Week 11 continued …

A rounding up I suppose.

After getting my main work hung on the Monday, I slipped back to the library to get some images for the school workshop, however to avoid copyright problems I ended up in the general library.  An armful of  books later –  on old  maps for the schools and lino cutting  for the visual impairment workshop on Friday –  I caught a bus home weighed down with books, shopping, and bags – will have to stop dragging everything with me.

The school workshop on Tuesday was with a primary 6 class and centred around an imagined Scottish Island. The children had to make a map and stories to go along with it, then create publicity for tourists on the attractions of the island with a brochure and postcards. All this was delivered as a presentation on the third  day and this was pretty amazing. As an educational tool, all the children have i-pads which enable them to photograph, video and create artwork as well as collate  their presentations. It was a real pleasure to work with this class, they were lively but  well behaved, hard working and imaginative. I really enjoyed working with them, lovely youngsters – all of them, and all credit to their class teacher who has 31 of them to organise.

Friday was different. This time I was back at the map library ( in the conference room this time) for a morning  and an afternoon session with the visually impaired groups. Chris Fleet gave an informative and interesting  introduction to the map library and after exploring some of my work, we got going with lino-cuts and prints. After getting some resource materials (books) from the general library, I re-encountered Cyril Power’s work and was captured by the feeling of movement in his work that can physically leave you spinning or want to dance. As a member of the Grosvenor School of the 1920\1930’s his colour and movement delivered in the futurist style has being visited again in a retrospective of the Vorticist school by the Tate in 2011 and last month by the Osborne Samuel Gallery. This was one of first meanderings into abstract modernism by a British group of artists, and although short lived due to the first world war, it was both controversial and extremely popular at the time.

A wonderful day, with some lovely results for the prints. I am going to let them dry before returning them on Wednesday, when I meet everyone again for Tom’s workshop.

By the time I had tidied up on Friday, I was ready to hit the town. Finding a parking space by the Usher Hall,  I found an Italian restaurant for a bite before a RSNO concert of American music. Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring, John Adam’s Doctor Atomic and Xiayin Wang playing a Copland piano concerto followed by the Barber Piano Concerto, under the direction of Peter Oundjian was the programme for the night.
It was not a particularly light concert, the darker moods of the Atomic Symphony and the Barber didn’t send you out into the night with a spring in your step. But it was so wonderful to be back in the Usher hall listening to live classical music. The dexterous playing of Wang was complimented by the equally dexterous RSNO, I will have to return to these piano concertos again with a more familiar ear.

Saturday was another bright day so I decided to finish my Water of Leith walk. Starting at Ocean Terminal, I followed the water through a mixture of beautiful and let’s say more interesting cityscapes. I also stopped to speak to a variety of interesting people. From the Irish gentleman of the roads to two lovely lasses who took me to see the orphans graves in a little hidden enclave behind the GMO (which was formerly an Orphanage).
I was struck as I walked how old maps contain so much social history, each is a piece of poetry, each condenses a time and place, omits and includes information and stories at the whim of an intention or a map maker. Each map contains so many stories and meanings – from our created landscapes, to our oddly conceived city plans, our buildings, roads and lanes, and in a contemporary perspective to less than aptly named places that only become contextualised in the right century. Hmm, musings of wannabe map maker!

Having walked to the hairdressers at Haymarket, I then proceeded to walk to Hanover Street to my favourite eatery, and then back to Ocean Terminal to catch Danny Boyles new film Trance. This was a little less impressive than his usual creations. A confusion of hypnotherapy events in the storyline has the wrong effect on the viewer. Instead of intriguing it annoys. It feels like it wants to be a smart film, but the plot centres on confusion and violence rather than on the manipulation of reality in any meaningful way, maybe I am tired of the need for film makers to  ’excite’? audiences this way.

On Sunday I had arranged to meet Anne Dignan who is exhibiting her show ‘Interactive Harmony’ at Circus Cafe Bistro on St. Mary’s Street, Edinburgh.  A drive to Portobello, a brunch in  the cafe, and a drive back to Portobello let me get to know Anne , and it was a real pleasure. It was a lovely day spent with a lovely lady and I really liked her work. She is very keen on tactile / sensory work and we are keen to do some work together. See her story at: http://www.macularsociety.org/How-we-help/About-us/Newsroom/News-stories/art-exhibition-champions-accessibility

Photos to follow:

Bit intense this week, upholstering 17 post code districts, each with far too many corners. Ordering mdf  to be delivered hopefully to the National library. Finding paint, and still sewing the last panel and hoping that it will come together.

Some panels covered.

… and some more

Finally …

Bonhoga opening – 26th April

6.00 – 8.00 p.m.

All welcome

8th – 14th April

Never so aware of time ticking by as when Tom reminds me!

I thought it would be good to let the Map library staff see my Shetland maps as they would be travelling back to Shetland with me this Wednesday – so I took them in on Tuesday and left them in the reading room. I am quite pleased with them, and I would like to display them as a quadriptych as they  tell a story of the exploitation of Shetland’s natural resources – from the Dutch ’haring buises’ in the 15th and 16th century through to the gas and oil extraction in the North Sea waters off Shetland.

I also continued with my EH2 and EH3 this week – but will have to finish EH3 next week.

Thanks to Tam and Chris Fleet, I took a little time away from my sewing to look at 19th century drainage maps of Edinburgh. A walk by the water of Leith would not have been much of a pleasure a century ago. Despite a growing awareness of the dire results of swishing around in raw sewage, it took an incredibly long time to properly address Edinburgh sewage. Seafield outfall still occasionally pumps raw sewage into the Forth (although admittedly ‘by accident’) – and as recently as 2011.

Addressing the stench seems to have been an ongoing problem for Edinburgh public authorities. Public demands for further improving air quality from the Seafield sewage plant in 2012 are reminiscent of earlier centuries. In 1842 Queen Victoria removed herself from Holyrood Palace to the estates of the Duke of Buccleuch away from the stench from the irrigation meadows at Cannongate. Initially, the irrigation meadows of the 1700′s seemed a step in the right direction, and the effluvial odours didn’t appear to daunt the farmer or his family who lived in the middle of Craigentinny Meadows – the area where raw sewage flowed.  The lush grass was fed to cattle all over the city for many decades until an outbreak of TB in urban dairies reduced the need for fodder. Chris drew my attention the very good book  where this info. was sourced – ”The Firth of Forth- An Environmental History’ by T.C. S out and Mairi Stewart, it makes very interesting reading.

On Wednesday, I prepared for two days in Shetland and it
was so good to be home, I enjoyed Chloe’s company on Friday morning for a little while, and it was nice to get an Amy hug. I even managed to relax a little while with Dennis but it was so hard parting again. Managed to get my work mounted and worked a little on my Edinburgh maps. So I returned on Friday feeling a little more energised.

The weekend was quiet, with just Bryce for company I managed to get quite a bit of work done.

Easter Monday being a public holiday, I stayed at Emily’s and sewed all day. Everything seems to be taking longer than I planned and I was a little frustrated with my progress. However I am very pleased with my Shetland maps, they have somehow come alive with the addition of colours – they look a bit way out, but they are true to the original hues of the old maps. Having used machine embroidery thread that has a sheen, the colours radiate a little more than the flatter look of the old manuscripts.

My EH1 is just about finished, in this case the choice of background colour for the fabric was intentional, reflecting the colour of the oldest part of Edinburgh from Bartholomew’s chronological map. I knew this would be a challenge on many fronts. Despite blowing up the image to a practical sewing size, the details are still very small. The colours here were going to be sucked up by the background colour of the cloth, so they had to be kept as bright as possible and sewn fairly densely
EH2 is on its way. Again on a dark ochre, the colouring of the thread is important  and the details I choose will have to be more preferential than true to the original. The closer you look the more you see – the original map is extremely detailed, with garden plans and lamp posts shown and again this will be lost when sewn.

My walking maps are coming along and I have completed the first leg of my journey and started on the second leg. Just a few more bus routes to record.

I have decided to continue my drawings of engraving tools and add another three to my impromptu gallery. Hopefully  I will get these up before or slightly after the weekend.

Also working on my various plans for school, staff and visual impairment workshops. No rest for the wicked!

