13 months

13 months

4th June 2022 

I placed a piece of hand woven cloth (Harris wool and wool/acrylic) on the croft in Quidinish, Harris. There is a derelict building right by the shore where I decided to place it. There is no roof so the cloth was vulnerable to the Outer Hebrides elements - rain, wind, sun.

Before placing it on the wall, I washed it in the nearby peaty stream.

To keep it secure I placed it under a block of gneiss - the local rock. This rock was already there and was part of the derelict building.

Beyond the wall you can see the saltmarsh - the tide was out.

The colours were bright and bold and the cloth felt soft.

28th September 2022

Four months later I found the cloth slightly faded and the tassels had twisted. No longer flat against the wall, it had developed a curl along one side. Probably from the wind.

 

On the 30th September the weather had been wet and windy, so the cloth appeared darker and was distorted.

2nd February 2023

Another 4 months later I returned again. The colours had been leached out by the winter rain and snow and it felt harsher and tougher.

You can just see the landscape behind with it's winter colours - russet, brown, grey.

24th June 2023

Another 4/5 months later and the cloth had taken on the colours of the rock - the different lichens matched the faded colours of the altered cloth. The Outer Hebrides had an unusually dry, sunny spell in May and June that scorched and dried out the cloth.

The exposed side was rough to the touch whilst the underside was softer and the colours brighter.

                                                         28th June 2023 - Removal Day

The landscape had it's summer colours again - luscious green. The cloth had been outside for over a year and had changed.

Colours faded and cloth battered and weathered after 13 months outside in the extreme island conditions.

The tide was out and the cloth was removed.

Before/After

Bores and Murmurations

 

Thursday 23rd February 2023

A trip to Elmore to see the Severn Bore (a 4 star one). A beautiful winter morning, blue skies and chilly. Two buzzards flying overhead.

The Severn Bore was expected to arrive at Elmore at 10.17am so I had a flask of coffee to keep me warm whilst waiting.

Calm waters - pre Severn Bore

                               10.30am a wave started to appear on the far bank - it had arrived

                                  

                                                  Huge volume of water surged past

Bringing with it tree trunks, branches, rubbish - post Severn Bore

Tuesday 24th January 2023

A trip to Ham Wall, Avalon Marshes to see the starling murmuration. The sunset was at 4.36pm and the large group of people that had congregated waited in anticipation for the starlings to arrive.

Then the starlings started to arrive. Thousands and thousands of them meeting at Ham Wall coming in from all directions. Before their arrival marsh harriers were hovering over the area waiting for them to arrive.

They kept on coming

And coming

                                                                                                              

                                                                                                        Then there was stillness again

Setting up a stall in the middle of nowhere - May 2022

When I was young we visited Harris once a year to see my grandparents. I have very fond memories of these special weeks: visiting friends and family and eating too many oatcakes and biscuits, helping with the peats, picking vegetables and fruit and taking surplus cabbages and potatoes to neighbours in return for a bottle of fresh milk, jumping in the bogs and making dams in the stream. But one memory that is very special is Nelly who lived in Geocrab. She was a keen knitter and sold her wares from a bonnet of a car parked near to her house. When someone stopped she would hastily walk out to them to see if they wanted anything. This memory has stayed with me all of my life so I wanted to do the same with the aim of selling my recently woven wares. I parked the car in the middle of nowhere on the peat road to Leverburgh. I was there for 3 hours on a cold, wet and windy May day and 4 cars passed me and they didn't stop.

The clothes horse fell over a few times, I saw an eagle, I got very cold and I didn't sell anything. 

 You may be asking yourself, 'Why didn't she choose a better location?'

And I would answer,

'I wanted to be in the middle of nowhere to surprise people.'

In the end no one wanted to get out of their big, warm, cosy cars on a cold, windy day to look at some random stranger's weaving in the middle of nowhere.