Monument to the Winch

I took a drive out to the top of Lewis, near Port of Ness. A beautiful white sand beach is nearby, light blue waves, dark black rock with green sea moss. Theres all sort of tendrils of driftnet and rope that has washed up, half buried. I collected some as well as a piece of driftwood, to weave together and make a sort of windchime, or weathervane. Driving into the village I saw the brutalist concrete harbour, a zig zag of stone sheltering moorings and a slipway, with a big breaker from larger storm waves. The old winch house sits at the end of the slipway though the winch is long gone.

Found fishing rope, seaweed and driftwood collected from Traigh Shanndaigh near Eòrapaidh, Isle of Lewis, installed as a temporary decoration to the old winch-house on the ageing concrete and stone breakwater harbour at Port of Nes. Installation documentation. 2017.

Advertisements

Flotsam on the Clyde

Yesterday a walk on the shores of the Clyde River at Helensburg, waters which feed into the firth of Clyde. There were many mussel shells, empty and brittle, cracking beneath foot, creating smaller pieces still on their way to sand. Lots of detritus, industrial, from the maritimes. Sea glass, all shades of green that I could see.

Inspired by shapes here, voids, the nesting of items together and items out of their natural element. The colours muted, with gradients. I like the idea of slipways. The idea of boueys adrift, unanchored. What is it to be ‘unanchored’ or set adfrift? Cast away, come loose?  Unsecure, lost, lost at sea. Never making it to sea.

This is Spiritual and Physical: Seventh Gallery

My work This is Spiritual and Physical is showing at Seventh Gallery in Melbourne, through to 15 April 2016. Thank you to Kate Clark for her work on the soundscape.

This is Spiritual and Physical presents video shot in Scotland and Iceland over several years that documents farming and rural life and sites of pilgrimage. The imagery explores the physical and aesthetic characteristics of landscape use for work and that which is visited for its spiritual significance, and aims to elucidate the correspondence between the output of the work generated by a body performing repetitive labour and that generated by spiritual pilgrimage.

This is Spiritual and Physical, HD video with sound, 19m 16s, 2016. Stills: