Biggar Arts Festival

 

We visited the Biggar Arts Festival today. The weather was a bit wild and windy but it cleared up towards the middle of the afternoon. It was most enjoyable, and I fell in love with a painting that I will show you very soon. I try to buy a piece of art after every exhibition of my own work in an effort to play it forward so to speak. I sort of knew I might find that art today as the artist in question came to my exhibition and my art resonated with her. The same was the case with her work for me. All will be revealed in the next few days.

I couldn't resist a quick visit to Biggar graveyard as you can see above. I played a bit with textures and the brightness of this photograph.

On the way home we stopped at a new place (The Big Red Barn) for tea and when we came out flocks of geese flew over, a very typical autumn sight here in the Borders. I randomly aimed my camera upwards and clicked away, and was quite surprised to get some decent pictures out of it.

 

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Just one more day

 

There is just one more day to go for the 52 Journals exhibition. The gallery will be open from 9.30 - 12.30 tomorrow morning and that will be it! So here are some final pictures of the show.

Below a view of one of the pieces that has caused more comments than any other: the skull, based on a photograph I took in Glenholm graveyard. Despite attracting a lot of attention it hasn't sold so if you're interested you'll know where to come!

 

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A Million Little Pictures Analog

I collected the photographs today that were taken by a throw away camera I received from the A Million Little Pictures project. This is organized by the same people behind The Sketchbook Project (see my post from yesterday). This is the 6th version of the A Million Little Pictures project (AMLP) and I have participated before as you can see here.

The project is about the accumulation of photographs from hundreds of different people that each create a world of their own. Once you receive your camera you go out and capture "something meaningful".Or as the project states it:" Think about who you are, where you are, and what you think will inspire the public". Sounds simple but it made me think for a long time. In the end I settled on going to a graveyard and it's one of my favourites around here in Lasswade. I have been there before as you can read in a previous post.

You take the pictures with that throw away camera. And I must admit it's a real challenge to go back to analog photography now that we're all so used to digital. You have to remember the distortion between the viewfinder and what the lens captures, as well as be aware of fingers and hairs that can be captured by mistake. Then you get the pictures developed. Again not that easy as there aren't many places left who undertake this task. But Boots came up trumps. I had them print two copies of each picture so that I could keep a set for myself and they also dumped the pics unto a CD for me which I used for this post.

You then send the pictures you're happy with (well, sort of happy!) back to the Brooklyn Art Library and 2 of them will be selected to form a huge display of pictures from participants from all over the world. The pictures will also be digitized by The Sketchbook Project and form part of my online presence there.

I wonder whether anyone else will have taken pictures in a graveyard?!

Back to a graveyard

I helped John find his way to a fencing supply place today (being better at navigation than he is) and as a thank you he stopped briefly so that we could pay a quick return visit to Carnwath Graveyard. You can find a lot more history and description in my previous blog post about our earlier visit.

Today we just wandered and idly looked at a variety of gravestones, both old and new. This one took John's attention due to the fact that the text has been wiped from the stone by the wind and weather

 while I was impressed by the elaborate decoration on top.

Sadly this historic graveyard and St. Mary's Aisle are in a very sad state of repair. It might look great to have vegetation growing out of the leaded windows but it does the building no good at all and if you look closely you can see that the middle top of the window seems to have vanished all together. Maintenance is being done by Lanarkshire Council as the grass had only just been mowed but that seems to be about it. Many of the grave monuments are in a very perilous state and could come down at any moment.

And some of them already have. The above, lavishly carved, stone erected in memory of a 4 months old has lost it's top which is now positioned in front. A very elaborate urn indeed and it's good to see that at least it's still there to be seen and admired.

 As is the hand holding the scroll of life where, so the Bible has it, all our names are inscribed.

All that decay makes this graveyard a wonderfully romantic and atmospheric place to linger in but I for one would be a lot happier if I could see some signs that this historic place was being preserved for the future. It would be truly tragic if it was lost to those who come after us.

On the way out it was John who spotted the cockerel who featured on the weather vane. Sadly I only had my point and shoot rather than my superzoom camera with me and this is as close as I could get. It was painted beautifully and we will have to come back (not that that is a punishment!) so that I can capture it even closer!

