Andy Warhol. Damien Hirst. Tracey Emin. All famous contemporary artists, likely to be known more for their names and media-fuelled reputations rather than their individual art works. Fame is the the currency of the modern art world, but it is the antithesis of the current exhibition at the Moray Art Centre, Findhorn. ‘Nameless’, conceived and curated by Moray Art Centre’s founder and current director Randy Klinger, showcases largely unattributed Renaissance drawings and sketches from the British Museum’s collection, The Courtauld Gallery and the National Galleries of Scotland.
The Nameless exhibition has been timed to open concurrently with related exhibitions covering the same period at The British Museum, London,The Uffizi in Florence and the Courtauld Gallery’s exhibition ‘Michelangelo’s Dream’ also in London, and has been generously supported by the Foyle Foundation, an independent UK-based grant-making trust.
It was perhaps towards the end of the 14th Century that artists increasingly made use paper, pen & ink to develop their ideas and their concepts for paintings and sculptures as a means to an end, rather than as an artistic end in itself. These ‘sketches’ give us a fascinating insight into the creative process of these anonymous artists, and the Nameless exhibition brings a selection of these incredibly captivating images to the North of Scotland for the very first time. A rather wonderful coup I think.
As Director Randy Klinger explained, “The impetus for the Nameless exhibition has been driven by the sense that particular insights may be gained from engagement with Renaissance drawings that have evaded definitive attribution. In Nameless, the selected drawings are all anonymous or insecurely attributed, despite belonging to what many see as a ‘celebrity’ period in the history of art”.
Thus the exhibits offer the viewer a source of pleasure, liberated from the intellectual baggage of confirmed historical attribution, allowing the drawings to be viewed and enjoyed ‘as is’, without the dual prisms of reputation and expectation.
Despite the age of these 15th and 16th Century drawings, the loose lines, trials and errors of form all combine to bring a sense of immediacy to the exhibits. These unknown artists of the Renaissance would not have had any appreciation that their developing, and very personal, ideas would ever see the light of a exhibition space and be subject to critical public assessment. The drawings on display at Moray Art Centre were created purely for the artists’ eyes only, and we are therefore most privileged to be given this opportunity to appreciate the results of their very personal endeavours.
Tain-based artist Fin Macrae may be half of DUFI, but he also maintains a solo artistic life outwith those graffiti guerillas as a talented photographer. In 2007, Fin ran an ambitious collaborative photography project as part of Scotland’s year-long celebration of Highland culture. 52 people were selected from all over the Highlands & Islands to document a week in their lives by taking a photo every day. The resulting images form a visual diary of a year in the life of the Highlands & Islands in the 21st Century. Fin explained that the idea for the project began back in 2006 whilst working on a personal project to shoot one Polaroid per day for the entire year, as his homage to the discontinued cult instant film. ThreeSixFive grew from Fin’s fascination with the idea of getting a number of people to document a year, so he developed a proposal to provide cameras to members of the public and let them record events in their lives for one week, without any prescription of what they should shoot. Fin favours a quote from the Czech photographer Josef Koudelka to help sum up the ethos of the project: “For me the most beautiful thing is to wake up, go outside and look without anybody telling me: You have to look this way or another”.
The resulting exhibition featuring the 365 photographs of 2007 taken using one of two Canon digital SLR cameras provided for the project, along with a selection of Fin’s fine monochrome portraits of 32 of the 52 participants, is currently on tour under the banner of ‘ThreeSixFive TrìSiaCòig – A Year in the Highlands and Islands’. On Saturday I managed to catch the first day of its final tour of duty at the Inverness Museum & Art Gallery (IMAG), after an extensive Highland-wide tour that began on the 5th June last year in Nairn.
Stepping into the first-floor gallery space at IMAG you are greeted by an almost empty room, save for a slide projector and two chairs at the far end, where the 365 photos documenting each day of 2007 are projected onto the white wall in a continuous loop. The remaining walls around the room are hung with Fin’s monochrome portraits of thirty-two of the participants, many in their native work environment, others at play or relaxing, like the horizontal and angular playwright/artist John Byrne, warmly wrapped in a tweed jacket. [PhotoGeekFact: Fin used a Mamiya medium format camera for these commissions].
Fin’s portraits of the participants – a mix of the local and (inter)nationally recognized faces – are sometimes shot against a deliberately blurred background, others instead showing a clear context for the subject. The more playful and less formal portraits such as the horizontal Byrne particularly caught my eye, and I suspect that for these sittings Fin had managed to establish a particularly relaxed atmosphere where the subjects are at ease both with themselves and the photographic process.
