Silversmithing dreaming

 One of the highlights of our visit here has been the chance to do another workshop with Lindsey Gallagher, a fine silversmith based in Thurso, ur main service town. We always enjoy wandering through her gallery space and have taken a number of pieces home with us, but the best fun by far is to it and learn with her in her workshop space alongside the shop.

I really, really wanted to learn how to solder. I had described what I wanted to try and do and so Lindsey set me up in the morning practising how to solder, by making lots of copper circles.

My work bench - I do love a well-organsied space with lots of fun tools.

Making my wobbly shapes into circles.

I then hammered some texture into the surface.

I made three circles of different sizes, learning as I went, and because they worked out so well, I decided that I might actually make a piece of jewellery from them even tho I hadn't planned to use my practice pieces.

It is tricky to solder through large spaces like this, but I managed to get all three circles attached.

I then made a jump ring to pass some cord through (when I get back, as I don't have any black cord here).

When I took it home, I kept looking at the really loose jump ring (I had made it too big) and the solder that remained even after filing as much of it away as I could, and felt I needed to finish it better.

I had some tan, some cream and some purple cotton cord, and decided on the cream. I wrapped the cord over the solder as if it was meant to be there.

And then I tried to squeeze the jump ring. Which almost worked, except for how it bent as the outer circle acted like a fulcrum point for bending!

But I solved that problem as well and am now very happy with how it ended up.

And because Lindsey is such good teacher, back to what I started out thinking I would like to make - some pebble-like earrings out of silver.

And here is what I managed to make (with help from Lindsey as we were running short of time...)

She showed me how to cut six circles in a quicker than usual manner. I then rolled them through the mill to squish them out of shape a bit.

I then hammered them to get more texture.

And ta- da here they are, all buffed and polished super shiny by Lindsey on her special wheel.

Lindsey also soldered the posts on the back for which I am extremely grateful.

I am thrilled with all I achieved, and have well and truly caught the soldering bug. I will wait till we get back to have another go I think, but I have so many ideas for what I could do!  

Thursday Thoughts...

"Don’t stumble over something behind you." 

Unknown

I know not where this quote comes from, but it is often these short, sharp quotes that grab my attention. 

They make me think is it really so? Is it too cute to be true? 

But like many truisms it is apt, simple and gets to the nub of things.

So often the worrying about what we did, how things were, what we could have should have done, what we didn't do etc etc can hold us back and limit our enjoyment of the moment and the future. We can get frozen or stuck by the past, let alone be tripped up by it.

I like it as a simple reminder to pay attention to the past, but not to be captured by it.

Jerzy Kedziora, Krakow, 2017

Pressing Matters

 Sometimes art making and ideas seem to come from nowhere, yet are clearly connected. Barry and I were talking about the threads I had dyed with flowers from here a few years ago. I realised that it was about the same time of year, as many of the flowers were still to be seen on our daily walks. But only just.

I had the idea to gather some flowers and press them - to try and retain them in another way, so on our morning walk on Sunday we found and picked a selection of things I had previously used for dyeing.

First up the last of the thistles.

This is bog asphodel. It grows only in the bog, the peat,  and is a lovely rusty orange colour. Also quite firm.

The very last of the bell heather.

Luckily, Devil's Bit Scabiosus is still around.

The heather is due to end on 14 September, and I would agree with that - the few flowers left are quite dry and not nearly as vibrant as they were even a few days ago.

Red clover is hanging in there, but most of it is on its way out.

And so to drying, pressing or generally attempting to flatten.

We have recently had our roof replaced. The slates which had been on since around 1835 had done well, but were being to fail and the risk of dampness setting in was getting higher. The most beautiful replacement job was done and we are so happy at how beautiful the cottage now looks with its trims painted and the roof perfect.

We had a few left over, so we began to make a slate sandwich, with different layers of flowers in between.

Thistle to begin.

Devils Bit Scabious up next.

 

Bog Asphodel.

The heathers.

And finishing with the red clover.

Sandwiched between roof slates, we then added more slates to the stack and popped the stack in a corner where we won't run into it or over it and I shall be patient and let them dry. I hope!

I honestly don't know what I might do with the flowers when they are pressed; or even with the paper if they leave nice marks. I just knew there was a story line link  to the dyed threads that I wanted to take the opportunity to try out. Appendages are crossed.

And how gorgeous is this cottage now? With thanks to Brian and Karen for their hard and loving work to make the wee cottage sing again.

Exhibition Installation

 The past week has seen a laser-like focus on installing and celebrating Barry's exhibition at the Strathnaver Museum,  Betrayal and Loss.

We worked solidly for three days setting up and then celebrated at the opening on Friday night. I was available to do most anything - and together we put up the signage/lettering on the wall, formed and built 'the wave', built two display cabinets, and whilst Barry attached 100 boats to the wave, I set up the displays in the cabinets.

My main focus here is on the lettering and the story. After dismantling the heaviest of tables and moving it out of the way, we had a blank wall to work with.

We had had the lettering prepared in Australia; but sadly one of the measurements we had received was wrong and so Barry and I had to re-calculate whether the words would fit and how they might do so. We were little stress bunnies there for a while. 

Never having applied the vinyl lettering before either, we were working hard to make it as simple and as easy as possible for us to keep to straight lines. We worked out our interlinear distance, and ran painter's tape down the wall as various intervals.

The lettering came sandwiched between two sheets. Here I am gently removing the backing sheet. What remains is the sticky side of the letters. We had drawn the baseline of the lettering lines on the the cover sheet (underneath) so we could try to keep it straight. Did I mention stress?

