Year: 2015

Sounds of the ’70’s in Douglas.

Fintry shams, Lochee Fleet, Kirkton Huns and Douglas Toddy, bands of boys, in bands of colour, jumpers knitted by their Grannies. Drinking, yelling, brawling, laughing, trying to get the girl. Green and reds and black and blue. Dundee, Arbroath, Leven and Methil, big men, small men, wide men, scared men, running. Into trouble.

Thankyou to Kenny and Charlie for their brilliant stories about the gangs in Dundee and for the music of ‘St Andrews and the Woollen Mills.’

Orkney, winter.                    mixed media on wood.

The mornings drawing whilst listening to Nina Simone  ‘ Little girl blue’ album.  Title of the drawing –   ‘Last chance saloon’ after some text from the Evening Tele used in the picture.

Gesso, acrylic and charcoal on Evening Telegraph from June 3rd 2015.

Grey clouds, cool wind, Thursday morning. Bus shelter Fintry Road. Why has the church not got a steeple? It was better when the Corporation ran the buses. Wages clerk with Tescos for 22 years, retired last week. He looked at my drawing and squinted at the street beyond. He said the road went like that, not like that as he peered at the drawing again. He was right but then I told him it looked different in my head. He drew war pictures. Battleships…..

Standing in the bus shelter I feel the beach between my toes – left over holiday sand scrubbing my feet. I meet two women called Violet. One in a bright yellow sun of a tee shirt tells me …’Its getting better every day’. I give another woman my flyer with the drawing on the front. She says she would stick it on her fridge door and copy the drawing for herself. She had the most freckly face and a wide grin. I carry on drawing and begin to know Happyhillock Road, at least a little.

                              

Red fence and cctv camera outside McColls and the Fallen Angels beauty parlour, Douglas, and hill in Fintry.

Sunglasses, cut grass, postman says ‘braw day’. Open car windows, music blaring. Suncream, warm concrete, man on a mobile phone shouting ‘ ….the police will come to your door’. Bare legs and shoulders, birdsong in the shade. The sounds of the city are different in the heat of the afternoon.

 

The demolition people are moving in at Iceland. But its still open….!

Gesso, charcoal, pastel and acrylic on The Courier and Evening Telegraph. 28/5/2015

Friday morning. It was supposed to be warm. It wasn’t .The wind was blowing my paper across the road, so having retrieved it I decided on a bus shelter, to use the walls to stick my paper on to, and draw what was in front of me. People were standing waiting for their bus and looking over my shoulder, quietly watching while I drew. I would stop every now and then and chat. These are some of the things we discussed –

Playing cribbie, knitted toys, the rubbish bus service, dementia, seeing a ferret at the burn, visiting family and friends, garden centres, nearly getting into art college, photography and darkrooms, community picnics, working late shifts on the buses, living back at home, the weather and losing someone you love.

I think perhaps a series of bus shelter work might develop, maybe bigger and more dangerous in scale ?!! There are a lot of bus shelters to get round, a whole lot more drawing and stories……

Children with fishing nets, the smell of wild garlic. Drawing the limbs of a tree.