dominique cameron RSW

Ink, charcoal and watercolour on newsprint on plywood. 30x21cm.

Goose grey sky. Wind in the East. Someone is drumming in an upstairs flat. In the museum I take a picture of a bicorne hat, reputedly worn by Napoleon. Chat to a woman about the coming of the daffies. Off the High Street, I pop into the tattoo parlour down the New wynd and am shown around by Damian, the owner. He says mostly the clients are older and return again and again. He speaks of them as a family. Looking around at the framed photos and skateboards on the walls he tells me that he has tried to make the surroundings comfy, like your own home. I ask how he got into the tattoo business and he tells me that he is a screenprinter, oh, and a cook, and a joiner and a builder … At the barbers I give Derek a print of the painting ‘The barbers chair’. He says, ‘The last woman before you to come in here read my palm, for £20.’ I said that wasn’t one of my skills, but said it sounded an interesting idea as part of my practice. I should maybe give it some thought…… Further along the walk I visit ‘Trendy dogs’, the pet grooming parlour and meet Christine and a spaniel in for a trim. There is dog wallpaper on the walls and the smell of wet fur. We talk about grooming newfoundlands, now theres a job, and what its like having your grown up children move back home. She gently combs the spaniels ears. It looks happy. Up at the Hoosie catering portakabin Steve and Kenny a driving instructor chat about driving lessons. Kenny says that often pupils will come to a junction on the right hand side of the road after passing a line of parked cars on the left. He says ‘I turn to them and say bonjour..?!..’  Four hours later as I walk back down by the docks, round the corner from ‘Chips an’ things’ (what things ? ), the person in the upstairs flat is still drumming. I like the circularity of this and the dedication to their craft. Still, I’m glad I don’t live in the flat below and next door along theres a sign in the window , ‘Quiet please, hangover in progress’. What a shame.

 

Dereks barbers shop, Montrose. Mixed media on paper.

 

Sparks fly inside the shed. I go inside to see for myself.I meet Gavin and his colleague welding pipes. This is Brookfield Fabricators and Gavin has just finished a four year apprenticeship in welding. Tall, slender bottles of argon gas stand nearby. The other man starts and he tells me to not look at the light. Tells me seriously, as you can get eye burn. I look at him and he says that you can’t open your eyes for the pain that feels like glass behind your eyes. I believe him. Even out the corner of my eye I can sense how bright the light is. I take some pictures and promise to return with a drawing or two.

A streak of orange vomit outside the pub on the corner. A smiling blue haired woman bounces down the Kirkie steps.

I enter the barbers. Am met by Derek and 94 year old Jim in for a trim. Derek has been here since 1979. He had come back into the trade after the years when as Derek said, there wasn’t much call for haircuts what with the Hippies and their long hair.The shop has been a barbers since 1919. He only works three mornings a week, thinks he’ll retire in a couple of years. I record the sound of the clippers and some conversation between Derek and Jim which is overlaid with the sounds of Hot Chocolate singing ‘I believe in miracles, oh you sexy thing’…. Jim gets up to go, zips up his jacket and tells me he’s been coming for a very long time. I ask Derek why barbers poles are red and white and he explains that in an age when barbers were also surgeons, the red and white represented the bloody bandages being hung out to dry. We chat about football and pensions and I record a story about Hamilton Accies and the missing barbers pole. He says he’ll advertise the exhibition in his shop and tells me he’ll come and take a look.

A mannequin in a bridal shop window has an expression of confusion on her face. Her blonde wig slips a little.

In the ‘Coffee Pot’ Rod Stewart sings ‘Maggie ‘. I’m sure he was singing the last time I was in. A woman opposite says she’ll watch my bag when I go to the loo which is outside, next door up a flight of stairs and along a dark corridor. When I return I chat to her and her husband Jack. Maureen tells me about her Grandmother from Lewis who smoked a clay cuttie pipe. I record her story and finish my Victoria sponge. Marge the owner shows me her drawings which she keeps in a folder by the till. They are good. She says customers are getting scarcer, nobody has any money.

