PATIENCE, AND WHAT TO DO WITH MY OLD SHIRTS.

 

Patience is a virtue, our earliest memories will confirm that I’m sure, but there are times when I don’t feel particularly virtuous.

It was Kate, or was it Melany who told me that Kathleen was on her way. I’d unsuspectingly gate crashed Kate’s birthday coffee morning and for an instant I’d wondered who this Kathleen was and should I know her. Oh, the storm Kathleen, funny how the longer the name the slower it takes to blow through. Difficult to say just when Kathleen ended as the gusting winds and April showers are still with us. In these hypersensitive, alphabetically ordered times of hypocritical correctness, we pondered over what male storm-name we might expect to follow. I plumbed for Laurence, a long drawn out hot summer Arabian night’s breeze from the south. The evenings walk with Donald left me wincing and we became silent, bent forward into the blistering force that seemed to be determined we would not return home from our walk. I dared not stop to rest as it would have only served to interrupt the internal mantra I’d set up. Lift your right leg, move it forward, put it down, the left will follow. The right hip hasn’t been good since a fall last summer and despite nothing showing up on X-rays, the leg no longer seems part of me, some sort of replacement at best. I now walk with a stick, my third stabilising leg and feel no shame in doing so. On the contrary, my father’s shepherds crook lends a note of authenticity, and even the sheep look at me differently, a hint of respect that up to now I hadn’t noticed. I managed to sleep through most of that first stormy night, awoken only by the occasionally more forceful rattle of the bedroom sash window. I threw open the curtains to see all growth flapping wildly and inclined to the east. The past couple of weeks we’d had a bitter easterly that set the dead grass atop the wall with a quiff that would have delighted any 50’s Teddy boy. Now it was set in a severe westerly Scargill comb over. Kathleen was not leaving just yet, and I would be spending the day in the relative calm of the studio. As usual these days I seem to have way too many projects on the go. Wool, paper, shells, wood offcuts and fabric litter the floor, while glue pot, scissors, needles, pencils and paintbrushes are scattered on the table beside me as I paste and stitch another batch of miniature books and cover tiny boxes for precious things. A second 17^th century needlework reconstruction awaits my attention, and then I wonder if I might just empty the room out and stencil the walls. Plastic covered seed trays sit before the window and there are signs of broad beans, leeks and brassicas pushing through the warm compost. Some of the seed is on its final year so I wait patiently and hope that indoors the miracle that is germination will happen. The soil is still too cold to sow outside and gardening this far north does require patience. Likewise customers are slow to materialise. I put my sign up for the first time last week but didn’t really expect to see anyone for at least a month, and assumed I was going to clear the big Easter holiday break with a clean sheet. However on Thursday a group of six turned up and I wondered if they might have been pony trekking. I apologised for the lack of price labels, but I don’t think it would have changed anything. The only comment I can remember was, “do you remember mum used to stick shells on things” as if the creative pastime was some sort of mental health issue. The young daughter was singularly unimpressed and as they left I felt like I might as well close if I’m just going to get shitty with people. I get so very few callers, and at this time of year it will rarely be more than one a week or maybe as little as one a month. There seems little point in even bothering to put the open sign up, but on a fine day, when I’m just pottering about in the garden or workshop, I tell myself I might as well. There will be plenty who pass by, heading down to the beach, or a quick about turn in the car park, but few are interested or inquisitive enough to stop at my door. So while the storm raged outside, I tried to remain patient during this period of peace, and enjoy the uninterrupted silent of my studio, making stuff for my cabinet of curiosities. I must at least get some price labels when next in town.

 I eventually found the bin liner full of torn rags at the back of the 18^th century dresser base that servers as one of my many store cupboards. I had two very different ladder back chairs to cover, and thought a splash of colour would make a change from the traditional rush seats. Like so many of the things I’ve had kicking about for ages, I can’t remember where the ash chair came from, but I do remember picking up the green painted ladder-back in pieces on a tip in the south of Spain. I spent six weeks roaming, sketching, visiting friends and returning back to Brittany only when there was no longer room to sleep in the back of the car. It must be nearly a decade since I cleared out the old shirts and sarongs and shredded them thinking they would surely come in useful at some point. I willingly admit to being a hoarder of anything that might be of use in the creative line. I used a simple twist and tie technic for the English chair and platted for the Spanish and they sit well alongside the old Irish chair with its traditional sting seat. I will never be able to compete with the wonderful amassed objects of Sea in Design on the west coast, but with each passing year the studio is definitely taking on the carefully curated feel more reminiscent of my own home. That might have been judged a winner, but I don’t think that counts for much in the public eye, where new, bright and shiny rules the day. I tell myself I’m in danger of becoming a cynical old fart, while friends would say you’ve been that way for years.    

