Our byre at studio 17 on the Green route has been open this weekend for Spring Fling's first collaboration between an artist (my friend Catriona Taylor) and a poet (me). The idea for the installation was sparked by poems I wrote after I found a love letter tucked into the stones of the byre. Catriona and I researched the lives of the bothymen, who travelled from farm to farm as itinerant, seasonal workers. These were people who left very little trace - there is little documentary evidence of who they were - often their lives were not even recorded by the census.
Catriona made an amazing installation inside our haybarn, a flickering, candlelit space, where great translucent canvases swing in space, and the lives of the bothymen are captured in a series of simple wooden boxes, lined in shreds and layers of wallpaper, etched with their graffiti. Words from my poems and from the love letter are worked into prints and even painted faintly on the battered limewashed walls of the barn.
Catriona’s family and mine all turned to and helped, and had great fun (even trying to put up a gazebo in tipping rain while clearing up the preview party and bottle feeding the abandoned lamb just as the first visitors arrived - early). And it's made us clear up the garden, which probably wouldn't have happened, so thanks Spring Fling!
We've been inundated with lovely people visiting, talking and sharing ideas - thank you all!
From Jean Atkin
"Just a quick note to say how much Catriona and I enjoyed our Spring Fling! We had over 160 people through during the weekend, and it was a really good experience. Some of the best bits though was just folk coming in and talking about their memories, telling stories." Jean Aitken (sharing with Catriona Taylor in Studio 17). More about this studio experience here.
Catriona made an amazing installation inside our haybarn, a flickering, candlelit space, where great translucent canvases swing in space, and the lives of the bothymen are captured in a series of simple wooden boxes, lined in shreds and layers of wallpaper, etched with their graffiti. Words from my poems and from the love letter are worked into prints and even painted faintly on the battered limewashed walls of the barn.