We got the title on; and here B is pressing the lettering through the cover sheets to ensure it attaches firmly to the wall.

It was then my job to pull the cover sheet off really gently, to ensure the letters remain adhered to the wall. May I say that ys, ts, fs and js, along with commas, were most likely to lift. The things you learn.

The beginning of Row 1. B's ingenious approach to achieving straight lines was for us to cut each strip of tape down by the interlinear space after each row. That meant our pencil line on the cover sheet was aiming for the top of the tape, and we weren't attempting to go too far without having a landing spot to aim for. Experts of course would do a full row and not blink. B worked this out in the middle of the night when he couldn't sleep for thinking through all the things we needed to do.

I discovered that the small post-it notes we had with us were pretty much equal in size to the space between words, so when our revised lines ended on a word, I would place a yellow sticky down and start applying the next word after it. Here, at the end of a sentence I double-spaced!

We had to work out where to cut the beautifully prepared lines of wording to fit the revised space, and the floor was the only place we could do it. Also, as the lines got longer (average about 2.3m) we had to take the backing sheet off on the floor as well.

But after a long day, it was done, and it looked wonderful.

The story that Barry was responding to is a terrible and sad tale of cruelty and injustice. Strathnaver was the site of some of the worst Clearances in Scotland - when folk were cleared from their land so that the owners could run sheep on the hills instead. Homes were burned and broken and people fled with little, and to nowhere. 

Barry's work focused on Letter 11 of Donald Macleod's book Gloomy Memories. This letter tells of people  who were pushed to the edges of a harsh and rocky coast and forced to become fisherfolk, even tho they knew nothing of fishing or going to sea. Nor could they afford safe boats. This letter describes how along one 30 mile stretch of coast, in one year alone,  more than 100 boats were destroyed.  When you think on how many families that would have affected in so many ways, it is utterly devastating.

On the night of the opening, we donated a First Edition of Gloomy Memories to the Museum for their collection, which they will have after the show is over.

It is difficult to photograph the show well; but here you get a sense of it. Barry will have more detail and information on his blog.

The exhibition is on for all of September, and we hope that folk enjoy and appreciate it. I think it is a beautiful and gentle response to such a horrendous story.

Thursday Thoughts...

"Artists recontextualize reality and offer visions that were previously invisible. Creativity engages the brain’s daydreaming mode directly and stimulates the free flow and association of ideas, forging links between concepts and neural modes that might not otherwise be made." 

Daniel Levitin

What a marvellous way to conceive of our artmaking - the making visible of the invisible.

I think creativity is such a good way to experience those free associations - one thing linking to that, leading to this.  Quite how the whole thing works is a mystery to me, but there is definitely something going on underground, under our consciousness. I like to think of small things/people/folk jumping from here to there saying yes this looks like this, or maybe try that or remember way back when this thing?

And somehow it all coalesces and connections are made, leaps taken and work produced.

I also enjoy folk who think about creativity in these ways, who try to understand how the magic happens, and in a way, give credence and credibility to the intuitive, the spontaneous and the creative. 

Stones of the Sky...

 Barry has already posted on the adventure this quest ended up being, but I thought I should fill in some of the detail around what inspired the trek across the North to find lettering carved in stones...

I saw a picture on a FB page where somebody said something like hooray, I finally found them!  I thought wow, what an epic story, we should try and see them too.

The little research I did before heading off, said there are these words, carved in stones, only found at low tide. The words are from the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's "Stones of the Sky" or "Sky Stones". The words are from number 17 in a suite of 30 from this series. I think...

I fell in love with the words, and the idea that they only revealed themselves for an hour a day.

Some folk asked in the comments where exactly?, and the answer was half the fun is finding them for yourself. All we knew was Sannick beach, walk towards Groats. No particular detail.

I figured that would be enough to go on with - how hard could it be to find a lengthy slab of rock with carved words on it?

Answer dear reader - very hard.

Barry took some photos of me attempting to work out where on earth we should be looking. I had two iPhones with me - one with a Scottish Sim and my trusty one from Oz, and neither of them helped at all because no, or wavering only, signal.

Maybe over there???

Because the words are only exposed at low tide, everything we clambered over was very slippery, and didn't really encourage ongoing exploration. But, we had a purpose and we hoped to fulfil it. I felt bad taking B on what increasingly appeared to be a wild goose chase without much clear direction, just a lot of enthusiasm and hope.

On the way back after a fruitless, almost hour long search. I stopped and stared at slabs of rock, making my eyes go fuzzy to see if there were shapes revealing themselves anywhere. It was with disbelief that I actually spied the line of poetry. After all that time.

Some of B's photos and some of mine follow.

The carving is very fine, but nobody has ever owned up to doing it and their identity remains a mystery.

It emerges from the water...

and goes around curves and corners...

I love the way the seaweed is embedding itself in nooks and crannies.

And how barnacles are beginning to fill some of the letters

So beautifully carved...

Such lovely movement and character in the letters.

And some beautiful moody shots with the iPhone on portrait and stagelight mode.

The rock poem was first 'discovered' in 2013. In 2022 a fellow found some more lines, carved in different stones and in a different place on the beach (again, no details as to just where). Some reports indicate there may be 20 more lines of poetry - mostly short, many excerpts, to be found. So I imagine we will try to head back at low tide and take another wander.

In the interim I think about how hard it must have been to do the work. With the rocks only available for an hour or so at time, it must have taken weeks. Plus the Scottish weather. Plus the slippery surfaces.

I quite love the mystery too - the quiet achievement of wonder and beauty, not trumpeted, just gifted.

Here and here and here are some links to articles about the poem in the stone...