GOING GREEN

 

It was on arrival back on Lewis that my eyes beheld once more a landscape of bleached dead salt-beige winter grass. Autumn bracken, once rich bronze had turned to dull brown, colours now muted awaited spring, the bleating of lambs, and a fresh mantel of green. There were signs already, a sprouting elder in Norma’s garden seem surprisingly advanced, while in my own garden many daffodils lay prostrate, snapped by the harsh easterly wind. Rescued from the cold I filled two jars in the kitchen window, their perfume and brilliant yellow bringing hope of renewal to each morning.

Spring arrives late on the islands, and all the better for it, as unseasonable early growth has in the past been burnt and shredded by those salt-laden bitter easterlies. Now with the changing of the hour we do indeed look forward to leaping forward into spring growth and of pastures turning green.

When looking to change the colour in my studio it seemed only natural that my eyes should crave that same coloured bocage to display anew the flowering of my work. The fruiting bodies of objects would rest solid and stationary before it. Green, like red is a colour that does not move beyond its own boundaries unlike the radiance of sunshine yellow. I would have strength and stability for the summer months to come. I would have a real green, no washed out off-white hint of green, no chilly blue of conifer green, no acid-sparkling fresh yellow green, but a true growth green. People often profess to have a favourite colour, and I will admit to having certain colours I prefer to live with. However, I love all colours; from the deep pink of the button-hole carnation, the brash orange of blowsy dahlias and the cool blues of the mecanopsis poppies. I love the rich tapestry of a cottage garden, and yes, even the sombre greys of a rain laden clouds, for without them we would have no contrast for the sudden and delightful appearance of those angel rays.

As I paint my way around the room childhood memories awaken; of the green V lined walls of fisherman Bob Willies cottage at the bottom of New Orleans Glen, the contrasting dark furniture kept so with a fresh coat of mahogany darkalene varnish. Colours carry memories, and with those memories our choices are tinted.                

 

IN PRAISE OF THE CROFTER'S COTTAGE.

I

 Even before my first voyage through the Outer Hebrides I was fascinated by the vernacular architecture of the black houses. My father made several trip over in later life, and I was particularly interested in his photos of derelict and decaying houses. Having wandered from Barra to the Butt of Lewis several time over the past fifteen years I’ve seen a few changes. In this respect the islands are no different to the mainland as new houses seem to sprout up like mushrooms overnight. I can well understand why people in the 1920’s and 30’s wanted to move out of the dark black houses and into the new Department of Agriculture designed crofters cottages. Sash windows in every room meant for the first time the interior could be light. However thinner walls, even when covered in V lining also meant a serious amount of peat or coal was required to heat the place. Today’s hermetically sealed, well insulated and triple glazed houses are a world away from that, but my preference is still for the traditional crofter cottage. My own cottage was stripped back to the bare bones before introducing insulation and damp course, but all the interior timber was kept and put back along with its charm. I have often heard it said that location is everything and certainly many of these cottages can boast a magnificent location.

Cottage on South Uist perched high with a view of Loch Boisdale.

Tin roofs are still a common feature on all the islands and the irrational romantic artist that I am will always be drawn to a colourful bit of rust. Many of the earlier stone built cottages were originally thatched in heather or straw, while some later houses were built entirely of corrugated iron with only the chimney being built of brick or block. Today that chimney might be the only thing remaining that indicates the site as being habited. Many of the black houses no longer had a central chimney, and a cast concrete or brick chimney was built at one end. Alternatively the interior was divided by a chimney wall and the smoky peat filled rooms became a thing of the past. 

  For a time during the mid-20^th century the domed Nissan hut was popular but few remain now. When I first stopped to sketch this Nissan hut on South Uist it was complete with windows and doors, but two years later the half round black tarred tin had flown leaving just the end gable and an outside toilet.

