Thursday Thoughts...

"You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress, simultaneously".

Sophia Bush

I oftentimes wonder how we integrate the bits of ourselves where we say - we are enough - with the bits of ourselves where we say - we are still learning. 

We are good enough at what we do, or who we are; and here we are. Plus, we are working on it.

This gives permission I think for both statements to hold true, which again is something I like in this world - the ability to hold slightly different thoughts as one. No need to be this OR that. Less need to be binary - if you aren't with us on this you must be against us on everything. 

Nuance is such a lovely notion that we seem to have lost sight of. We are all the most complex gathering of feelings, concerns, understandings and learning, and yet so often our lives get simplified into one thing or the other. 

Whereas, most of the time in fact, we are many things, we are multitudes - we are both a masterpiece AND a work in progress.

Definitely still a work in progress...

Back to books

 The year has gone pretty quickly and the collaborative exchange The Shape of Things that Annwyn and I set ourselves to do for the year is coming to an end.

We have decided our last books will be posted in the first week of January - after all the Christmas rush. As an aside, it took just over 6 and a half weeks for some documents to reach Scotland after my Dad posted them in Australia - we were long gone...

Nevertheless anticipating all that happens as the year rushes to its conclusion, I thought I should turn my mind to this final book.

I spent some lovely time in the studio on Saturday playing with things this way and that.  Unexpectedly, it all went rather smoothly!

Putting together the last of Annwyn's beautiful papers was quite calming.  I really enjoyed this colour way.

One of my goals with the last three books in the series has been to use things I had in the studio. To work with the shape of things I had. So I pulled apart a small blank journal I had never used and separated the pages into two books. 

Not really sure if there were enough pages to call themselves 'books', so I pulled apart another book that had had some damage to it to see if filling the book out a bit more with some more pages might work.

I think I made this book in about 2010, and it got damaged in 2011, so after 12 years of sitting around waiting to be something else its time has come! So I set to snipping, which felt a bit bad given the lovely stitching, but I shall just have to do some more sometime.

And I made it to here, not sure at all if it is headed anywhere, and still not clear at this point how I might incorporate Annwyn's papers! Which of course, is the main point of the collaboration...

At the very least, I got a nice photo...

Soldering and saving

 I was so inspired by our most recent workshop with Lindsey Gallagher jeweller, in Thurso, that I hankered to keep on soldering.

So after getting most of the travel fuzz from our heads, and gathering a few bibs and bobs, I joined Barry in his workshop shed to have another go at soldering.

Starting once again with soldering jump rings - I needed practice and I got lots of it.

I started with 6 small and 6 medium sized O-rings.

Ready to start soldering.

I managed to solder 6 circular O rings, (with great difficulty and much repeating of effort) but I wanted them more lozenge shaped, so I squeezed them a bit.

And then I flattened them in the rolling mill a bit. 

You can see that the soldering was not what you might call consistent!

So I practiced some more, trying to now join the lozenges into a single piece.

And kind of sort of managed it.

Until I didn't it! Here they are after quenching and pickling. One join was clearly too fragile to handle being transferred between bowls and the like. So, I just have to go back and solder some more - but that was enough for today.

Still plenty of cleaning and polishing to do, but it was a solid practice session and I felt like I got back into some kind of groove with it.

Meanwhile as I was going back and forward, round and round, Barry was saving my bacon elsewhere. 

I was really pleased with how some of my Grief is a Stone metal calligraphy and rocks worked out. But I had noticed what I thought might be some corrosion on the lettering, which made me a bit sad and rather uncertain that I could ever sell the work anywhere.

Barry had a look at it for me and came up with a sensible explanation. He suggested that when we had taken the protective coating off the front and back of the words, some stickiness from the tape remained on the metal.

He then figured that some dust from cutting the stones had adhered to this residual stickiness and left this raised discolouration. And of course, he had a plan for rectification. 

So with me tucked away in my corner doing soldering homework, Barry cleaned, tidied and buffed the words back to beautiful. What a marvellous rescue!

Given that we won't be cutting any more stones or rocks for this work in the near future, I think I can safely say job done! With grateful thanks to B for his wizardry.

Thursday Thoughts...