We have, for example, an intimate portrait of Myles MacInnes (aka musician/DJ Mylo) sat in (I assume) his local, gently nursing a pint of beer, a copy of Iain Banks’ ‘Raw Spirit’ also present on the table. A neat juxtaposition of the traditional and the local (in both senses), up against the ultra-modern internationally-renowned recording artist. Other stand-outs included a relatively straightforward shot of the laid-back and broadly smiling forester Stuart Blackhall, chainsaw-ready against a stack of blurry pine logs; the professional snowboarder Lesley McKenna, head tilted to almost 90 degrees, resting on her precious board against a pure white background; and the overtly posed, but nevertheless amusing portrait of David Win, the Keeper of Eilean Donan Castle, oversized door key (for an oversized door?) grasped tightly in hand, the Castle vaguely recognizable in the background.
Then there’s the little details of life that make it through the lens, like student Jake Threadgould from Ross-shire, complete with ‘Form for school’ scrawled in biro on the back of his hand, enamelled Vice-captain and Prefect badges pinned loosely to his school tie. And it’s these depictions of daily life outside work that form the bulk of the 365 photos from the 52 people chosen to participate in the ThreeSixFive exhibition. Despite a large number of Fin’s portraits showing them in their native work environments, the majority of the participants’ snapshots deal with the day-to-day concerns of us all: family, friends, pets, the weather and the landscapes which we hold close, subjects we can all relate to from our own photographic experiences. An interesting insight into what we value, and of how we define ourselves to others through the photographic medium. We do not, as a rule, take photos at work. The only exception seemed to be where we work within the fantastic Highland landscapes/seascapes.
I would have liked to have spent more time with the 365 photographs, to be able to slow the rolling sets of stills and pause awhile to view their daily snapshots. to share their worldview and gain a little more insight into their lives. Instead I had to content myself with letting 2007 rush by, and attempt to catch and commit a few to memory. The Keeper of Eilean Donan Castle, David Win, has produced a fine set of photographs capturing picture postcard landscapes, milling, inquisitive tourists and dynamic Highland dancers, whilst weaver Catherine Campbell’s week was filled with Harris Tweed, tranquil island landscapes, looms, sheep and somewhat bewildered children draped in oversized tweed clothing.
In essence, the ThreeSixFive/TrìSiaCòig exhibition is a fascinating distillation of a year in the life of the Highlands & Islands and its people, with Fin Macrae’s insightful monochrome formal commissions acting as a counterpoint to the informal & familiar snapshots generously shared with the audience by the 52 participants. If you haven’t already caught this enchanting exhibition during its extensive tour of the Highlands, try and catch it if you can, there’s still time.
I arrived early at The Bike Shed, an unprepossessing, functional-looking building nestled in Grant Street, downtown Merkinch.
The front door was already open, welcoming me in, the sound of softly plucked strings finding their way out and into the cold night air. Stepping quietly over the threshold, I spied Mairi playing her clarsach to my right, and from the other end of the freshly-painted white room, I was greeted by the ever-smiling Annie Marrs.
Annie, a Fine Arts graduate from Dundee University, is the Arts Development Worker for ‘Arts in Merkinch’, and firmly at the heart of the project that has brought The Bike Shed to us tonight.
The Bike Shed is a new Community Arts venue for Merkinch and South Kessock which in the past has housed an old motorcycle repair shop, and more recently had been used by the local MP33 youth group to repair bicycles, hence the apt choice of name.
With the support of the Merkinch Partnership in the form of Anne Sutherland, and Merkinch Enterprise’s Colin Downie, plus lashings of good luck, hard work and some timely funding from the local Council Ward, The Bike Shed has been transformed into a fully formed (and watertight – there was a flood!) Community Arts resource.
Annie informed me over the general hubbub that The Bike Shed in one form or another has always been used for local festivals, but the venue will now be hosting a variety of regular arts-related workshops/classes, and unusually, can also be hired by artists as a temporary studio or as an exhibition space. The fees are modest: at £20 a day for studio use, and a very attractive £50 a week for exhibitions.
Tonight’s opening ceremony was exceedingly well attended by any standards, featuring paintings by Bette McArdle and photographs by Paul Marrs, as well as offering the curious and the brave an opportunity to paint a ceramic tile with ceramicist Kira Brown.