During the second half of the 20^th century the crofter’s cottages were upgraded to include a bathroom but many also suffered greatly when adapted and modernised. The most shocking of these so called improvements was the removal of the dormer windows, replacing them with a long box window or worse still raising the entire front creating a flat roof. This is simply not a good look from any angle. Those with double sashes on the ground floor often had the central division removed and metal framed replacement windows installed. Despite the net curtains flapping at the back window this lone cottage on the Isle of Eriskay was uninhabited. This fine example had a well-proportioned porch, a scullery extension at the rear and a useful shed on one gable end. Below were the roofless walls of black houses from a bygone age. The artist’s sense of beauty for the rustic thatch, rusting tin and lichen covered walls counts for little during the reality of harsh winter months and my romanticized visions are fit only for a framed image of times past. 

While visiting the old cemetery on Bernaray I continued my walk following a trail of mushrooms. Over the ridge I came across another abandoned house. What was once the front garden, was now full of stinging nettles beyond the pair of ball topped gate posts.  Although showing all the outward signs of a typical crofter’s cottage this house had four dormer windows. The porch had long since blown away which gave it a rather vacant look with just two windows on the ground floor. Circling my way around the back I discovered the kitchen window had blown in, and while the v-lining was collapsing all the furniture remained. I clambered in and made my way through into the dining room complete with gas light fittings and a large mahogany side board filling the back wall. Through in the hall a coat stand leaned at a precarious angle as the floor boards crumbled beneath it. In the parlour there was more light, on the wall a text declared “I will trust and not be afraid, God is my salvation”, and on the chair was a rather out of place grey telephone. Upstairs one bedroom was complete with chaise longe, while asleep on the bed in the second bedroom was the remains of the last occupant, a very dead and desiccated furless cat. This at one time had been a fine home.

 

 

These cottages, whether stone built, cast concrete or tin were constructed internally entirely of wood. The name Hepburn is written in chalk on the underside of each tread of the staircase in my cottage, and I’ve seen that same suppliers name in other houses on Lewis. 

When in 2022 my crofter’s cottage was unanimously voted BBC Scotland home of the year, I assumed that maybe now with the island council also agreeing that these old houses should be renovated that the demolition would stop. However, before the year was out one of the oldest cottages in my own village was demolished and consigned in its entirety to the dump. Built in 1909 the interior was crammed with all the old furniture, but this also suffered the same fate. Yes, without damp course or insulation, and having stood unoccupied for years the interior was a mess. Later wall paper hung from the ceilings and walls, and the v-lining bellied out from the internal walls. As with my own house the interior would have needed to be carefully removed while the ground floor was dug out and walls exposed for damp proofing and insulation. I managed to save some of the v-lining from the roof of this cottage before demolition, and was not surprised to discover that there was absolutely no wood worm in the entire house. The timber is fabulous being slow grown pine and far better than anything you could buy today. With a few of the boards I have started work on making a dolls croft house. It pleases me to think that there will at least be a little bit of life after death.

In recent years there has been a trend to paint the exterior of houses white. This has happened over the length and breadth of the UK, but particularly on the west coast. Down in Cornwall, charming little granite cottages are still being painted white. It has become a selling point and even I in my needlework images of sheep will include a white walled and red roofed cottage. When I first started the renovation of my crofter’s cottage it was suggested that if I painted it white it would be worth significantly more. It is often the first thing a new owner will do and there are several that seem to have run out of money being only half painted. A publicity photograph promoting the islands will always try and include a white painted cottage, so it didn’t surprise me when a photo of my own house as it is today, in its drab grey harling appeared in the local paper, described as the winning house before renovation. I will not be painting it, or the crofter's doll's house white.

GOODBYE TO LEZELE

 

It’s been over a year since I packed up the remaining furniture. The house has stood practically empty apart from a few pieces of Breton furniture, and during the summer months there had been a concerted effort on behalf of Sarah the estate agent to sell the place. That side of the story is way too long and boring to go into now, but suffice to say the entire property proved impossible to sell, due to one of the neighbours of an abandoned house refusing to sign and regularise the right of way to the entrance that I have used for the past thirty years. I have given instructions for it to go back on the market at a much reduced price.

  As I sit here in the dimly lit interior, the house already no longer feels like mine. What made this my home has already gone, but there is still enough left within the rooms I created to bring back memories, and I’m glad to say they are all good one. Here in the gloom of the great fireplace I have passed many an evening with friends. In earlier times the fire was open and the smoke rose up through the massive chimney, where in the spring the swallows would make there nests. Installing a wood burning stove created a vast increase in efficiency, but there is nothing like an open fire. One Christmas I spent five days without electricity and cooked here, just as they would have done in time past. Now, people, conversation, and laughter return to me. The granites that surround me have seen so much during the three centuries and this fireplace has remained the hub of the house. Little has changed apart from the subject under discussion.

