ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS.

 

Words can convey so much and in themselves are, when trouble is taken a sort of action. For some, and I include myself, words are often the only option as age and increasing decrepitude limit physical action. However when a complete stranger turned up one even with two bags of coal, and the following day five bags of peat were delivered from Lewis and Harris Trail it meant a whole lot more. Above and beyond simply writing the words and straight to the supportive practical action. Thank you.

I’d spoken with Murry and we’d settled on this Saturday to bring in the peats. This is the time I go knocking on doors to rustle up a team of helpers. There’s no point in having too many, and so with Kate, Ewan and Steve we were the famous five. Murry was already at the peat face with tractor and trailer when I arrived with the others. The moor was not as dry as I would have liked, but despite two seriously heavy loads Murry made it look easy with the new wider trailer and double wheels. The third and final load was the bags of currans which when the tops were rolled and stacked flat slid neatly out when tipped. It is always wonderfully satisfying feeling to have the peats off the moor after all the hard labour of cutting, settling up and bagging up. Most of us are still wondering if summer will ever appear this year or if the dry spell back in May is all we’re going to get, but miraculously the peats have dried, proof that it’s the wind above all that does the drying. Now with the back half of yard filled with a large pile of peat my next enjoyable task is to get building a stack. My days of dry stone walling are over, but I can take my time. There is pride locally in this final stage of peat cutting and a critical eye will be cast over my efforts. A good peat stack is not just a pile of fuel. It is the visual result of an annual tradition stretching back for centuries and when well executed is a thing of beauty.    

TOTTIE AND TOM

 

Tottie reporting.

The in depth interview went down well with the boss, he thought I’d done a great job, but then he gave me a hard time about not getting a photo. “We need an image”, he literally screamed at me. I’d totally forgotten, and I couldn’t say I’d left the camera behind because my mobile phone would have done just as well. So, I told him Tom had refused, saying there were plenty of images of himself on line. I tapped his name in and hit images. I noticed one engraving from 1821, the obituary of Tom Hickman, a top bare knuckle fighter by all accounts who came to a sticky end. I wonder if he’s any relation.

 I can’t see Tom raising a finger let alone a fist to anyone. Maybe there’s another story there, particularly as I hear he’s had some peats stolen from out on the moor. The boss also got wind of that and now wants me to do a follow up, just the sort of thing he likes a bit of sensationalism and not past a bit of exaggeration and downright fabrication, well hardly surprising for someone who used to work on the News of the World. Anyway, I found this one of Tom in action, painting an enormous canvas, not quite the drama of Mc Taggart in high winds on Macrihanish beach, but he does seem to be almost jigging along with those Breton dancers, and perfect for the in depth article.

The cakes were a big mistake, you should have seen Tom’s face at that point it would have made a pretty grim picture. Still, once out in the studio Tom forget about the baking. He seemed to enjoy talking about himself, but then don’t we all.

Before starting the interview he showed me the chair he’d just finished out in the workshop, and I just could not believe it. I knew right away I had to have it, what the French call le coup de foudre. It seemed like it had been made especially for me, the colour, that wee folding shelf and the scratched childlike images. I felt I’d known it for ages and it was already a treasured heirloom. I freely admit I might have gone over the top a bit, but anyway he’s agreed to let me have it (on lone for now) before it goes on exhibition. He said he’ll make a tweed cushion for it and delivering it next week. I think I’ll stick to scones next time.

Tom. Tottie’s been texting me about doing an article about the stolen peats and that they could do a crowd funding or donations. I don’t think so, I’ve already said enough on the subject, and I’m more concerned about bagging up the rest and getting them in. She also said something about needing a photo for the article and had found something interesting about Tom Hickman on line. No doubt I will find out when I deliver the chair.

I’ve had just the one visitor this week (I don’t count Tottie). This woman after the briefest of glances around admitted she’d only come in from the ridding school looking for the toilets. They’d told her they were up the hill and to the right, and so she’d turned right onto the road and seen my open sign. I suspect she didn’t fancy using their eco toilets, and I was sadly lacking in any generosity of spirit after the peat incident. She wasn’t exactly hoping from foot to foot so I directed her back the way she came. She said on parting that maybe they’ll come back when the riding was finished, but I knew what maybe meant. I wonder what she’d have done if I said the £5 entry fee includes free use of the toilet.