I was at the head of the queue for the tile painting, but was soon joined in a growing bustle at the far end of The Bike Shed by a large number of would-be ceramicists.
The surprising news for us was that our finished and fired tiles will be used to decorate the The Bike Shed’s washroom, our small contribution to the fabric of this fantastic new resource.
Bette McArdle, an artist with (and I hope she won’t mind me saying) huge experience, displayed works in a number of different media, but the stand-outs for me were her studies of Les Oiseaux Street Musicians in oils, particularly the striking triptych.
A combination of relaxed strokes and some vibrant colour choices combined to produce an engaging collection of figurative street images which, whilst bright in hue, hint at a somewhat dark undercurrent.
On the opposite wall from Bette’s collected works were a selection of fascinating wildlife images by local photographer Paul Marrs, who managed to get up close and personal with everything from pollen-dusted bumblebees to lounging lizards, with portraits of hungry red squirrels en route.
After a generous time perusing the artworks on show, amply complemented by a whirlwind of snatched conversations with friends old and brand new, it was time for me to reluctantly take my leave. But I, like many of my fellow visitors tonight, will undoubtedly return to The Bike Shed.
A dam fine time was had by all ...
Picture the scene: eighteen hardy souls bouncing along on an unfeasibly tall Icelandic bus - great ground clearance, enormous tyres, no suspension - on their merry way up 2500ft to visit Scottish and Southern Electricity’s (SSE) soon-to-be- finished hydro-electric scheme at Glendoe. Weather was fresh, the jokes were stale.
Our day started on a high note with ample teas, coffees and biscuits at SSE’s ‘base camp’ near Fort Augustus. Here, George Wilkinson from SSE presented us with a potted history of the Glendoe project, including the remarkable fact that the 100MW scheme on its own could supply all of Glasgow’s electricity needs. With the highest head – the drop from reservoir to turbine – of any hydro station in the UK, the scheme can generate more energy per cubic metre of water than any other facility in the country.
Prior to climbing into the aforementioned Icelandic behemoth, George kindly supplied us with hard hats, hi-vis vests and some serious, steel toe capped wellies, fit for any safety-conscious gardeners out there. Guides for our tour of the vast development site were the two Martins, Deane and Hewitt, a double-act with a fine line in patter that would not have been out of place on a double-deckered London sightseeing trip.
We proceeded to bounce our way up, around hairpin after hairpin, to our first vantage point with views of the surprisingly modest dam (max. 35m high) as well as the workers’ village on the plateau which includes accommodation, restaurant and 24-hour concrete manufacturing plant: see for yourself at http://www.glendoe.co.uk/webcam.html.
After a breezy ten minutes admiring the view and failing to hear all our guides’ words which were whisked away on the prevailing winds, we headed down past the workers’ village and onwards to the base of the dam itself. One factoid I managed to glean from our guides was that the snow drifts in March/April were around 2-3 metres in places due to the fantastic skiing weather earlier in the year, and this has knocked non-critical works back by 2-3 months.
From the base of the 950m long dam, we could see the crews applying the concrete facing slabs to its ‘reservoir- side’. It appeared to be a giant bathroom tiling exercise, albeit with enormous concrete tiles, copper expansion joints, and industrial strength ‘grout’. It takes around 16 hours to complete 1 concrete ‘tile’ - when compared to my efforts at home that is exceptionally quick.
Back to the stats: the reservoir will be filled through natural drainage from an area of 15 square km and from a system of underground pipes and tunnels gathering water from another 60 square km of the surrounding hills. Glendoe’s network of tunnels is extensive - the system will be served by over 16 km of passageways. An 8.6 km tunnel, 4.6 m in diameter, will collect water and bring it to the reservoir while 8 km of tunnels, 5 m in diameter, will channel water from the reservoir - via the over-sized ‘plug-hole’ in the photo bottom left - to the underground power station and then out into Loch Ness.
The underground power station cavern is around 250m below ground, and 50m long, 18m wide and 32m high. Contained within it will be the turbine and generator which together convert the water’s force into the 100MW. A separate, smaller cavern will be located adjacent to the power station cavern to house the main station transformer.
We headed back down the mountain in the bouncy bus to see the works at the tailrace. The tailrace is currently a landlocked hole in the ground but will eventually flow into Loch Ness with one final - and probably LARGE - rock blast to ensure that the ‘exit’ to Loch Ness is properly cleared. Might be spectacular!