In those early years both animals and people entered by the front door. The cattle turned to the left, and occupied approximately half of the ground floor. If you’ve ever spent time in a cow shed you can imagine the smell. Living under the same roof with large herbivores is not that bad and the added warmth they gave was extremely important. That close relationship between man and beast was very different to today, were a disconnection allows us to accept the most unthinkable cruelty without question. The family would have lived on the ground floor, sleeping in box beds and eating around one table placed in front of the only window. The first floor has extremely low ceiling and would have been reserved for storing the farm produce. There were at this point in time very few farm buildings, and many of these would have been simple wooden construction visible now only in old photographs. Thirty years ago, when I first arrived here there was no electricity and no water. There have been improvements, but for those who enjoy the supposed comforts of a modern house this must seem like a museum.

There is so much more than just a late 17th century farm house on offer. Adjoining is my studio and at the rear a large garden, which although now somewhat neglected had been very productive.. Running at right angles to the main house is a second house that I once ran as a gallery. The ensemble is for sale at 205,000 euros.

 I am not sad to be leaving. I’ve enjoyed my time here and know I will be passing it on to other, who will no doubt have very different ideas from my own as to how one lives within these walls. The house or rather houses still hold tremendous potential, but my time here is over. I’m sure there will remain traces of me here for decades to come, from walls that I’ve built to trees that I’ve planted. I like to think I made a difference, and that my time here had some value. Further afield there lies scattered my artworks and writing, some of which will no doubt outlive those who have known me. Without daubing it in paint, carving it into tree trunks or scratching it in stone I have left my mark. I WAS HERE, GOODBYE LEZELE.      

VERY SMALL BOOKS FROM NEW TOLSTA

 

Having made a bookcase for the crofter’s doll’s house I now had to make some books. This is not a new thing for me as in the past I made similar books for my own doll’s house. With age has come a loss of feeling in my fingertips, but I still manage to thread needles and fiddle with the fabrication of very small items. It’s the sort of occupation I reserve for the winter months when I don’t want to venture far from a source of heat and the kitchen table becomes cluttered with creativity. Firstly I need to clear a small space amongst the detritus at one end of the table and start cutting up any old paper to the size I want for the pages. They are then folded and bound together with cotton just as a full size book would be. 

The outer coverings are a variety of reclaimed scraps from other books that have gone beyond the point of restoration, and are totally unsaleable. In this respect my father’s boxes of old Agricultural Society of Scotland annual publications have become a valuable resource with their blue Rexene bindings, while other books have provided good marbleized paper inner pages as well as leather spines. There is very little in this world that cannot be creatively reused. I will be offering an extremely small shelf of these books for sale this coming summer.    

NEOLITHIC PEAT FIRED POTS FROM NEW TOLSTA.

 

It was way back in 2016 when work first started on the foundations for my studio that I discovered the Neolithic axe head. It had lain not far from the surface for the past 6000 years and it felt extra ordinary to have been the first person to have touch it all those years.  

A fine example of its type in gneiss granite, which has disappeared into a drawer of our local museum, and one day may see the light of day again. Last summer on seeing a small exhibition of rustic pottery at An Lanntair in Stornoway I decided to find out where the source of clay local to Tolsta could be found. Our soil is mainly a well-drained sandy loam, and while good for carrots and root crops, in general it loses heart quickly due to the lack of clay. In times past clay was needed to dress the tops of the black house walls encouraging water to run off, so it seems inevitable that there must be a local source. I didn’t have to look far. South of the village I took the steep track leading down to the Camach beach. This part of the coast is on the move and landslide are a regular occurrence. Part way along the beach is a flat section of schist rock and at its base is a mound of clay. I took a bucket and towel with me and managed to lug a couple of buckets full. The clay had to be soaked into a gruel of liquid mud and then passed through a sieve to remove any grit. I then let it dry outside on the windowsill for a couple of weeks, turning the stodgy stuff until it became useable. I needed it firm enough to roll out into long sausages in order to construct the coiled pots. The building of a pot without a wheel will always result in interesting wobbly items, and it is there that the charm of these objects lie, along with the simple scratched decoration. They were then left to thoroughly dry out. The pots would have originally been fired using peat and this is where my old Rayburn comes into play. While I prepared my cake mix I would also have a wobbly pot warming up in the oven. When the pot was good and hot and the oven up to baking I replaced pot for cake and transferred the pot into the fire box, making sure there was enough high quality peat to cover the pot and take it to at least 600 degrees. The pot would glow bright red, almost transparent and time would do the rest. Killing two birds with one stone as it were, I was able to fire my pots and bake my cake, both turned out successfully. Over the following few weeks I popped more pots into the firebox on baking days. The following morning I fished out from the ash a still warm crogan pot. The clay had turn a rich terracotta colour and bore incidental marking depending on how it had reacted with the peat. I now have a small shelf of Tolsta ceramics that I will be adding to the eclectic mix of items for sale from my studio this coming summer.   

