Traigh Mor Study
April 21st, 2009 Doug
Working study of Traigh Mor for
Walking The Strand (Message Bottles)
A Whales Tale
April 19th, 2009 Doug
Archive image of Harpoonist 2001
text and images to follow
Archive image of Heads or Tails 2001
Whale carving for
Walk to The Ferry 2006
Carving whale forms for Endeavour 2009
Uig Bay study.
April 12th, 2009 Doug
Working study of Uig Bay for
Walking The Strand (Message Bottles)
Ardneil Bay study.
April 12th, 2009 Doug
Working study of Ardneil Bay for
Walking The Strand (Message Bottles)
Setting sail again. (Part 2)
April 12th, 2009 Doug 
Detail from Sula
With many of the works in the new exhibition having complex and interesting narratives as their start points, creating a catalogue of references and descriptions is important to allow the audience better access to the work, giving them information and details to enhance their enjoyment of the exhibition.
Although it is the job of the artist to communicate their ideas to the viewer through the use of well chosen visual prompts and images, it is helpful to support these with additional information, which would help them to read the work more clearly. Over the years I have taken part in many gallery talks where I have spent more time explaining the thoughts and motivation behind the works in greater depth, which has been enjoyed and well received by the audiences. As a result, I have made the effort over the past few shows to provide access to further ‘reading,’ for instance through information boards and descriptions within the exhibition space.
As part of the Bedales Arts show, in addition to the gallery based descriptions, I am going to create an online catalogue, linked to the website, where the audience will be able to view the exhibition. Each piece will have details of the source of the ideas and further explanations and sketchbook images to support the work. And hopefully (my computer skills allowing!) it will all be downloadable as a pdf. I’ll try to create a sample page in a later blog.
Sula 2006
Setting sail again. (Part 1)
April 11th, 2009 Doug
Sketchbook notes for new assemblage formats.
In the studio again, setting sail towards a new exhibition
I always find the early stages of creating a new exhibition the most difficult. I am a compulsive (some would say obsessive) collector of images, notes and ideas in my sketchbooks; some are only a few words or a potential title for a work, others are highly-worked drawings of objects or formats that will be carved, painted and assembled.
Working through the sketchbooks, editing the notes and marking the work that I think will work well for the show. Sounds easy - if only!!
It is a difficult choice which images to put together. One of the main functions I try to achieve when exhibiting is to make the work easily readable and flow naturally for the audience. For this new exhibition, with Bedales Arts in Hampshire, I am creating several sequences or narratives: a calendar of eight point or ’stations’ based on natural and man-made festivals of the year; a series of assemblages based on The Western Gateway, written by Scottish poet Kenneth White; and continuation of a group of works inspired by the names of whaling ships that sailed from the port of Dundee (a previous assemblage in this series, ‘Balaena’, is in the permanent collection of the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther).
I always like to walk around an exhibition space a few times in the months before a show, trying to visualise the work in place and get a feel for how the space will work. Hopefully the choices made for the new exhibition will develop as planned and go to create a good show.
