As the title suggests, this large charcoal study returns the wood to the material from whence it came. It is a like an allegory for the entire site and its setting in the bleak landscape of the marsh, compounded by its very inaccessibility. Yet one must be ‘drawn’ back there, again.
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Cleitean (pl.) are small stone chambers unique to St Kilda. There are around 1,200 on Hirta, more on the surrounding islands and stacs, and whilst there have been many fanciful ideas regarding their original purpose they are known to be to simple dry stone structures which the islanders used as storage for foodstuffs such as……
I have been revisiting this fascinating landscape feature throughout the year and have come to know something of its moods as well as its many guises. It is a cormorant roost, a scheduled ancient monument, a hidden place and one of Britain’s last remaining duck decoys. Ironically it is at once a lure to death……
Only the passage of time gives us the privilege to see the glimpses of light that linger yet from the War years. In all the terror of industrialised slaughter comes an occasional passive ingenuity and creativity that is a counterpoint to the darker sides of man’s nature. We stumble across these as if groping in……
A winter sky on a sacred hill facing west, overlooking the place of oaks and the distant kingdoms of Mercia and Wales.
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