The weekend flew by, with  a lot of finishing work done. I thought I deserved a nice concert at the International Harp Festival and booked a ticket for some jazz harp. The last time I saw Park Stickney must have been about six or seven tears ago. He is a hugely entertaining player of the concert harp in jazz mode, and he didn’t
disappoint. The other player was a Colombian harpist Edmar Castaneda – who played a fusion of Colombian and Venezuelan folk  with a dash of modern jazz. His enthusiasm was quite inspiring, just about dancing with his harp. The fact that he wasn’t sitting made a dynamic difference to the energy he was able to provide to his music. I needed some music badly- and this was a great concert. It was also nice to meet up with Marlene, although we didn’t have a lot of time to chat.
On Sunday, I had an appointment with Rita who has some level of visual impairment. She is an enthusiastic craft maker and …well everything. I have never encountered anyone with such a wide range of skills. A lot of  it is very intricate such as her quilling, and beautifully created. She kindly showed me her studio and her range of work which was quite awe inspiring.
I had asked if she could take me on a walk, in order for her to  describe her responses to the environment, but she was such a great talker that we ended up just chatting away and enjoying ourselves. Or at least I did. After our walk around Lauriston Castle, – a rambling pad with the oldest part,  the Scottish Keep – built for the Napier family in 1593, we sat in the Japanese garden (despite the freezing cold) and enjoyed the peace and quiet and the pacifying aesthetic of the rock garden. Lauriston Castle was bequeathed to the nation by the Reid family and boasts some of the finest Edwardian décor created by  W R Reid between 1902 and 1919. We didn’t actually go inside, but it does sound enchanting.

A lovely weekend.

A much more productive week, I really enjoyed working this week – perhaps due to  feeling a lot better  -  although it took till Wednesday for my stomach to settle after the boat trip. Monday was a very informative day with a visual impairment workshop at the National Library offices in the Lawnmarket. This was led by Anne Hornsby – the MD of  ’ Minds Eye’,  her own company specialising in audio description for arts and cultural events. We gathered to listen to and practice describing various works of art.

Tuesday, I began with my drawing and continued with my sewing back at Emily’s. I began a second take on my EH1, but this is going to take a little while as there will be a bit more detail to cover.

Wednesday and Thursday, I continued at the library, although speaking to people seemed to take as much time as working and needless to say just as enjoyable! Some encouraging feedback from members of the staff too.

As the library was closed on Friday, I continued with my EH1 and began my EH2, and in the evening I continued with my Shetland work. Saturday was much the same – except for a nice lunch break up on Broughton Road  (where I had one or two messages to get).

By Sunday, I was ready for a long walk, so the previously planned Water of Leith walk that Emily and I had planned a couple of weeks ago – but had failed to go on – was at last begun! We started from Balerno after taking the No.44 bus out, and we enjoyed a frosty but bright and promising morning.

There was a lovely light and the fresh air was extremely welcoming after missing so many nice days last week stuck indoors. we completed just under ten miles and finished at Roseburn before hopping onto a 26 23 into town and then a 27 down to Ferry Road. Needless to say – a little slow going in the afternoon work wise!

11th – 24th March

A little walk along the old railway track – now a walkway.

Well the 6th and 7th weeks were not so productive, the bug I picked up over the weekend began to take it’s toll and I spent three or four days trying to keep going. Not feeling like sitting sewing much, I started on my etching tools drawings.  This is still my favourite way of relaxing, and  as I draw these old tools, I can imagine the years of use that gave them their individuality, their scratches and marks, the worn smooth patches where the tools have been handled most.  By turning and positioning them you feel the familiarity and special  relationship these tools had with the skilled  craftsmen who used them, the most  prized tools  bearing miniature engraved signatures.
On Thursday I was due to go home for my early Easter holiday break – although still feeling a bit wobbly, the boat trip North was nice and smooth, while I didn’t sleep much, I was well rested by the time morning dawned .

I also wanted to support my pupils for the local music festival, and I had three little groups entered.  The time at home was lovely but I spent too much time recuperating and attending a variety of classes to get on with art work.  The upside was my pupils all played extremely well, with 3 piano cups and an ensemble cup to add to their schools collection. I was really proud of them all, especially with the more junior ones who still are in early performance mode – I also have Mr Hayward and Norman to thank for filling in for me while I have been away!

In between times I tidied up some of my work. I spent a while trying to figure how much I was going to scale the central parts of Edinburgh up to make it work with the rest of the piece. Just as I was feeling beginning to feel better and ready to dig in to some heavy work, the internet went down. Some fishing boat decided to fish a tad too close to the main cable -and severed it. My internet provider failed instantly and I was left a little at sea, with a lot of my work on-line - that will teach me! At least that left me time to work with the templates. With the usual invaluable help from my better half, we cut out the 17  postal code areas of Edinburgh.

Preparing to leave Shetland again, the prospect looked a bit doubtful. When the usual Spring tides together with strong Easterly winds combine, it affects the ferry service and it looked like it was going to be disrupted again. I think it is about time the Aberdeen harbour authorities did a little dredging at the harbour mouth, this continues to put a lot of business’s in a very precarious position as well as creating organisational chaos and frustration for the ordinary passenger, bad enough with Fly- be’s ongoing ‘mechanical problems’ which continue to disrupt flights.

