INSIDE -OUTSIDE

Having been determined to do some outdoor painting while here, the weather always seems to be against this. However a couple of days ago I braved the freezing conditions and went out with a rucksack full of oil paints, boards and palette knives, and sitting in the snow, made a few small paintings before retreating from failing light to the warmth of the studio. Working crouched on the ground with my palette in the snow, snow became mixed in with the oil paint, which altered the consistency of the paint so that it became granular - it was a bit like painting with ice-cream. But it was good to have worked with paint and with colour – white snow against black/brown rocks under a darkening pink-streaked sky reflected in the dark voe. 

Whilst the research I am doing - the artifacts relating to Haaf Fishing, the written, narrated, and embellished accounts of storms, disasters, rescues, the contemporary stories of recent huge waves that people I meet recount with relish - all play a key role in the development of imagery, yet observation is, and always has been, critical to making work.

How much does drawing and painting transcend observation of the landscape I have walked in? Having drawn/painted in a place, is my memory and my interpretation affected by this act? Do I then understand and ‘see’ the place differently? Or is what I draw and paint based less on what I see and more on what I know or believe, or have read? When I look at the paintings and drawings I have made, I think that I have a deeper (or is it just another?) understanding of the places I have been walking.

Working in the studio with the research alongside drawings and paintings made on site, the connection with the actual places - some with traces of the past embedded into the landscape - the historical significance of events is more evident, or perhaps more keenly felt. However, when translated into an artwork, the images may mutate into more fictitious form; it is inevitable that I will project my own experiences and memories and imagination onto them.

The Bad Day

'I gied da halyards back ta Robbie an I jimpit eft inta da owsing room an I took da shivel an I balled him ta Tammy Laurenson an I says "Tammy, now..if ever du did wirk i dy lefe..try dy best..ta empty her" '. Extract from first-hand account of 'The Bad Day' (Delting  Disaster, 1900) by Willie Nicolson,Shetland Archive tapes.

Lots more snow and no wind for the last few days, so it's been difficult to get about and I've been in the studio working. Have been continuing to make more experimental pieces (see above); making the work in response to accounts of the 18th and 19thC fishing disasters (thank you for your comments - both on blog and on my email). I have also been painting from drawings I made of large turquoise waves crashing onto black rocks near Sumburgh.  Not sure how I'm going to get all this work home as it's pretty wet...

Extremes

Definition - extreme (adj):

1.  highest in intensity or degree

2.  going far beyond what is reasonable or normal

3.  farthest out, especially from the centre

4.  very strict or severe

5.  denoting an activity in which participants actively seek out dangerous or even life-threatening experiences

1.  the furthest limit or highest degree of something

2.  something or somebody that represents either of the two ends of a scale or range, for example, the highest or lowest degree of something, or a quality and its polar opposite

3.  the first or last term in a mathematical proportion or series

Having come to Shetland looking for the extreme, whilst I may not have seen any extreme waves, it is a place of extremes, although I realize that this is a relative term. What may appear extreme to me may well be simply taken for granted by the indigenous population of Shetland, and is probably nothing to someone living in the Antartic. Nevertheless here on Shetland the weather dominates and changes rapidly.

Sunday morning in Scalloway was almost tshirt weather, bright warm sun, the harbour water as still as a mill pond, and although there was still some snow on the ground, I worked in the studio with the doors wide open. Setting off early afternoon with an artist from the Veer North group to travel across to the islands of Yell and then Unst on a quest for a beach and blue plastic, I remarked on the amazing dark cloud hanging in the air as we drove north. As we arrived at the ferry crossing, there were flecks of snow descending. By the time we had crossed over to Yell and driven its length to catch the next ferry over to Unst, it was snowing fairly steadily, but we ventured on. Having arrived at Unst this had become a blizzard. We drove a short way up the road before reason set in – we couldn’t actually see much of the road - and we turned back (with some difficulty) and drove slowly to the ferry. It was all very beautiful though.

This morning in Scalloway there has been no power, and now snow is sweeping across the harbour… obliterating my view of the hills on the other side.

Experimentation

Found a great area for large rolling waves yesterday - on the way down south to Sumburgh. It was late afternoon and icy cold as I perched on the black rocks close to where huge rollers were breaking over the rocks sending vast plumes of spray into the air. As the waves broke the sea was an incredible turquoise colour. I couldn't draw fast enough, especially with frozen fingers.  I had planned to return there today with paint, but as usual the Shetland weather got the better of my plans - there was no wind and lots of sun. So a day in the studio instead. The drawings are feeding new paintings. Images to follow.. 