"Art is magic which makes the hours melt away and even days dissolve into seconds". 

Leonora Harrington

I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly. It describes so well the ability of the creative process, the art-making process, to take you away from real time and have time become something completely different.

Melting and dissolving are two great verbs to describe what seems to happen when you fall into the zone and the actions and thoughts about creating and making take over. Time flies, it disappears.

You lift your head and realise the sky has darkened outside whilst you have been away in another land; you lift your head and discover that its only 10 minutes till dinner time and you haven't cleaned up let alone thought about dinner plans; you lift your head and realise you haven't eaten.

Time melts and dissolves; an experience which fills you up and nourishes you.

Innerpeffray and a twist in the tale of Sannick Bay...

 Well, we are back in Australia and settling in to things here, and gradually de-fuzzing our heads from jet lag.

We meandered our way back down to Glasgow over a couple of days and left as Storm Babet was beginning its run. We managed to skirt the edges of it most of the way, but there was rain, wind and the rivers ran high.

As we crossed Sutherland in the rain, the soft greys and browns were at their best.

We spent a couple of nights in Crieff, which meant we could re-visit Innerpeffray Library and Chapel which we happened upon so serendipitously last year. Always so special, and I hope to make it a regular visit whenever we are there.

Again, we were fortunate to have Lara, the Keeper of The Books to show us around and talk us through the collection and the displays.

We also spent some time in the school house where some lovely displays had been made - the stories of children at the school, and the books they had borrowed, were on all four walls.

But back in the Library itself, after having seen the magnificent Register last year, dating from 1747, I had wanted to know how many women had borrowed books? Lara said there were quite a few, and that in fact,  on the very first page of the Register there was a woman, called Beatrix who had borrowed a book. Not on behalf of her Master or Mistress, but for herself. And that made me happy.

Her name is the very last on the page, and I think the book she borrowed was something like Following Christ the way, the truth and the life. And she returned it.

Then. 

We mentioned to Lara the words of Pablo Neruda carved into stones on the far north coast of Scotland, and the magic of that discovery. She asked had we visited the Corbenic Poetry Path (we exclaimed, we had! Just yesterday!). And then Barry mentioned the second stone we had discovered way up North. I tried to recall some of the words and said something like - "and put my body back together...". 

Lara immediately said "The Marquis of Montrose"! We said "Yes! Something about On the Eve of My Execution". She went straight to a room next door and brought out a book - The Poetry of the Marquis - and read the whole poem to us.

We shared with her how our Librarian friend Liz had done the research and made sense of the words for us, and were excited to think that we had discovered the words and they were so well known and recalled. But as we stood there, Lara turned to the cabinet I was standing in front of and said "That's his Bible. And those are his seals".

Can you believe it? 

Sure enough - The Innerpeffray Library Collection holds the Marquis of Montrose's Bible and some Seals. How uncanny is that connection? How serendipitous the conversation? How amazing are Libraries and Librarians?

We all had a little shiver as we thought about it.

On the left hand page at the bottom, you can see his name Montrose.

And two seals from letters he had written in 1639 and ?1650. I still shake my head at the thought of it.

On our previous visit it had been pouring rain and we didn't venture out into the gardens and grounds at all, just made mad dashes between buildings. This day was glorious and we wandered along a short path and down to the river.

Along the way, we found this.

So many moments of coincidence and serendipity, we marvelled upon them for quite some time.

We hope to return to Sannick Bay to continue our quest to discover more carved stones; and to Innerpeffray Library where there are always magnificent discoveries to be made as well. What a lovely coming together of special places.

Some favourites from our trip

 Our time in Scotland this time round has reached its end. As ever it has gifted us so much, so many moments and so much beauty. 

I am thinking I might end up doing a few of these posts as I daresay I will never be able to limit my favourites to a single post!

The scenery is always so very special, the moods and the light and the changing colours, so this is one for the landscape...

The cove in the sunshine. we had so many warm days in the beginning, 27 degrees saw us in t-shirts and wandering the cottage in bare feet - unheard of!

The unusual heat also seemed to make for summer storms - just like in Australia where the build up of heat over the day often breaks in a storm in late afternoon.