All I can say about the trip south was yuch, 15 hours of  seasick misery.

A really nice weekend home, was not quite so stressed this time trying to fit everything in. This time Fly-be was only delayed by half an hour, so I got my special time with Dennis  and managed to relax until after tea. Teaching all day Saturday was quite fun and this time we went out to the Althing – partly to support Alec who presented his paper extremely well and partly just to be with Amy and Chloe.  I had really nice Amy time later and we sat and chatted till about 2.00 in the morning. Sunday was a little depressing as the flight was around 3.45 pm, so I didn’t have much time to teach, pack and chill with hubby.

Monday was a nice quiet day and I started to sort  my maps into postcode districts. I started sewing EH1, but I think it might be scaled a little too large for the section. However it is good to see if the colours  will work with the darker colour of the fabric. With a ‘little’ help from Chris – the tech wizard, we sorted the scale of the postcode areas and created a set of templates for the reprographics department to print.

Tuesday involved a meeting at Sciennes Primary school, a wonderful lively, well-mannered school that brought all those lovely memories of teaching back – the first time for a long while that I have had a little nostalgia for teaching a class.

Wednesday was quite intense and I sewed away at my various maps and planned and studied some interesting map books. It was a beautiful day so I headed for Arthur’s Seat in my lunch break. As a 350 million year old extinct volcano  (followed by a long  period of  glaciation),  the  250.5 metre igneous rock provides a good stiff climb. After joining many like minded enthusiasts at the top, to enjoy the panoramic views of Edinburgh, I then mistakenly followed some runners down a track at the side of the hill. Jacket quickly removed my feet began a little jog, then proceeded with full pelt down the hill. A bit daft in walking boots, but extremely exhilarating!

However the consequence was that as 4.00 o’clock, my eyes were beginning to shut and I decided there was little energy for a late night.

Thursday morning was spent getting to and waiting for Autoglass to fix the car’s rear window, which had encountered a chip and decided to disintegrate. After visiting the Cloth Shop and Edinburgh Art School shop,I did manage to get a full day in from about 2.00 o’clock, so I didn’t feel so bad. With some mount board purchased I finally managed to get some of my ‘sketchbook’  haiku maps ready for hanging – just a few more and then I can have a look at Tom’s new poems. I thought the Haiku could express some of the more distilled, expressive or fleeting thoughts that our contact with the maps have brought, and a nice way of sharing…. I did go home feeling a bit more satisfied.

Friday I spent in St.Andrews (see Farlin) and the weekend sadly mostly in bed feeling quite wrecked with some sort of pseudo-flu or bug thing. Never mind.

Stanza started this week and I am delighted that I could attend the opening of the Event.

The Farlin Exhibition was beautifully curated thank you to Diana Sykes, and very finely administered by Eleanor Livingston. She has kept calm despite the turmoil created by the closing of the Byre Theatre so soon to the opening.

I am sure everyone is pleased with it,  a small space with very varied work – yet complimentary. Importantly – really well lit. It was well attended by the Shetland contingent – which  made for a nicely balanced presentation.

Apart from one or two hitches with ticketing, and some pretty awful weather, my Farlin partner Maureen Sangster and I had a  lovely day. We attended two events -’ Border Crossings’ and ‘In Conversation: Kirsty Gunn’.  The former involved readings by a Gaelic poet Christopher Whyte and Welsh poet  Robert Minhinnick.  I enjoyed them both although I struggled to join up the written text with the spoken word of Christopher’s rather beautiful ( if  incomprhensible) Gaelic. Maureen thought two readings – one in Gaelic and one in English would maybe have been more poetic. I thought the scruffling of pages – turning to follow the written handouts lost a lot of the atmosphere set by his entrancing voice.  In contrast -  Robert read in English and the opposite may have been nice – for him to tender his endearing whispered poem fully and in Welsh!

A little blip meant we missed Angus MacPhee – Weaver of Grass but instead attended ‘In Conversation: Kirsty Gunn’. This too was a delight. A confident and accomplished speaker, she led us through her use of a melodic  language in her newly released novel  ‘The Big Music’. With its poetic sensibility and use of a melodic style of composition associated with the piboch, her novel is an attempt to imbue the isolation and soul of the landscape with the same emotional gravitas as  pipe music. I will have to get a copy from somewhere – the hardback is just a little too pricey for me at the moment.

Photos to follow – when I find my camera!