This is an open invitation to come and view my exhibition at the Ashcroft Arts Centre in Fareham, Hampshire.
If anyone can make it along to the private view, it would be great to see you!
For more information on the Ashcroft and how to get there, click on this link.
Postcard image of Bas Baile - Rotal
As part of the Net Mender exhibition at The Scottish Poetry Library, I will be artist-in-residence at Crichton’s Close on the 1st and 2nd of June, creating new art/poetry collaboration works. Poetry (and literature in general) has always been a great source of ideas, images and influence in my art work, and to have the opportunity to exhibit and develop new collaboration pieces at such an important national resource is a great privilege and pleasure.
Currently in the studio, I am working on several assemblages and drawings which will feature in the two days of the residency. Two poems which are being translated into box constructions come from poems by Shetland born, and Edinburgh based poet Robert Alan Jamieson. Also with similar geographical connections, poet Christine De Luca has given me two fantastic poems to work with, ‘Fire - Sang Cycle’ and ‘Breton Circle Dance’. Both poems will feature in Christine’s forthcoming new collection.
Breton Circle Dance
Ouessant, Finistère
An dro
Feet drum doon a aert flör
dancin hit clean
rivlins in rhythm,
side-steppin, saaft sheen.
Airms linkit tagidder
back, fore, up an owre,
lik flail apö flakki,
lik sail at da shore.
Minuet
Da wye da horizon wavvels:
hadds tae her, but tizes farder,
balances apö da aedge.
Even time dips her, salists.
An boats, heeld owre i da ebb,
recline for a artist’s brush.
Da snaar here - a slow dance –
isna sib tae da Manche whaar
tides gallop fast as a horse.
A sea foo o sky. Sun lip-lines
waves as dey hadd der braeth,
glosses dem. Dey tip, smush
inta smoorikins, a hush
apö saand; a linkin o airms,
a steppin tae da sea’s percussion.
An dro
Feet dance doon a aert flör
daddin hit clean
rivlins in rhythm,
side-steppin, saaft sheen.
Airms linkit tagidder
back, fore, up an owre,
lik flail apö flakki,
lik sail at da shore.
An dro – a Breton circle dance, with linked arms
Along with the above, there will be new works from collaborations with Jen Hadfield, Donald S, Murray and Rob A. Mackenzie. So, if you are in the Edinburgh area at the beginning of June, pop along to the Scottish Poetry Library just off the Canongate, on the Royal Mile, and find out more about the collaborations, or just say hello!
The Scottish Poetry Library at night.
Poem by kind permission of Christine De Luca
Scottish Poetry Library photograph by kind permission of Chris Scott,
If you would like one of the Bas Baile postcards, leave your address on my contacts page, and I will forward one to you.
On the 26th June I will be taking part in Salt Publishing’s Cyclone virtual book tour, providing a blog stop for Scottish poet Andrew Philip and his excellent first collection The Ambulance Box.
The conversation with Andrew and myself will be focusing on his four poems, the Hebridean Thumbnails.
I’ve long been interested in the most compressed forms of poetry, so the monostich — the one-line poem — is a natural way to go. I read about the form years back in the pocketbooks anthology “Atoms of Delight”, but was galvanised into writing them when Julie Johnstone intimated that she was looking for monostiches for island magazine. In fact, these “Hebridean Thumbnails” are only a selection of the sequence of monostiches — in correspondence with Julie, I called it a “seam” — that appeared in island. The others didn’t seem to fit quite so well with the rest of “The Ambulance Box”.
*Excerpt from conversation with Andrew Philip
Cut and paste the URL below or click on the link to find out more information about Andrew and his work.
http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/9781844714919.htm