I’ve at last finished a recycling embroidery project that seems to have been hanging around for months I finished the huntsman earlier in the year, but the two ladies was quite a bit bigger. They were both originally part of a pole screen that had been overstitched in Victorian times. When I removed the later stitching there really wasn’t much left apart from the 17^th century figures and various strange birds. Although now in two separate images I have managed to retain elements of the original design as well as the best of the early embroidery. I felt quite guilty initially about being unable to restore the original embroidered panel, but now I see the two completed works it seems worthwhile, and to live on in a different form is way better than being consigned to the bin. It always helps to have an old frame to put them in, even if they are not the same period. I’ve just cut down an old pillow, so must now look out a couple of bits of tweed for that chair cushion.

 

      

 

           

 

 

 

WHAT MAKES TOM TICK?

 

Tottie Nadin reporting once again from Studio 17 New Tolsta.

I was delighted with my fish, not the easiest thing to wrap and I suppose Tom could have simply handed it to me, but he’d done this thing with scrap pieces of bubble wrap which must have been used God know how many times. Still, it did the job and thankfully he only used a small bit of parcel tape to hold it together. I went around my flat trying to find just the right spot for it. I wouldn’t have thought those little fish would be so hard to place and they really don’t go with my décor. I’m sure Tom could have put them down anywhere and they would have looked good. In the end I found a spot on an eyelevel shelf in the bathroom just above the loo – perfect. I’m not sure I’ll be telling Tom that, but at least I’ll see them every day. Since that last visit I’ve been looking at everything that I throw away in my waste bin and wondering what he might create with it. He showed me some handmade cloths pegs that he’d made from an old bake bean tin and some split larch, plus a splendid dust pan that was worth of display unlike those nasty little plastic things that we hide in our cupboards, or the blue plastic scoop in the Lews Castle Museum that everyone wonders what it’s doing there. The pile of wood he showed me in his workshop was destined to be a chair, but I couldn’t see anything that could remotely resemble a chair. He showed me one he’d made a few years ago and that looked magnificent. I know the man is clever but not a miracle worker.

I’ve had a lecture from my boss, and he’s told me to cut out the tittle tattle with you and him, people will think you’re besotted. Get an in-depth article and move on. That £5 change is still bothering me and I’m not sure how Tom will react to an in-depth report. Some people see them as flattering but then Tom isn’t some people. I’ll take a little gift, bake something.

Isn’t it always the way when you’re trying to make something special, it never turns out the same as if you made no effort at all. I think I overdid the sugar and wondered if buying something might have been safer, but then I could see Tom frowning at all that unnecessary packaging, or would he make something out of that too. Like a one year old at their birthday party, more interested in the wrapping paper than the gift.

 

Tom.

That Totties been around again. Is she stalking me? Should I be flattered or worried? Well she did at least phone first. She wanted to see the Hebridean chair, how I’d gotten on and was it finished. She brought a bag of wee cakes as a thank you for the fish. I bet she’s stuck them in pride of place on her mantelpiece so all her friends can pass comment, when they really needed to be in a bathroom. The woman can’t bake that’s for sure, but I felt obliged to offer her a cup of tea and we sat crunching our way through the tasteless sugary things she’d made. It put an entirely new perspective on how we suffer for our art. They put me in mind of my Breton neighbour Madame Salan and the time she made me a Far cake, a recipe she’d used during World War II. When the dish full arrived she explained the missing portion had gone to my other neighbour Marie L’hours. Thankfully I left the tasting till later in the day, yuk. I took the remainder around to Marie, but she said the woman can’t cook and she’d thrown it straight in the bin. I followed suit but still had to return the dish. I thanked Madame Salan, but she still wanted to know what I thought of her cooking. The words had slipped from my mouth before I had time to think of anything polite to say. “I now understood just how they suffer during the war years.” Ooops!

If Tottie thinks the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach then she’d do well to enroll in a cooking course.

