THE LION, THE SWAN AND THE GIFT OF YOUTH

The title of this post might sound a bit C S Lewis-ish, but it stems from a rough English translation of the names of the three ships featured in this week's featured painting.  This is the last of the new works I've managed to complete for this year's Catterline exhibition (I hope it's completed!).  I still have a bit to do on tarting up one of my old tall ship paintings, and I hope to get this done tomorrow.  If I don't manage it, this one will probably not be making the journey south, as I would like to get a new frame on it for the occasion, and it'll have to dry before going to the framer.

My able assistant-cum-driver and I will be hitting the high seas next Saturday evening, and I hope the seas are not high enough to cause similar problems to those encountered by the ferries earlier this past week.

The ships featured in the painting above are, on the left, the Dutch topsail schooner "Wylde Swan", the 3-masted Dutch topsail schooner "Gulden Leeuw" (Golden Lion) on the right, and, in between, the Polish full-rigger "Dar Mlodziezy" (Gift of Youth") receding into the gloom which attended the departure of these ships from Lerwick in late July.

Dutch ships dominated the 'A' class of vessels in this year's Tall Ships Race, and the "Wylde Swan" was  one of the most interesting of these.  She is owned by the same organisation which brought the brigantine "Swan van Makkum" to these islands for the 1999 event, and subsequently sold that vessel to Italian owners.  The "new" boat was actually built as a steamship in Germany in 1920, and she has also operated under the Norwegian flag, before being acquired by her present owners, who have converted her into the impressive two-masted topsail schooner which graced Lerwick harbour in July.

Equally interesting, and also originally a steamship, is the "Gulden Leeuw", which was built as the Danish oceanographic research ship "Dana" in 1937.  I remember admiring the sleek lines of this grey-painted ship when she called at Lerwick in this capacity during the 1960s.  However, I would never then have dreamt of seeing her return in 2011, rigged as a three-masted topsail schooner, with a fully-square-rigged foremast.

This will probably be my last post before my trip to the mainland.  My thanks must go to Cecil Hughson, who has been framing all the paintings, and to my sister Mary, who has the onerous duty of transporting them and me safely to the Creel Inn, Catterline, for next Monday's hanging.  Thanks to these old friends who have volunteered to help with the hanging of paintings and distribution of posters.  Finally, thanks to all those who have emailed me their good wishes - it is very much appreciated, I assure you.

Have a great fortnight!

CHOPPY SEAS

I know I promised to display this painting here three weeks ago, and this only serves to demonstrate the fragile nature of such undertakings.  My excuses seem feeble in the extreme now, as I reflect on what has happened over the period - family matters, a "chest cold" which has been doing the rounds of my native islands and made my life a misery for a fortnight, and, at the same time, trying to keep some kind of painting workrate going, as the Catterline exhibition is being hung five weeks tomorrow.  I still have so much to do in connection with this that it's scaring me practically witless.

I have seen the sample of the exhibition poster which Tay-CAD are producing for me, and it is excellent.  These will be going up in shops, hotels, pubs and eateries around the north-east of Scotland prior to the event.  My framer is busy with my paintings at the moment, fares and accommodation have been booked, and my first grant claim form has been submitted to the SIC's economic development unit for payment.  All extraneous factors seem to be going well, and only the artwork remains to be completed!

While I am struggling to get the last three new artworks finished (and alterations done to some older ones) in time for the Catterline display, the orders are building up too.  I have been promising these potential clients that I'll start work on their artworks before the end of October, and I hope that they keep faith with me meantime.  As someone pointed out to me recently, it's better than having an empty order book, and I suppose there are many artists who would dearly love to have my "problem"!

The painting which illustrates this post is of the Aberdeen trawler "Leswood" heading south-east from Lerwick in choppy weather conditions, with the Bressay lighthouse bearing silent witness to her departure.  I hope to have my portrayal of the Arbroath-registered seiner/trawler "Random Harvest II" ready to illustrate another blog posting this time next week, but, given the broken promises of my last post, I am reluctant to make such a rash definite undertaking!  The last two new works for the Catterline exhibition are of tall ship compositions, and I just hope to have them both ready for the event.  This is dependent on metaphorical fair winds between now and then.  May only gentle zephyrs fill your sails this week!

PROSAIC, PEDANTIC AND PATHETIC!

The Northern Isles of the UK are being buffetted by bad weather again.  This morning I happened to be listening to Radio 4's Broadcasting House programme, to which an Orkney resident had phoned indignantly, protesting at the coverage given to the American hurricane, while Orkney was being blasted by 80mph winds (which were not even being mentioned!) on this side of the pond.  It's not quite as bad as that in Shetland, but it's still a lively envoi to what has been a dismal summer up here.  The Tall Ships Shetland visit, the Walls Show, the Scalloway Gala and several cruise ship visits are just some of the events which were either wiped out or badly affected by adverse weather conditions this summer.