Our first month or so the landscape was full of heather. The hills were purplish pink and on a warm afternoon, we stepped out of the car and could simply smell honey. It was divine.

We experienced some fabulous low tides, which created a beach for us at the cove for the first time! They also meant we could wander out and through gaps in the cliffs to other beaches and coves. This sea pool with its stunning green rocks in the sunshine...

Another really warm day (26 degrees) and we headed to one of our favourite places Forsinard in the Flow Country. The home of the blanket bog, which stretches across the north of Scotland, is also seeking approval as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is utterly magnificent. This time the bog was lower and drier, but I imagine it has filled up in recent days with the weather that has been had!

I love the many and varied fencelines in the north and along the coast. This set are at Forsinard as well, stumbling their way cross the landscape.

The Autumn skies can be sublime in their colouring (when they aren't leaden grey and bearing rain). A glorious sunrise with the fishing net poles.

I also like the grey skies - it is a colour I associate with Scotland - and as the season has turned chillier, so too have the hills lost the purple of the heather and the green of the bracken. The russet of the bracken is now strong and I love these colours together.

We visited a small Clearance village along the Strathnaver called Achanlochy. The weather was atrocious but the wee loch it stood by shimmered in the low light.

And the weekend before we left the winds blew at what we would describe sub-cyclonic levels (about 85-90km/hour). The cove had really large waves crashing over and over again.

Did I mention the weather towards the end? This is looking up the Kyle of Tongue with Ben Loyal dipping in and out of mist and clouds. The tide was out but a channel was still running. I love this muted palette.

So that's the landscape for now. We were fortunate to observe so many changes in the colours and light given the length of our stay this time. Precious. We will carry it with us in our hearts as we go, and look forward to a return. As the locals would say Haste Ye Back.

Thursday Thoughts...

“Alphabet letters combined – safeguard the fleeting fragments of the day and outwit the loss of memory” 

Isabelle Allende (adapted)

This is such lovely way of thinking about the value of our alphabet and of our ability to combine letters and to make words.

In the most rudimentary way I combine alphabet letters each and every day by writing lists - to help me 'outwit the loss of memory'. If I write it down I have half a chance of remembering. 

I like her use of safeguard - the idea that by writing things down, recording them, we are taking care of events, protecting things such that they can be remembered or known by others; not simply remembered by ourselves.

The fleeting fragments oft the day is just such a lovely turn of phrase for the many moments we live, share and experience in a day. Some are large and impactful, but some are small but beautiful, and fleeting.

The Emigrants

The Emigrants is the name of a statue at Helmsdale, on the east coast of the Highlands, created by Gerald Laing and unveiled in 2007. 

It is a statue in bronze, of a family leaving Scotland, setting out for Canada after having been cleared from their home in the Kildonan area.

It is a reminder of the horror of the Highland Clearances, but also a reminder that many families left and created new lives in other countries, and contributed enormously to the growth, development and culture of those places.

But I find it achingly sad.

The father/husband is looking out, bravely facing the future, setting out for anew life full of bold hope. His holds tight to him, following his father on this venture, whilst the mother/wife cradles her baby, looking back. Her head is turned, her foot pointed backwards, as she surveys all that she is leaving. All the support  for her children and all that she knows, as she heads to an unfamiliar land. I think of just how hard that must have been.

We visited it again recently and it moves me still. This photo was taken in the morning when the sun was out, the rest of them were taken the evening before as the grey cloud covered everything and the mist was coming in.

Her face is so thoughtful, so considered. That baby, so tiny.

The sculptor has done such a good job of creating a sense of movement, and of the wind. The wind howls and blows there I can confirm.

This angle I think shows the disconnect between his potential experience and hers...

And I love how the sculptor paid attention to her dress, and made it interesting and lovely. She wasn't dressed in rags, meant to be grateful that she was getting an opportunity to move somewhere else. She was a  woman with good clothes and was leaving all that that meant behind.

 

And that foot. Anchored to her place, her home. Not wanting to leave yet knowing she must.

It is a beautiful and poignant piece and each time we visit I notice something different. This time it was her dress. But each time, I am moved, and feel achingly sad for her and so many women like her, being forced from their homes and leaving so much behind.