She was totally ecstatic when I showed her the chair and wanted to know how much it would be. I fobbed her off with something about getting an exhibition together, but as I heard myself saying that I thought perhaps that’s exactly what I should be doing. I certainly can’t sell it now that Totties put her dibs on it, even spoke of changing the colour in her kitchen to match. Oh God she’ll surely want me to deliver it and there’ll be more of those ghastly cakes.

We then retreated to the studio and she came out with it. Her editor had told her to get an in-depth report on me, and did I have time to answer a few questions. Well I had a few of my own, like what did you put in those cakes, but found myself agreeing to be quizzed.

 

Tottie’s in depth on what makes Tom tick.

BEST & WORST of TIMES?

Tom Hickman, 70, is now an internationally renowned outsider artist, untrained and untamed. He began taking himself seriously as an artist back in the late eighties when living in Frome, then having moved to Brittany, continuing his exploration into all manner of media over a period of thirty years. The un-severed Caledonian umbilical cord of his youth saw him move back to Scotland to take up residence on the Isle of Lewis in New Tolsta, where he puts into practice the myriad of skills he has acquired during his extra ordinary creative lifetime.

 

 

BEST CHILDHOOD MEMORY?

Wow there’s a lot of those. Climbing trees, when we were living outside Campbeltown on the Kildalloig Estate. I loved getting a different perspective on my world from on high, and I mean the higher the better. There was one Western Hemlock, must have been a hundred years old or more, and it was way higher than the house. The layered branches meant not only an easy climb but a view out over the top of the house out to sea and across to Arran. I fell once when nearly at the top and an owl flew out. I only dropped a few feet before hitting another branch and it certainly did nothing to diminish my enthusiasm for climbing. I could traverse an entire section of the woodland behind the house without touching the ground, swinging like a monkey on bending branches until I could reach the neighbouring tree. That’s the magic of youth, having no fear and a body that works.

BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE SO FAR?

Who thinks up these questions, and why is it that the worst day springs to mind so easily? I suppose most people say the birth of a child, but I’ve never wanted children, although I’ve had a lot to do them, playing in the park or birthday parties, and being squashed at the bottom of a great heap excited kids, but to pick out one day, impossible. I’ve experienced so much, and I don’t mean simply visited places, I mean real experience and encounters with people and nature. If I had to pick out any one particular encounter I think that might well be with nature. Snorkelling in Western Australia with brilliantly coloured fish who were equally curious about me. Coming face to face with a fox that had doubled back to lose the hounds pursuing him, and both of us just staring at each other. The robin that one winter in Brittany would feed from my hand and feeling those most delicate of feet, along with the trust and lack of fear. He got quite cheeky and if I left a cake out on the table he’d be in for a nibble.

BEST THING ABOUT BEING AN ARTIST?

Well that begs the question, what is an artist? I’m constantly hearing that we are all artist, and I find it difficult at times to see myself as an artist when I see what other far more successful artist produce. I think it would be the creative process, using that part of my brain that other people don’t get to access that often is a privilege that requires a certain freedom as well as time. I know I don’t need a special space to be creative in, but now that I have my own studio it is a delight to spend time here. It was when in my thirties that I thought I must change course and get on with my creative career if I am ever to produce all that presented itself as possible. I hadn’t realise back then that there is no end to it, one thing leads to another and the more you create the more there is to create. Time unfortunately has become a limiting factor, which puts an edge on things and that I’m having to come to terms with, but there is no question of slowing that creative process as yet. 

BEST DECISION YOU EVER MADE?

To take myself seriously as an artist. It’s easy enough to say, but it took me a long time as someone who has no qualifications or education in art. It was only when I decided to attend a class run by an artist friend Neil Davies, and he said straight away he would not be teaching me. He was simply giving me the opportunity to play, and not long after that he asked me if I would take on teaching. I later gave him his first one man show in my gallery in Frome. We both came off well from those experiences; he now lives in Cornwall selling everything he can paint for serious money, while I, well I’m at the opposite end of the country doing what I love.

BEST THING YOU EVER BOUGHT?

