Gaelic Arts Residency: Basgaid Sgitheanach agus pìosan eile
Last year I had the honour of being selected as the Artist in Residence for the annual Tobar an Dualchais x ATLAS Arts residency to explore and create work inspired by oral recordings taken across Scotland over the last hundred years, housed within the virtual Tobar an Dualchais collection. The residency was in partnership with ATLAS Arts, who coordinate and run an engaging arts programme across Skye and Lochalsh.
While my residency came to a close earlier this year, the influence it has had on my practice has only just begun. I’ve tried my best to summarise some of my highlights in a short series of posts on my website. Here is Part three: Pàirt a trì.
Alongside Aonghas’ basket, I wove a basket for our Highland queen, Margaret Bennet, whose archives recordings I kept coming back to. This basket was inspired by one Margaret had been gifted as a child, that she in turn recently gifted to Skye and Lochalsh Archive Centre which I was lucky enough to see during a visit there. Margaret’s basket is based on a traditional Skye basket, also known as a Hen or Ose basket, believed to have originated on the Isle of Skye and used to carry broody hens from one croft to another.
Basgaid Sgitheanach
My intuitive, sculptural take on the Skye Basket. Worn here with a Shetland Lupetto jumper from Bard, and the Gertrude kilt by Studio La Fetiche. Captured by Cal Douglas.
Returning to leather, I made a ‘sguird’ inspired by seed-sewing on Uist. Floraidh from Tobar an Dualchais remembers her father’s seed sewing bag as a belt with two soft pockets coming from it, each filled with seeds from which he could reach his hand into to spread the seeds as he walked. Inspired, I made a woven version, angled precisely so that a hand could reach into it with ease.
Another favourite recording was ‘A’ dèanamh sìoman fraoich’, where Donald MacDonald is interviewed by Dr John MacInnes of the School of Scottish Studies. Donald remembers having to walk two miles to get the right kind of heather (soft and long) for rope-making. I went for two-mile walks of my own through winter, when there was little in the way of flowers to pick, and on these journeys, I collected what I could: twigs, branches, rough heather roots and grasses and with these I made nests that felt like home, in all her winter glory.
There were other small works, plants that my Dad and I had collected and researched to find their Gaelic names, selected and combined together with vintage silk threads. Wee pieces to remind me of two-mile walks, the hidden histories and plant-lore behind Gaelic names, of shared knowledge between generations, of how much we can learn from the glens that we’re lucky enough to live and love in.