As yet not weather-affected has been the artistic output from the Tait Gallery.  This week, I've been working on two fishing boat pictures destined for the Catterline exhibition.  Both pictures feature the Bressay Lighthouse, but from completely different angles. One is an aerial view of the Aberdeen trawler "Leswood" heading for sea in heavy weather, the other is from a more lowly viewpoint, of the Fraserburgh motor drifter "Girl Pat" coming in to land her night's catch.  I'll be doing more in a similar vein over the next 6 weeks or so, and I may be recycling a few older works to make up numbers for this event.

I've put the Stonehaven painting (featured on last week's post) in for scanning, with a view to featuring it on the posters for the Catterline exhibition.  I'm starting to make lists of things which will come with me (and it's still more than two months away!) - picture wire, cutters, split rings and blue-tack will be vital.  I've begun to think about gallery labels for the paintings, and I've bought sheets of coloured card for use in their manufacture.  My sister Mary (in charge of transport) and I were discussing the trip over lunch last Wednesday.  As a direct response to last week's post, I now have another volunteer to help with the hanging - that's a full lynch mob now!  The power of social media, eh?

For a few months now, I've ben racking my poor befuddled brains for a suitable exhibition title.  All that I could come up with is "The North Sea, The Mearns and Other Scenes".  I know that this is prosaic in the extreme - exactly what it says on the tin, so to speak.  But it's the best I can come up with, and it is typical of me - prosaic, pedantic and pathetic!

On Friday I was delighted by the smiling face of my niece Elanor Gunn beaming out from a page of the Shetland Times.  She had graduated from the RSAMD with a first class honours degree in violin performance, and my mother was so pleased and proud to see her grand-daughter's photograph in the paper she has read and supported for nearly a century.  We're still somewhat mystified by the same paper's non-publication of Elanor's earlier, and equally remarkable, achievement of being appointed leader of the National Youth Orchestra of Wales.  Her tenure of this position came to an end earlier this year, but the distinction is none the less.

On a much sadder note, my first cousin Don Leslie lost a long battle with illness earlier this week and, on Tuesday, I'll be going to what will undoubtedly be one of the biggest funerals Lerwick has known during my lifetime.  My deepest sympathy goes to Marion, Richard, John and all the other family members.

At times like these, the words from "Maunsie's Crö", by Basil R J Anderson, come to my mind:

Da years geed by as aye dir geen
Da winter white, da simmer green
Da voar aye saan, da hairst aye shoarn
Aye someen deed, aye someen boarn

BIRTHDAYS AND OTHER DATES

I reached the almost invisible milestone of 63 years of age on 16th July, and, with the inevitability which attends man's attempts to administer the unmanageable, my mother turned 95 exactly a fortnight later, on Saturday 30th.  It was a good day for a party, if nothing else.  This summer is going down as one of the gloomiest on record!

Two afternoons before this momentous day dawned, I was walking along Lerwick's Hillhead, thinking of my mother and her forthcoming birthday, when the notion struck me - quite suddenly and violently - to nip into George Robertson's electrical goods shop to take a look at their selection of TVs.  (I should explain here that Mum's current TV screen, at that time, was 22", which was really too small for the size of her living room.  She was having difficulty distinguishing the Gs from the Qs on Countdown.)  In the shop, I was pleasantly surprised to see a 32" job, with all the channels and technostuff which Mum would be capable or desirous of using, for less than £300.  I checked its availability with one of the shop staff, went home in a state of breathless excitement and contacted all of my siblings regarding their views on a birthday present from the five of us jointly.  They were all enthusiastic about the idea.

My sister Mary and I visited the same shop next day, bought the set, and off it went in the boot of Mary's Urban Cruiser (it just fitted!).  The following day, all of us who were within a car journey's distance gathered at Whiteness to celebrate Mum's special occasion.  My niece Caroline's husband David did the installation of the new set, while the rest of us kept Mum's attention diverted in the kitchen.  She is delighted with her present, and we all wish her many happy days to enjoy it.

As pleased as she is with her new telly, a visit from the chiropodist would have delighted her even more.  The NHS has been letting her down badly in the foot-repair department, a representative of which last paid her a call in February.  Her severe mobility problems are not improved by this neglect, and I have witnessed her practically pleading with a telephone answering service for some much-needed attention to her feet.  It breaks my heart to see her suffering this way, and, if I try to intervene on her behalf, I run up against the bollard of patient confidentially, which the NHS use both as a blunt weapon and a shield against any inconvenient treading on of their own bunions.  My mother is 95, for heaven's sake, and not as well-equipped for bureaucracy-battling as she once was.  All she wants and deserves now is a chance to live out her remaining days on this earth in as pain-free a peace as possible.  However - as my late Dad used to say, there's more than one way to skin a cat, and most of these methods involve constructive letter-writing.  Let's see, who can I write to about this?.........