Now bathed in warm sunshine and with the spectacular views over a calm Loch Ness to Fort Augustus Abbey, all that was left to do was to return our safety gear to George at base camp and wend our myriad ways home.
Our thanks to SSE for a great day-out and to Laura Cheetham (on-site fixer), Martin Deane and Martin Hewitt (tour guides), and George Wilkinson (presentation + health & safety guru).
The Planning Etc. (Scotland) Act 2006 has placed a greater emphasis on effective pre-application discussion between local authorities and developers. Adding to the mix in 2008 was the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisers, which in its first Annual Report called for planning to make a more positive contribution to sustainable economic growth through a culture change in which planners become facilitators rather than regulators.
In the light of such guidance, the Highland Council’s Planning and Development Service identified that its pre-application advice service could become more effective, efficient and comprehensive by taking a more proactive and co-ordinating role. The result was the launch of a new Pre- Application Advice Service (PAAS) for Major Developments in January 2009. This is a joint initiative between the Highland Council and its partner agencies which include Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), Transport Scotland and the NHS.
Working with developers and partners
The PAAS process is coordinated by staff within the Highland Council’s Development Plans Team. The process is initiated by a developer requesting a pre-application advice meeting and then submitting a minimum level of information on the proposal. PAAS meetings are held every 4 weeks; with dates scheduled well in advance so developers can build this into their programme for delivery. This approach also gives developers a level of certainty on the timescales within which they can expect to receive a response from the Council; allowing proposals to be developed in a cost- effective and time-efficient manner. PAAS meetings are chaired by an officer from the Planning and Development Service and attended by representatives from a range of council services: Development Planning, Development Management, Access, Forestry, Archaeology, Housing,
Waste Management, Roads and Transportation, Education, and Contaminated Land; as well as those from SNH, SEPA, Highlands and Islands
Transport Partnership (HITRANS), NHS, Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and Transport Scotland. Each developer has 30 minutes to describe the key elements of their proposal, and there is then up to an hour allocated for discussion of the proposal.
Following each PAAS meeting, there is a three-week period for attendees to form their response to the proposal. Individual partner responses are collated into a single Pre-Application Advice Pack which forms the Council’s corporate view on the proposal, and this is issued to the developer within 4 weeks of the meeting.
Learning and evaluation
To date the PAAS programme has dealt with over 30 major developments including the proposed new Campus for the University of the Highlands & Islands and the masterplan for a mixed-use extension to Evanton village (Culcairn Farm). Feedback from developers has been actively sought and the average ratings to date have been very positive: speed of response – 4.2 out of 5; usefulness of the information provided – 4 out of 5; ease of use of the information provided – 4 out of 5.
The early success of PAAS has been recognised through the awarding of the Highland Council’s 2009 Quality Award for Contribution to the Local Economy. To ensure that the initiative continues to operate successfully, PAAS is subject to regular review and fine-tuning through feedback from both developers and partners.
This may have been Colin David Macleod’s first gig in two months, but there was no sign of the The Boy Who Trapped The Sun having lost his ability to light up a dark & gloomy venue, or warm up the chilled bones of an Ironworks audience freshly in from the Arctic conditions. Colin’s warm glow this evening may have had something to do with his earlier sojourn into the retail heart of Inverness to purchase some thermal underwear; not normal behaviour for a 25-year old, a fact acknowledged by the man himself with a wistful smile.
First up was Colin’s support act, local hero James Mackenzie [of The Aquascene]. With often roaring vocals that were strongly reminiscent of Richard Ashcroft [The Verve], underslung by high-tempo, high-volume acoustic guitar, James’ short session included a solo rendition of The Aquascene’s Telescopes, and a new song dedicated to his girlfriend:Teach Me How to Swim. The latter was certainly James’ most musically complex song of the night, but I would like to have heard a more varied set from James, as the songs were almost unremittingly fast-paced with the volume set to 11. However, I am certain that there’s much more to come from James and his Big Voice.
The Boy Who Trapped The Sun [TBWTTS] hails from the Isle of Lewis, an island of the north-west coast of Scotland that he describes as “wild and barren” but he adds “it’s beautiful too” [or 'no bad' in the local vernacular]. Having spent his teenage years doing the “wild and barren” in several thrash-punk bands, Colin has chilled in his ‘old age’ – perhaps due to too many dunks in the freezing North Atlantic as a result of his beloved surfing – and now produces the “beautiful” music.