Have been plundering the Shetland Museum Archives at Lerwick for 18th&19thC images and writings related to Haaf Fishing, and have begun to combine them with my paintings. These are experimental pieces - at the moment I can't make them very large as the printer here is only A4 and not particularly sophisticated. Assembled together they suggest a narrative.. 

Comments?

Out on Burra - it really was snowing

Tuesday 16 February, 2010 10:26:
Weather report from Fair Isle Weather Station
'Temperature sensor has gone haywire again, reporting -67.8C!'.

As I sit here at just after midnight, heavy rain is sweeping across the harbour and lashing at the windows of The Booth. Great, but why wasn’t it like this when I was on Unst? My visit to the island was productive in so far as I learnt a lot about the construction of and the different types of traditional Shetland, Faroese and Norwegian boats, and their link to the Vikings (thank you Robert Hughson). Plus I got to see Uyeasound’s ‘Up Helly Aa’ and experience the after the galley-burning celebrations. And stayed in the Zero Carbon House B&B.  But the only extreme thing about my walk along looking for wild heaving seas and windswept coast-line was that it was on the most extremely calm and sunny day I have experienced on Shetland. There’s always tomorrow….

Postscript: Awoke to snow showers.

Out on the sea

Given the superstitions regarding women on boats I was extremely lucky to find a fisherman willing to allow me on-board his boat. My day out with Billy Hughes, a Scalloway creel fisherman, checking his creels enabled me to look back and up at the coastline from the sea and to feel to movement of the boat as I drew (when my freezing fingers allowed).  

We chugged between the rocks and skerries in his small boat, stopping periodically as Billy brought in his creels, sorted through the catch (throwing most back), before moving on to place them again and to locate the next batch. The catch was two and half buckets of edible brown crabs (partans) and a box of assorted other less ‘exclusive’ ones. All bound for Spain. Not much for a fairly labour-intensive day’s work, but at this time of the year….’mebbe n’ so bad’. 

At the risk of sounding like a middle-class Romantic (try to imagine bohemian artist instead.. okay, maybe they’re the same thing), it is strange to think that whilst most of the country are driving like crazy through some concrete jungle to and from work each day, this is what Billy does alone most days of the year, whatever the weather, surrounded by this bleak and wonderful landscape.

'I took da shivil.. an I says; Tammy, now..if ever du did wirk i dy life.. try du best..ta empty her'

Discovered after an informative trip to The Boat Haven on Unst, that some sixareens did indeed have pumps, and also they had bigger bailing shovels as well as the oskerries to assist the removal of  'heavy smoorie of spray from the owse room'. 


So those of you who have been worrying about this issues, I hope that this allays some of your concerns for the poor sixareen fishermen desperately trying to empty their boats as the 'lumps of water' crashed in, threatening to swamp the boats in heavy storms.

The Moder-dye

Def: the original or mother wave (old Norse); used, as legend would have it, by experienced Shetland fishermen prior to the days of compasses to find land in times of fog. Described as a 'surge or physical protest' the ocean makes when her cosmic motion is restricted by proximity to land. A 'sensed' undercurrent,  which is a wave-like motion or swelling running towards land, discernible to the trained eye on soundings and observable in foggy weather . 

'No matter how wind-driven and uncertain the billow, the methodical undulations of the 'moder-dye' can be seen across the hills and valleys of a wind tormented sea, always setting four-square towards the land'. (Sail Fishermen of Shetland, p74)

Fin' oot da misforn knotts

Old seamen in the different parishes who knew the sea-lore would be sent for to "fin' oot da misforn knotts" before any sixareen was launched. Round black knots were "misforn knotts". A boat with these sort of knots in her boards was sure to be cast away. "Windy knotts," or knots with sprains out from them, like "wind-straiks ida sky," told that the boat with these knots would always falling with gales and bad weather. 

"Good knotts," or "lucky knotts," took on the shape of ling, cod, or tusk-fish. Sixareens with these kind of knots always had good fortune at the "far-haaf," and sailed to the stations with big hauls of cod and ling.

"Blood knotts," were unlucky, "njuggle knotts," a portent of disaster, "ling knotts," and "hansel knotts," were lucky knots. The most dreaded "knott" of all was the one shaped in the image of a cat; if the boards of a sixaern were seen to contain any "knotts" shaped like cats, then the unfortunate timbers must be cast away and new ones substituted. 

Essential equipment for the sixareen fishermen

19th century Owskerri or bailing scoop from Burra. 

Each area had different designs and colours.