I heard of another significant date (aside from birthdays) last week, namely that of my my exhibition at the Creel Inn, Catterline.  I have now had the long-awaited confirmation that my paintings will be on display there during the months of November and December, and the space will be available sometime in the first week of November.  I hope to hang on either Sunday 6th or Monday 7th.  My sister Mary, who is doing the driving, is hoping for the former date, and my nephew Kenneth, whose help was invaluable during the last Creel Inn hanging in early 2008. will be off work that day to assist.  Everyone loves a good hanging!

Now, I have to get Tay-CAD to do some quality posters for me, and I need to get some decent framing from the mainland.  An advert in the Press & Journal wouldn't hurt (except for my bank balance) and I have fares and accommodation to sort out.  There's a grant aid form to fill in.  Oh, and there's the small matter of getting a dozen more paintings done over the next three months!

Have a nice week!

HOWE O' THE MEARNS

I hope you like my landscape painting of a springtime scene in Howe o' the Mearns. This area has some of Scotland's richest farmland, where newly-ploughed fields are defined by others yellow with daffodil crops, bordered by rows of hawthorn bushes. Farmhouses, barns and clumps of trees add to the attractiveness of this part of what used to be south Kincardineshire and north Angus before boundary commissions made their arbitrary and senseless decisions about which new region should contain what. The hills of Glenesk and Cairn o' Mount are in the misty distance.

I was down in this area last Saturday, the main reason for my trip "south" being to use up my remaining two concessionary vouchers, for Northlink Ferries, (of which we 60-plus people get issued with four a year), before they became invalid on the 1st April. It's rather a good scheme, and I hope it survives the "austerity" measures through which the poor citizens of this country are going to pay for the extravagances of the rich. It was ever thus - why should it be different now?

The weather was disappointing for much of last Saturday. It rained on and off for much of the day, precluding any photography while it was in "on" mode. My brother and I first visited Stonehaven, then Catterline, the venue for my next Scottish mainland exhibition. The latter has been affected by landslides over the winter, although not as much as the former to the north. We next had a wander round Johnshaven harbour, which was much emptier of boats than last time we were here, and the tide was even lower. On to St. Cyrus we travelled, hoping to have a pot of tea and bacon-buttie at the Old Baker's Shop Cafe (which my brother can remember as a functioning bakery), but the place was closed. Over tea and scones at the St. Cyrus Hotel, the proprietrix told us that the cafe owners had emigrated to Dubai.

We headed inland from here, pausing for a few minutes to admire the splendid view west from the summit of the Hill of Garvock, where the whole of the Howe o' the Mearns stretches out from Laurencekirk to the crouching animal shape of the Hill of Wirren beyond Fettercairn. Last Saturday, however, the hill was obscured by mist. One of my favourite scenes is the red brick houses which lie to the left, as one approaches Fettercairn from the east on the B9120. The rain was holding off at this time, so I made my brother stop the car (in a massive pothole!) here while I got some digi-pictures of this. I intend to paint this scene soon.

On to Edzell, and lunch, as it always seems to be, was taken at the Panmure Arms Hotel there. It was excellent, as always. I had the beef olives, while my brother went for the haddock. Our next stop was Brechin, and I have not set foot in this attractive place since I once hitch-hiked from Aberdeen to Edinburgh on the inland route (big mistake - the jouney took nine hours!) in 1968. Instead of passing through the city, we parked the car and went for a walk through some of its streets, visiting the ancient cathedral, which was scaffolded inside and out, so there is obviously some extensive restoration taking place here. Under leaden skies, we walked for a while by the river South Esk, before setting off in the rain to Auchmithie, near Arbroath, where a welcome cup of tea awaited us at the home of our old friend from schooldays at Sandwick, Shetland, by the name of Kenneth Bull.

Kenneth, an architect by trade, and now in semi-retirement, has lived, with his wife, son and supercilious tabby-cat, in an old coastguard station atop a cliff at Auchmithie for many years. (The government wants all coastguard stations to be converted into private dwellings soon, and we are in the process of persuading them what a bad idea this is!). Kenneth gave us the sad news of the demise of the aforementioned cat during the winter. Although cats take a more realistic view of their own mortality than we humans do, I well know how distressing the loss of a pet cat can be, having witnessed the passing, some more suddenly than others, of some well-beloved ones of my own.

And then it was back up the coast road to Aberdeen, where we arrived at the Premier Inn next to the Cocket Hat just before 6pm. I checked in, had a rest, then had an evening meal and a pre-arranged pint with my old friend Alan Johnson later that evening. No sign of Lenny Henry anywhere, but I did see another couple of Shetlanders, who were obviously also overnight guests, occupying another table in the bar of the Cocket Hat. Wherever you go in this world, you'll find that a Shetlander is somewhere in the neighbourhood!