I feel I should say my easel as I’ve spent so many hours sitting at it. It’s a mid 19^th century walnut one, bought by my farther down in Cornwall and probably belonging to one of the Newlyn school artists. That is however totally to do with my work and none of this would have taken place if I had not bought my first home in Frome. It was more than I could afford at the time and having been used as a squat was in a shocking state, but it was totally right for me at the time, and the experience of living in Frome transformed me in so many different ways to the person I am now. It was in Frome that I first fell in love, found my wings, and flew away.

WORST DAY OF YOUR LIFE TO DATE?

I’d rather not answer that, because even now it is something I share with few people. I could say it was the day I was told that the prostate cancer I’d been diagnosed with had now spread to my spine, but that’s the sort of news that is difficult to take on board in a day, and it took me a lot longer for that to sink in. Thankfully for now good days still outweigh the bad.

WORST THING ABOUT BEING AN ARTIST?

I suppose I would have to say it’s the isolation. I have enjoyed many group creative experiences, but my own art tends to be a solitary process, and that combined with living alone is a double edged sword. Artist are often perceived as special or odd, and in either case that leads to them being to some extent unapproachable. You don’t seem to have that problem Tottie, but then it’s a requirement of your profession. If you’re special you’re put on a pedestal way too high for ordinary folk to converse with you. I’ve heard it at exhibitions when whispered voices point out the artist but none have the courage to approach. At the other end of the spectrum if you’re seen as odd, weird or even dangerous then similarly you’re seen as someone to steer clear of. Artist are tolerated in our society, but they often speak a language amongst themselves which is difficult to comprehend. 

 

WORST EXHIBITION EXPERIENCE?

I think exhibitions are something as an artist it is important to become immune to. In France they use the word exposition, and I have to say there are times when I have felt exposed. I think the worst time would have to be during a show of my ceramic sculptures at the Merlin Theatre in Frome. There was one particular piece which showed two naked men sitting facing each other and each had a hand on the other cheek. It was titled “consolation II”, but when my then somewhat deaf father saw it he said, “Looks like a couple homos to me”. I was embarrassed for him and could only hope not too many people overheard the comment.

WORST PAINTING YOU EVER PAINTED?

I have in the past often set myself a theme in order to produce a body of work worthy of exhibiting on mass. It is a process that I see as the opposite to making pancakes. When making pancakes you throw the first one away, or at least it never reaches the table, while with painting it is the last one that must be chucked. After say thirty of forty paintings relating to a theme I normally find I’ve said all I have to say. The first one is full of enthusiasm and the others all seem to have something relevant to say, but sooner or later there will be a dud, and it’s at this point that I say stop. I did once frame and include one of these duds in an exhibition. One friend spotted it and told me I didn’t need that one, but as it was the cheapest it was the first to go. Maybe one should always include a dud. During my brief period of interior decorating I was asked to paint a bedroom for Bono’s first baby’s bedroom. I’d designed a delightful abandoned garden with wild flowers at low level that could easily be added to over the years. When I arrived they had other ideas that included a cartoon duck and cow. I tried to persuade them out of it but that’s what the customer wanted, and rest assured there is no truth to the idea that the customer is always right.

WORST THING YOU’VE BEEN ASKED TO PAINT?

I don’t do commission, never have, but that doesn’t stop people asking. They would usually want a portrait of their delightful child, but I would have been more interested in their grandparents. It was shortly after the Godfather films came out and I’d had a very successful exhibition of cows that a westcountry gentleman asked me if I could paint him “an orses edd”. I could only see a bed covered in blood.   

 

GONE FISHING AND THE GENTLE ART OF FAKING.

Tottie here, your roving Western Isles Wanderer, reporting again from New Tolsta.