Winter sketching via the old roman road.

 

GRAMPOUND TO PROBUS

If I’m out with my sketch book then it’s the norm for me to be walking alone. Few would want to hang around while I sat and scribbled, and on a frosty afternoon, even if the sun was out people prefer to keep on the move.

I took the No27 bus east from Probus square and got off at the next stop in Grampound. I used to live here, but my aim today was simply walk back to Probus, so the only bit of the village I saw was the hill rising steeply out of Old Grampound. The ancient road must have been here since Roman times as it leads to the old encampment of Carvosa, no following the valley as the busy modern road does. I would not be meeting any traffic here and the noise of the main road was suitably distant. It’s a tough beginning for old bones like mine, but I plod these days and get there in the end. The steep climb in tunnel like shrouded by ancient oaks until you reach the flat typically narrow Cornish lane that leads you to the Trewithen farm entrance and bridal path. 

From here I took the woodland path as far as the main eastern gates of Trewithen stopping for another scribble while bathed in brilliant sunshine. Had to keep moving as my feet were frozen, on towards Golden Manor. 

Walking along this section of road is not advised unless you are determined and alert enough to throw yourself into the hedge to avoid oncoming cars. I’m too old for that sort of Russian roulette so plod through the fields, keeping close to the roadside hedges. There is no livestock this time of year and I make sure this is not a day when there’s a shoot on.

 From Golden I take the lane leading back to Probus on the south side of Trewithen, where old top heavy pines overhang the road while others lie horizontal, taken by a gale that has snapped them like twigs splintering their great trunk with a force that is hard to imagine. Home in time for tea and a warm up of frozen fingers. My ramblings are much shorter than those I took in my youth, but I still don’t tell anyone where I’m heading. How can I, when I don’t even know myself. Much like my creative output I have little in the way of an expected outcome and am always delighted by the unexpected. When walking this most often takes the form of close encounters with nature. Alone there is no one to talk to and little sound to inform of my approach. There are times when I’ve been prepared with camera to record that fleeting encounter, and others when I’ve been able to take my time and record something special in my sketchbook. I too marvel how David Attenborough and his camera crew manage to record such events. To sit quiet and benign alongside another living creature and sketch their likeness is very humbling. On the south coast of Western Australia beyond Cape Le Grand National Park I came across a carpet python sunning itself and spent fifteen minutes sketching the beauty of its coiled markings. Not all of nature is as obliging as a still life drawing, and it maybe a process of repeated observation of that movement before a complete image is formed. There are always exceptions, and times when it is difficult to distinguish exactly who is the observer and who the observed.

The Australian magpie perched on a post while I was drawing a view of the pink salt lake outside Esperance seemed as intrigued by me and my stillness. It wasn’t the first time I’d been closely observed by a bird. A wedge tail eagle hung above me, his shadow crossing my sketchpad as he floated in the thermal of Peak Charles. In Spain the first I knew of the vulture was the flapping of wings as it realised at the last minute I wasn’t simply another piece of inanimate rock or dead carrion. To be at one with nature can happen anywhere, in your back garden or in some far flung wilderness. Iguanas like to find a high point for observation, and will often remain immobile on a convenient post. They are not fussy about their perching spot and one friend found himself with an iguana perched on his head. Whether fleeting or sustained these encounters remain with me, unlike the more forgettable meetings with my fellow beings. The words of Lord Byron sum it up.

There is pleasure in the pathless woods;

There is a rapture on the lonely shore;

There is society where none intrude,

By the deep sea and music in its roar,

I love not man the less but nature more.