The work I produced during
my week in Outlandia was in response to reading Nan Shepherd’s wonderful
account of the many years she spent living in, and responding to, the
Cairngorms, called ‘The Living Mountain’. Among her observations of natural
phenomena in a mountain environment were two which leapt out as bases for
artistic activity. The first was this: ‘… the peculiar motion of the current
among the ice-floes [in winter] has woven the thousands of floating
pine-needles into compacted balls, so intricately intertwined that their
symmetrical shape is permanently retained.’ Using glue which I made from
natural, organic constituents, I mimicked the formation of these spheres and
placed them near the river and streams in Glen Nevis. They would be washed away
in autumn’s and winter’s floods.
She also writes: ‘… pluck a feathery grass… hold a sheet of white paper behind it and see how the shadow stands out like an etching… a miracle of exact detail.’ When the sun shone, during a week blessed with good weather, I chose a number of different plants and trees to hold my sheet of white paper behind, before photographing their shadows.
Another activity occurred to
me just a day or so before I started my residency. I packed a small,
old-fashioned letter stamping kit and used it to stamp Gaelic words on trees
and stones in the area around Outlandia. They were words or concepts taken
from, or relating to, Nan Shepherd’s book. The one shown here is: MATHAIR
(mother/origin or source); [others not shown] SAMHCHADAS (quietness, silence); SAORSA (freedom,
liberty); MI-CHINT (uncertainty).
My other activity during the
week was to make ‘rain drawings’. I was prepared for the ‘sun shadow’ photos
(see above) but realised that I would probably have some rain during my five
days’ residency. When it did rain, I stayed in the treehouse at Outlandia and
used water-soluble pencils and ink to produce rain trace images, some in the
form of monoprints.