It was only when I got back to Stornoway that I realised I hadn’t got Tom’s mobile phone number. Not a problem I’ll simply phoned An Lanntair, however having left a note about those wonderful fish I realised I’d forgotten to leave my phone number, so I wasn’t going to be hearing from him unless I made the first move. I decided to stay with the written form and send him a text. Having done that I then wondered if he knew how to use text messaging since he professes to be such a novice with his mobile, preferring to call it his flat camera. I needn’t have worried, the reply came back later that same day. I’d been more specific in my reply asking a price for the larger group of four fish. They were £45, and so I messaged him immediately to say I’d be round the following day if that was OK. My prearranged visit found Tom in his workshop hacking away at a piece of wood. I think Tom must work on the principal that out of chaos comes beauty, because whatever he was up to in there only he would have known. There was scraps of old floor boards and stuff that looked as if it might as well be chopped up for kindling, but Tom assured me that everything can be used and that the fish I’d bought were a fine example. Made entirely from scrap wood and even the wire holding them in place was from a disused mouse cadge he discovered buried in a hedge. I took a closer look at them and began to see past the price I was paying to the real piece of unique artwork. On producing a fifty pound note Tom looked rather shocked saying he’d have to get me some change. I should have stopped him right there, considering all the free admissions I’d had to his studio. I felt a little embarrassed when he returned from the house with a five pound note, but by then it was too late to return it, and so said “it’ll go towards my next purchase”, feeling myself flushing with embarrassment, as if my little contribution was about to change his miserable monthly sales figure. However having made one purchase, like those fish I’m hooked and I will be saving my pennies for another piece of his work.

 

Tom.

She’s been back and bought one of the fish. Sent me a text message and I actually managed to write and return a message. It was only afterward she whipped out a fifty pound note that I felt I’d totally under-priced the fish, she must be loaded, but hay-how there’s no going back.

I was in the workshop when she appeared and I tried to explain what I was doing, but I could see it went way over her head. I can well see why most people would only see a pile of useless old wood. The difference is a bit like cooking. One person will work from a recipe book and will purchase anything that they don’t already have in the cupboard. I work in the completely opposite way, yes maybe consult books for ideas, but then it’s a matter of looking what’s in the cupboard or garden and concocting something with that. So, with the Hebridean chairs I look at my stock of wood and see what it might make. I learnt this skill when in my early twenties I opened an antique shop. That first winter was a hard one with the sales for December not even covering the rent. When talking to a friend David he suggested I should take in some restoration work. I put three old chairs in the bay window in varying states of repair with one fully restored. The work flooded in, but only chairs, so within three weeks I had to redo my window display such was the backlog of work. Every Saturday afternoon I would go over to see David in his large workshop and learnt all about faking furniture. He was a master at forgery, and it was from him that I learnt how to look at and piece together various wrecks. From the remains of a gate-leg table, the top of a coffer and some old backboards from a wardrobe would come a Welsh dresser. Highly desirable back then, but today almost worthless.

 That same method of working applies to my chair making today, only now it is the principal of recycling that has become of primary importance. If I see a pile of old wood that has obviously been thrown out for burning I’ll stop and ask. The answer is always, help yourself, and I do. There is, and never will be any question of payment. If I can make something from other peoples rubbish, then the knowledge that what they have discarded is to some extent being recycled is no different to when they put it in the recycling bin, they feel better in having done their part.

So Tottie caught me at the very beginning of the process. I’d already got as far as putting bits of wood to one side and seen the rough idea of what was possible, but now it was down to cutting up and bashing together what would have been quite common place for people living in the Outer Hebrides a hundred ago. At that time the reuse of old wood produced its own vernacular style based on rational needs. The need for a chair to support ones weight is still a rational need for us older folk. When I was young I tended to always end up on the floor to drawing.

Several years ago, while searching for sea glass in Stornoway harbour during a very low tide I found some old bits of wood under the pier. I’d already used part of a wide plank for the top of a book case and what remained would be ideal for a chair seat. I had plenty of old flooring boards, back boards and sarking for the rest, but a bunch of old hinges, all that was left from a burnt drop-leaf table caught my eye and gave me another idea. Why not add a little side flap extension for resting a wee dram. The robust construction is done almost entirely using screws and glue, while the paint finish is another case of whatever leftovers I have to hand, and what colour they will make if mixed. Painting furniture made from a mixture of reused woods was a common practice throughout the 19^th century, and particularly so in Ireland and the west coast of Scotland.