I am reading Michel De Certeau,    ‘The practice of everyday life’ . He suggests that walkers are ‘practitioners’ of the city and that the city is made to be walked. Although Montrose is no city , the same can apply. He asserts that in some sense walking is like speaking, and the the city is the language. If one were to cease walking then the stories and language of the space will likewise cease to exist. Rebecca Solnit in ‘Wanderlust’ refers to Christophe Bailly who speaks of Paris …’as a collection of stories, a memory of itself made by the walkers of the street. Should walking erode, the collection may become unread or unreadable’. (p.213 -‘ Wanderlust’. )

I return to the car to find the windscreen covered in seagull poo. The squooshey is empty too so fling a bottle of fizzy water at it and head back over the bridge .

Sitting in the sun on the golf course in Montrose – the worlds 5th oldest, I hear a buzzing and remember the model aero club go flying on a Thursday so I follow the noise to a big expanse of municipal playing fields. I walk over to the group of fliers and have a chat with Heather who is learning to fly.She is sitting in a camping chair in a sleeping bag to keep warm and she tells me that she was introduced to model planes through her partner Arthur. I comment that the planes have little pilots which I find funny and Arthur shows me a picture on his phone of a miniature model of himself sitting inside a vintage aircraft – a sort of aviation selfie. Another man’s  Airforce Hercules type plane actually drops tiny paratroopers from its cargo hold as it flies over. Except not today, which is a shame. He says he loses quite a few as they are can get carried away on the wind ending up who knows where. I am imagining platoons of model paras on exercise in the Angus hills….

 

Sitting in ‘The Hoosie’ cafe looking toward the Montrose air museum.

 

Memories of a day.

In an attic flat on Caledonia street someone watches me as I walk. The person moves closer to the window as I turn the corner, their face almost pressed to the glass. Drawing a line, a life line.

My walk.

From the dock side where the creaking bones of cranes stretch their limbs, I walk along River Street, past California street and America street.Turn right along Commerce street into Ferry street. Mechanics, joiners, pubs and pie shops. The newspaper headline – ‘Montrose headbutt nose breaker fined’. Turn right into Panmure place, past the golden dome of the Academy. Inside the keeper of things, the warm hum of the heating in the museum. Carpeted footsteps, a door opens, closes. No wind to blow the weather vane or the ships trapped in their glass bottles. Up Museum street, across Baltic street, past the public loos and up the vennel to the High street. I ponder over the thought of  tea in the ‘Cup Above’ cafe but decide against it and carry on. Further on outside Boots, I meet Yvonne from the Salvation Army who sells me a ‘War Cry’, and we have a blether, reflecting that there are many twists and turns to a life. She says I have a shiny face, and gives me a hug. Turn right into John Street and left into Market street. On the corner of Orange Lane I spot some new ‘Midwinter’ crockery in the Oxfam shop and am tempted but ….. Head down Orange Lane and about halfway down turn left down the vennel where Puff the dragon lives. Down the steps brings you out onto Mill street. Walk along and then left into Queen street where, at number 12 the garden is a celebration of ornament – gnomes, and dogs and kissing children, all hand painted.Turn right into Kincardine street and left into king street. Cross the road down Reform street and left into Provost Scotts road. Keep on past the tennis courts and Curlie pond. A man in a tan leather jacket and sunglasses walks by. More Miami than Montrose. Up Broomfield Road and the model aero flying club hut and racing pigeon shed sit next to each other, the former in a restored world war 2 hut. I say hello to a man taking a miniature wind sock from the boot of his car. At the junction turn left and then a little further on right into the industrial estate. Up to ‘The Hoosie’ for a cup of tea and a bacon roll, the end of the line. On entering I am asked what brings me all the way out here -a stranger from out of town – cue Ennio Morricone…..Steve, the owner and Chris who runs a car repair shop tell me how they each came to be in Montrose. Both agreed there were worse places to live. Chris talks of a man who would leave the pub and swim across the river between Ferryden and Montrose, and that he would ride his horse through the town. A man comes in and orders a cheeseburger with tales of woe of delivering flat pack furniture up four flights in tenements. We chat about the EU and migrants, and Donald Trump…… Time to saddle up….. on Shanks’s pony, back the way I came.

I drive out of Montrose over the river to Ferryden to sit and look at the docks and write a few notes. The photograph is taken just along from the pub – ‘Diamond Lils’, and the sun illuminates the washing on the lines in the dwindling light of late afternoon. I feel a little emotional by the fragility of the clothing set against the enormity of the ships and the docklands behind.

 

 

mixed media on canvas.