of brash or sticks around it,  there are small holes left to create entrances into the temple of death, these have snares over them and are aimed at trapping predators like foxes, though they are clearly indiscriminate and in this situation the traps – which clearly cause suffering-  weren’t checked for over 26 hours. This macabre, lazy and elaborate process is to try and protect lambs and keep wild fox numbers down. I describe this because in this stink pit were two dead mountain hares. I have seen ‘lamping’ at night by keepers torching and chasing hares around a hill to shoot them and have wondered at the surreal vision and the odd land management reasoning… Kill wild mountain hares, to bait and kill wild foxes and other predators, to save some lambs and grouse, who will be killed a bit later on for money. Not for me thanks!

On a larger scale, I have been aware of the needless mountain hare culls around the Scottish Highlands. These are displays of mass slaughter, sacrifices for the grouse gods -before they get blown out of the sky. The reasoning for this is based on the idea that high hare numbers will somehow deplete the numbers of grouse to kill on the ecologically depleted grouse moor. There is a concern of ticks reducing grouse numbers, however hare and grouse both carry ticks so it can’t just be the hare’s fault. Why there are higher tick numbers is a good debate – my own conclusions are it might be something to do with global warming and less harsh winters. If you research the hare impacting grouse numbers topic, the evidence does not back up this odd practice.

The reason I am writing at length (if your still reading my thanks for your attention) is that tomorrow -Wednesday the 17th- the Scottish Parliament will vote on whether mountain hares can be a protected species and therefore protected from large scale culls. If this has raised your interest, research the issue and if you agree, sign the petition to show your behind the issue.

https://greens.scot/ProtectMountainHares#consultation-form

For clarity, the mountain hare does pose a threat to regenerating woodlands as do the unnaturally high population of deer – usually found on ‘sporting’ estates. In regard to regenerating woodland and ecological diversity it may be necessary to kill small localised groups of hares if fencing or tree guarding cannot be achieved. This is because we have removed or continue to persecute the natural/ wild animals who would predate these creatures and maintain a natural equilibrium.

Paradise Lost, Tainan, Taiwan 29/04 - 10/06

Scotland no more

This past April I left Scotland to join Georgia Rose Murray here in ChongQing, China. Life has been pretty chaotic AND INTERESTING for us recently. Trying to move with the situations presenting themselves has been difficult at times, yet these things have led to flexibility and fluidity which is always the stuff of gold. We had lived in Auchtermuchty, Scotland for a year, experimenting with a calling for a more rural life. It was a good and real life, where having a studio in the house was an excellent move for me, I reconnected to a late night muse in the studio and enjoyed our garden and the quiet life.

I have been working very intensively over the past year,  preparing for 'Paradise Lost', a solo show back in the Taiwanese city we lived in called Tainan. More to come on that soon... very soon...

So life is now in a mega city 30 million, though some say only 12 million in the inner city. Luckily we are near some hills and a lot of vegetation due to university campus'. Things are good - I am preparing for the show and not much else. I plan to return to Scotland in late July and return to the Rahoy Hills Nature Reserve... cant wait for that!

All for now.

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Solo show in The Small Gallery, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary

My thanks to the team at Grampian Hospitals Arts Trust, I enjoyed hanging the work with you. It was also great to talk to a number of hospital visitors during the hang, 'The Meiklian Project' is of course about the North East landscape that we have shared. For patients, staff and visitors I hope that my works can transfer some of the light and inspiration I have found from our archetypal mountain goddess Bennachie, the forgotten energies of the recumbent stone circles and the landscape of time twisted birch, pine and hazel. The exhibtion is runs until the 21st of July and features the recently reworked 'Forest Magick' and a number of pieces from the last few years.