To my chair I wanted to add some history, not only with a goodly amount of wear and tear plus dirt, but also a little childlike artistic experimentation, scratched into the surface of the paint, perhaps when there was no paper to hand.

The initials on the front could well be that of the owner, and that again was a common practice, to brand furniture with the old branding iron used on horns to mark ownership of sheep, but also tools and furniture. When I started work on repairing the old barn I discovered masses of initials scratched and carved in the roof timbers and in particular an old door. These were made by itinerant sheep shearer from as far away as Glasgow. Proud to be able to write their name and leave their mark. Although what you see here is invented history and a total fabrication, my signature is discretely placed out of site. It tickles me to think that in years to come they might find their way into a museum with no doubt a somewhat spurious description.           

 

 

No artist in residence.

 

Tottie Nadin, roving reporter for the Western Isles Wanderer..

I looked everywhere for Tom on my latest trip to Tolsta. The open sign was out but there was no sign of the man himself. The studio was open and no artist in residence. I tried the garden, did the full tour. Looking wonderful despite the terrible weather we’ve been having. I’m always amazed how foxgloves can withstand such a battering, and don’t the bumble bees just love them.

 I knocked on the front door, peered through windows but no sign of life. Ringing the studio bell produced no result so I decided to take a free peek anyway.  The place looked more crammed than ever and there was no sign of any sales as far as I could tell. He’d finished the cemetery painting with the addition of a raven. Not sure that I didn’t prefer it in the unfinished state.

There was a new painting on the easel, a bit more saleable in subject matter with brightly coloured crofters cottages and rusty tin roofed blackhouse barns. I also spotted a shoal of fish, which must be a new line since they are so eye catching I’m sure I would have noticed them during my previous visits. I’d have liked to have bought one but as usual there were no prices. I left a little note so he will at least know I called.

I assume he was away at the peats again. The front door was locked but why leave the open sign up. This place is so infused with Tom’s creativity that got the strangest of feeling that somehow here and watching me, just a feeling. I must phone first next time although I somehow doubt he’ll answer. Last time he told me he could now get a weak mobile reception from his bedroom window.

 

Tom.

I’m not proud of myself. When I heard that Tottie woman calling my name I didn’t reply, but remained hidden in the makeshift plastic greenhouse tucked away behind the walls of the roofless lambs shed. She hung about for a good while, even rang the studio bell, but I stayed put trimming side shoots from the tomato plants. She presumably thought I’d wandered off somewhere, but I gave it a good fifteen minutes before returning to the studio, only to find a note by some painted fish I made last week and wanting to know the price. I suppose that means she’ll be back!

 

 

Why the hell do I bother? After another no visits week and a dreary miserable start to the day I decided to do some baking, that usually makes me feel better. I’d made a good start, got the pastry ready and just needed of Swiss chard, sage and parsley from the garden. As I stepped outside I was met with growling and barking from two Labrador dogs being walked by their owner. I did the friendly social think and said good morning even though it patently wasn’t, and he replied with a question, could he put the plastic bag of dog pooh in my bin. “No problem” I said, although I’ve never understood why anyone would want to bag up dog pooh, not way out here, just flick it into the ditch or better still train the dogs to go in the ditch. I must have said something about opening up which led to him asking about Studio 17 and saying he’d call in after the girls had come back from their pony trekking. So I thought in that case I’ll put the open sign up and show good willing. Needless to say they didn’t call in.

By mid–day I’d baked a fruit cake, quiche, and two pasties and was assembling a rhubarb custard tart when a blond haired woman passed the kitchen window. I popped out and explained I would be with her and was just putting a tart in the oven. It couldn’t have been more than three minutes when I saw her pass the window again, and assumed she had maybe gone to collect her husband. No sign of her returning I looked out of the parlour window to see the little red car had gone. No acknowledgement or thanks, and dam it no £5 entry! It was all over so quickly I suspected a smash and grab, but not even that.

Is that’s all my creative effort is worth, three minutes and a bag of dog pooh?!

The doctors have repeatedly said I should avoid all forms of stress, so it looks like I’ll have to go back to strictly by appointment only.