Sketchbook Project final pages

The Sketchbook Project 2013 sketchbook has now gone postal so that it will hopefully reach the Brooklyn Art Library in time to participate in the project. You can see the previous spreads on my two earlier posts here and here. Above is one of my favourite spreads in the sketchbook, featuring on the right hand page photos I took in Crichton Castle this summer.

At the top right is another of my haiku, written on the theme of Time.

And here I've used a quotation that expresses my feeling about time very well.

I couldn't help myself and added a few vintage postage stamps to this sketchbook too as I have done to all the sketchbooks I've done for the Sketchbook Project.

The haiku on this page reads:

The slow dance of Time

Around and around we go

we beat the seconds!

Another favourite in the sketchbook. The haiku here is spread out over the two pages and reads:

A bud, rose, then hip

only time will find it out

We just stand and stare

This spread named Toujours (forever in French) has the following haiku:

Time is a Goddess

but we don't have to obey

Let's dance the time away

The final page (on the right hand side is the other side of the back cover) and another favourite, mainly due to the fact that I love both the colours and the sunflowers. It's also one of my favourite haiku that I wrote for this project:

Where is the future?

That land still untouched by time

When will we get there?

If you want to see this entire sketchbook digitized you will be able to find it here together with my sketchbooks and other projects done previously

PS There were some problems with the links for the Sketchbook Project in this and previous posts. This is because they moved to a new server and someone bought up their previous web address. I have adjusted the links in this post and will do so for the most recent postings here too but if you're on older posts you will find the links no longer work. If you want to go to the new website for the Sketchbook Project you need to go here:  http://www.sketchbookproject.com

More Transience pages

Following on from my previous post on the subject here are some more pages in my Sketchbook Project for 2013 with the combined themes of Photolog and Transience. The sketchbook also has many haiku written by me on the subject of Time.

The whole sketchbook has been worked at in stages, starting with the painting of the pages as seen above which was done back in the summer.

The 3 pictures on the left were taken in Penicuik graveyard and the one on the right in St. Margaret's Chapel at Edinburgh Castle.

This spread includes transparencies of photographs taken in graveyards as well as a polaroid flower picture, that has been distressed slightly.

Above the painted background of the spread below.

And here the finished pages with additional stamping, doodling and text which reads as follows:

Where does time go when it doesn't rule our lives?

These pages feature 2 haiku as well as a transparency and garden photographs.

The final spreads will be coming up soon as it's high time to send this sketchbook on it's way back to the Brooklyn Art Library! Once there this sketchbook like all my previous ones there will be digitized and you will be able to find the pictures here.

Transience Sketchbook Project for 2013

Sometimes the best laid plans go awry and the Sketchbook Project for 2013 was one of those. I  bought the sketchbook just as soon as sign-ups were open and anticipated working in it during the summer while sitting outside. Well, if you were in Scotland too this summer you will understand why that didn't happen. In fact in what I can recall as the only couple of days I did sit there I managed to make most of the backgrounds in the sketchbook but after that nothing much happened for a very long time. It was only during this month that the urgency of the situation came home to me as I realized that this sketchbook would need to go postal early in the New Year. So some activity was required and I duly set to work. My chosen theme for the sketchbook was Photolog as you can read on the label above but I decided to add an theme of my own which is Transience. I was reading Marney K. Makridakis' book Creating Time;  using creativity to reinvent the clock and reclaim your life. If only! But we can but try and one of the tasks she gives the readers of her book is to write haiku on the subject of time which I diligently did and I added these to my sketchbook pages. Above you can see  the cover to which I have added a self-portrait with camera (don't worry though, I hope not to be transient just yet!) as well as some stencilled clock imagery. On the left you can read the Japanese words mono no aware which mean transience. 

I managed to remember back in the summer to photograph some of the backgrounds I made in the sketchbook which came to be after gessoing all the pages first. After that came stencilling, spray painting, stamping, all in no particular order, and using acrylic paints. Above you can see the background for

this finished spread 2, called impermanence. Of course there are photos (for the photolog theme!) which some of you may well recognize from this blog. I also doodled a lot on this spread and added the finished haiku that you can read there on the left.

 Spread 3 is called Grab Time after the haiku which is itself a bit more elusive to find so here is the full text:

Elusive, transient

here today, gone tomorrow

grab time while you can

There is also text on the photograph on the left hand side and this says: "While the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest shall not cease". This photograph was taken during our visit to Glen Garden during the summer.

