Month: July 2016

Mixed media on paper.

 

Looking toward Largo. Summer. Cowslips, clover, wide blue sky, butterflies.

Charcoal and acrylic on paper.

So I am walking again next year in Montrose. A new line has been drawn on the map which will be entirely new apart from where it crosses the last one, and takes in the towns major employer and the football ground. Really looking forward to it – lots of ideas . And, I will be walking a line in Edinburgh, or Leith to be precise later next year. I am working with Fidra in North Berwick on a show probably this time next year. I spent some years living in Leith, both my boys were born at the Eastern General, so it will be interesting to return and re-evaluate the landscape and how it might have changed. The line will pass the tenements where we lived and end at the docks.I think I may find it has changed hugely but then again, maybe not as Leith will always be resolutely Leith, like Montrose, the reason for its being is its connection to the sea.

 Ink and gesso on paper.

The walkway in the old ropeworks, Montrose where the film ‘If we should meet sometime’, played during the show – ‘Baltic street notebooks’ – June 2016.

 

Still from the film.

 

 

 

 

A field on the edge of Badgers Wood, summers evening, snipe, swallows, birdsong.

Whilst painting my studio yesterday I listened to a radio 4 adaptation of Strindberg’s play ‘Miss Julie’. Astonishing and brave, it left me feeling empty, bereft almost. So in order to lighten the mood I then played a couple of episodes of ‘Still Game’,  which still make me laugh loudly and stupidly.  I admired the juxtaposition of these two fictions.

This morning I walked out of the village past the cabbage field and up to the recycling centre to do some drawing. Rab and Pete and Jake the Scotty dog said it was ok as long I didn’t get run over. So I drew part of the model village they have created which is a wonder in itself, and the portakabin where they issue forth instructions. Rab brought me a cup of tea which was most welcome after battling with the strong winds. After, I showed them my sketch, and I somehow became involved in agreeing to paint a backdrop for their model village. Not sure how that happened, anyway it’ll be a nice thing to do. I asked them about the people they get coming here and was told that they’ve had Archie McPherson visit as well as the one off of Harry Potter, but couldn’t remember his name and they two from ‘Still Game’………!  Jake the scotty dog had his photo taken with the tall one. Celebrities, rubbish, a Lilliputian village complete with zoo, and a nineteenth century Swedish playwright. What would Isa make of those stories….