A recent visit to Harris in the Outer Hebrides had me considering the age of the Lewisian Gneiss rocks that dominate this landscape. There is a palpable sense of time and a real feeling that sounds from past lives are trapped within the rock that slowly releases as it erodes back to its constituent components only to be released into the ocean and return again in an unrelenting cycling of change. There is a deep musicality to this cycle of time.
Childhood Summers
My childhood memories of the great migration north each summer to visit my mothers family. To me it was an epic journey without much joy except the final escape to the North York Moors
Another Life
Inspired by open water swimmers who seem to be able to plunge themselves into below body temperatures. I have tried twice to swim at the height of summer in Scotnish, Argyll encased in protective wetsuit with snorkel and goggles and lasted about 1 minute both times.
An Sgùrr, Eigg
Inspired by the geology of the Small Isles of Scotland and the rocky volcanic glass fin on the Isle of Eigg. Here the geologist Hugh Miller discovered ancient fossils of Plesiosaur also known as sea dragons. The North of the island is famous for its singing sands of round eroded quartz grains.
Old Man of Hoy
Finally finished a rather challenging seascape of a distant view of the Old Man of Hoy from Mainland Orkney. It was a tangerine sky under deeply bruised skies and the Old Man was perfectly silhouetted, set apart from the cliffs of Hoy. My vantage point was from the aptly named Cauldrus across agitated seas. This was view that inspired my Orkney Stories 5 video poem.
Good news also is my poem form the same Orkney series - Stenness Stones - was awarded commended in the Scottish Federation of Writers Vernal Equinox Competition
Safe Haven
Trying to capture the anxiety that sailors must feel when needing to find safety when weather conditions turn - especially when the closest is already a crowded space jostling with other boats. Anxiety can continue if its only an anchor hold and through the night they are the mercy of that slim thread.
Orkney Stories 8 - The Earl's Palace, Kirkwall
The final in this Orkney Series after my visit the autumn of 2020. In the heart of Viking medieval Kirkwall is the Earl's Palace with a dark and grim history. The remains are set within a serene woodland square but still permeates a sense of this brooding story.
Postcard Conversations
Inspired by the a work in the private collection of artist Beverley Ann Hicks. It charts the conversations between two old friends by postcards, poems and artworks. As time goes on they drift apart but one chooses to frame her memories and their history as part of her own gallery so that connection is not lost.
Orkney Stories 7 - The Pier Art Centre
The combination of artworks from Orkney to St Ives in this extraordinary collection at the Pier Art Centre, Stromness inspired my 7th Orkney poem in this video series. All housed in this dramatic location at a crossing point of seas and a starting point for arctic explorations.
Awakening
This year the arrival of spring seemed interminable and I recorded the slow progress of the beech woodland leaves opening and lifting. It was long awaited and felt like an awakening.
Orkney Stories 6 Stones of Stenness
This is the sixth of my series on Orkney visited last year for the first time in over 10 years. The sense of time and our relationship with the world is deeply felt at these Neolithic standing stones. Even the presence of absence of those stones that are missing.
Light Glitches - Between Here and There
Inspired the work of Lesley Hicks from her Icelandic series where she painstakingly recreates the grainy interrupted static of digital traffic camera images across an unforgiving landscape. I work by abstracting information from my painting series of the River Add Estuary in Argyll to give the sense of transience that this landscape offers.
Orkney Stories 5 - Towards Hoy
Continuing my series from my visit to Orkney in October 2020. The ever present brooding skyline of Hoy is a dramatic contrast to the soft rolling emerald hills of the mainland agricultural land. Chambered cairns are numerous and in their own way the ancient equivalent of the burial ground of traditional farming practices.
Orkney Stories 4 Loch of Skaill
This is the fourth of my Orkney Stories video. Looking at the soft green landscape its hard to believe millions of years ago it was a sandstone desert and was located near the equator. I'm also delighted to announce that the first three Orkney Story videos have been accepted for Earth lines
Two Tides
Once again I am drawn to the River Add estuary with its extensive sandbanks that stretch out into Crinan Bay. Watching the tide return from two different directions creates a sense that messages and stories are being transmitted as the ripples collide before reaching the end of their journey.
Kingfisher
Spring seems a long time arriving. The sighting of a Kingfisher in Argyll transported be to all the exotic places its brilliant plumage reminded me of and for a moment the world seemed brighter.
Seeking
A video poem inspired by the work of Emily Learmont entitled Sixteen Seascapes. Her work is dream like and of another world which prompted me to write this piece based on a seascape painting I had created a few years ago looking towards Danna Island in Argyll. Each is a vignette from the original but added to with items borrowed from my other art and photographic work such as boats, moonscapes and patterns of natural forms. The sixteenth image is the final painting.
Orkney Stories 3 - Cauldrus to Old Man of Hoy
When I first visited Orkney I cycled across Hoy to experience the famous sea stack The Old Man of Hoy. As I approached this giant toothy rock created by coastal erosion a helicopter landed on its summit for a brief few seconds and flew off. This to me, along with its ascent by climbers, epitomised the stacks slow, steady decline. Its still a wonder to see and others will replace it.
Echo
One of those moments where you catch out of the corner of your eye the space once occupied by an otter - almost imaginary, but that absence intensifies its past presence - as if hearing an echo in the water.
At the end of a lane
A photographic piece inspired by the Yorkshire artist , Peter Hicks, painting series The Entrance to a Lane, which in turn was inspired by the abstract impressionist artist Graham Sutherlands series of the same name. The work moves from winter to spring and aims to capture my curiosity and inspiration in the seasons.