Spread 4  Does Time Smile at Us? has two haiku on facing pages as well as photographs and one transpariency on the right hand side. The haiku on the left reads:

Does time smile at us?

We try to understand it

It stays elusive

And the one on the right:

Time defeats us all

We don't fight another day.

It waits for us there.

 Above another view of a painted background which turned into the finished spread below.

This again consists of a haiku, several photographs and one transparency. Most of the finished pages were bordered with gelatos, simply rubbing the edges and spreading the colour using my fingers.

There will be more pages to come in the following days. If you want to see them all they will be labelled Sketchbook Project as you can see below. Just click on that and it will take you to all the pages in this sketchbook as well as to my other finished sketchbooks from previous years. You can also see them digitally on the Sketchbook Project page dedicated to my art.

Humbie Graveyard

Today was a rather momentous occasion as I have reached a blip milestone. I have been blipping for 2 entire years, never missing one single day and having to back blip only once in all that time. For those of you new to the Blipfoto concept, the idea is to upload one picture to the day the picture was taken. This is the only rule but I, like many other blippers, have given myself an additional rule i.e. to do it every day! I discovered Blipfoto back in November 2010 when I saw a small notice in the sidebar of the Scotland on Sunday newspaper. I checked it out and became hooked! The result has been many happy photographic expeditions to get special pictures but also an improved appreciation of our own home, garden and environment. Not to mention a desire for cameras! I'm contemplating a bridge one at the moment for my Christmas wish list!

But for my 730 day anniversary I wanted to make it special and thus we went off this morning to visit Humbie graveyard. It's not far from the Fala graveyard we visited not that long ago but this one is in East Lothian. It's beautifully situated along Humbie Water and both church and graveyard are still in use to this day. There has been a church here for centuries but the present one dates from 1800.

There was too much to see in this graveyard for one blog post so I will be coming back to other gravestones in the near future, however for today I'm concentrating on just one but it's a very special one. You can see it above and if you're wondering why I'm photographing it at an angle it's because the wall of the present church is in the way.

The way this monument looks I very strongly suspect that this monument was once inside the church that stood before the present day one was erected.

The shield at the top is for the Skirving and Anderson families and there is a scoll that reads: FIT INDE FIRMIOR ('He becomes stronger thereby'). Part of the right hand side of this monument seems to have disappeared  to make room for the monument next to it. I'm sure there is a lot more that can be discovered about this stone and I'll try and research it in more depth.

The back of this monument shows bricks as you can see above and I've never come across this before. It makes much more sense that the monument was purposely left outside the church when a new church was erected as after the Reformation in Scotland burials inside the church which had been the norm before, were frowned upon.

The family who were buried here must have been both a wealthy and influential one as this monument is hugely impressive. The text on the scroll as far as I can decipher it reads as follows:

Here lyes James Skirven of Pioulandhill

who departed y life in anno 1668

with Margaret Rigg his spouse

who departed in anno 1644

with James Ro't Adam Hary George

W'm & John Jean Agnes & Mary

children of James Skirven & Mary

Archibald Broun

Anderson sone of y'e's James

On the edge above it reads: William Schr'vins died december 1825 aged 82 years, and above that the inscription: Souen in Weaknes, raised in pouer I. Cor. 15.43 At the very top is the date 1682. The last 2 inscriptions must be later additions as the whole style of the monument says 17th Century to me. 

Here is a detail of one of the puttis holding the engraved scroll, with a fun little fig leaf to preserve his modesty! His head is decidedly too big for his body but his wings probably held him upright!

At the top is a figure that can only be a green man, with leaves coming out of his mouth. The Green Man is a popular figure in East Lothian, a region of Scotland that is very fertile and the home of many farms to this day.  He also seems to have a moustache and a rich hair do (probably a wig in keeping with the 17th century hair styles). I'm becoming more and more fascinated by Green Men and am reading as much as I can about it. There are many on show in Rosslyn Chapel and they sell a wealth of books on the subject there.

In the corner is that inevitable reminder that we will all die, in the shape of a skull. It somehow seemed very appropriate as my 2 year blip.The orange comes from the alga Trentepholia and there was much of that around as well as various lichen, contributing to the photographs!

Finally it looks likely that this monument had a pedastal but if it was ever in existence it's now firmly underground leaving only a winged soul behind who is literally biting the dust.

There were many more old and fascinating things to see in Humbie Graveyard and I will return both there and here with more pictures.