Armed lightly with an acoustic guitar, harmonica and swamp-stomping foot, perched nonchalantly on a chair in front of a frozen audience huddled around pub-like tables, TBWTTS kicked off tonight’s stripped-down set with Fragile Eyes. Colin describes his own music as Acousmatic / Tape music / Concrete / Surf, but that does it a disservice, as it liberally takes its ingredients more widely from blues, folk and low-fi indie to produce a delicious dish to his own recipe. Underpinned by adept and often delicate guitar technique, Colin’s vocals immediately bring Gary Lightbody [Snow Patrol] to mind, particularly during the softer, lyrical moments which intersperse this and much of tonight’s set. The sometimes fragile-nature of Colin’s higher notes also bring to mind Jeff Buckley, and the often melancholic, wistful and sometimes left-field lyrics leading to comparisons with Turin Brakes.
Tonight’s 12-strong set included 10 of Colin’s own songs, including Dream Like a Fool – one of three tracks co-written by Ed Harcourt – as well as covers of [ahem] Girls Aloud’sThe Loving Kind and Dylan’s Girl from the North Country. [There's an intriguing side-story about Colin's first visit to Ed's flat in London: Ed appears wearing a knight's helmet and brandishing an axe upon opening the door to Colin. Note to self: investigate further.]
Whilst Colin does manage to bring his own spin to the cover of Girls Aloud, the lyrical content is perhaps a little too school-yard simplistic when stacked up against Colin’s own more complex lyrical tendencies. But it works. The cover of Dylan’s Girl From the North Country was briefly interrupted by feedback issues which seemed to be related to Colin’s monitor speaker rather than the PA the audience could hear. As a result, Colin played and sang with little electronic help, giving the already intimate gig a much more hushed and ‘front-room of Colin’s house’ feel.
Colin’s own material from his debut album Fireplace included two strong singles, Homeand Dream Like a Fool, the latter being pointedly about a girl who tried to stab Colin, and contained probably the most Buckley-esque vocals of the night, as well as [understandably] the most psychotic lyrics. The earlier single Home was my first introduction to TBWTTS, and it remains my firm favourite to date: a bluesy, stomping, finger-pickingly good number which seems all the more powerful live. Colin’s love-hate relationship with the city is alive and well and living at Home.
We were also privileged tonight to be the first ‘proper’ audience to hear a new track – Is That The Last Call for The Boat? Colin’s new cat ‘Ninja’ beat us on that one BTW. Based on an encounter with a drunken ‘cove’ attempting to get on a ferry with no ticket, it’s a slower number [much like the island's ferry] filled with the melancholic humour of the drunk: “…no I can’t swim, I can hardly float” and “Today has been a bad day. You can keep today until tomorrow”.
Although Colin has now been signed to a major record label – Geffen – his feet are firmly rooted in the harsh reality of today’s music business, informing us that he’d fully expected to have his guitars tuned for him as a result of his record deal, but here he was in front of us tuning them himself. His profile has recently been lifted, at least in his father’s eyes, by the use of the stomping I See You from Fireplace as background music to an item on [seriously folks] bovine tuberculosis on Countryfile [BBC1]. His stock with younger members of tonight’s audience was lifted by Colin’s revelation that his fabulous singleHome had been used on none other than Hollyoaks. Small steps to wider public/media recognition perhaps, but this Golden Boy is going to go far. 9/10
I LIKE HEFT. Not NASA’s High Energy Focusing Telescope, a balloon-borne experiment that uses depth-graded multilayer optics and cadmium zinc telluride pixel detectors to image astrophysical sources in the hard X-ray (20–100 keV) band. No, not THAT heft. What I mean is that I adore the word ‘heft’.
Pronunciation: \ˈheft\
Function: noun
Etymology: from heave, after such pairs as weave : weft
Date: 15th century
1 a : weight, heaviness b : importance, influence
2 archaic : the greater part of something : bulk
Heft has an inherent weightiness, but its sound is light on the lips. Heft is also a rare beast, having all but disappeared from modern use. So when I do hear ‘heft’ spoken or spy it wedged into print, I smile quietly to myself, comforted that the author has taken time to select heft from the clichéd line-up of Usual Suspects when discussing bulk or weight.
Finding the little beggar is challenging. So if you come across the word ‘heft’ in newspapers, articles, literature or somewhere on the web, please let me know and drop me a link.
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