On being Alone.

Today is Sunday and for me, someone who doesn’t go to church or in fact go out much at all, it makes little difference. The only thing I have to consider is that I can’t buy any milk until tomorrow. However I feel as if Sunday represents something significant today. I have been following the progress of the Pope in America and Jeremy Corbin at the Labour party conference with half an ear and am delighted and relieved that a more reasonable and liberal way of looking at the world seems to be on the increase but it is not that which has affected me, at least not directly.
As the struggle continues and I still have to find a way of describing the landscape of Tiree that works for me, I have had a novel thought!
Why not relax and treat the rest of my time here as a holiday!
It speaks reams about my work ethic and level of anxiety and seriousness that this had not occurred to me until today. When I woke, the sun was shining and being the conventional day of rest I made a decision that I was not going to be so serious about the rest of my time here and now plan to relax and enjoy the island and the time away from other commitments. Knowing me, I will revert to wondering how to find the right language to describe this place but I will also walk, read and sit by the fire.

Tuesday 29th September.
The process of having a daily practice is a good discipline even if that is all you do but in fact I have been working on some drawings too. I remembered, rather late in the day, the exercise of drawing with your marker tied to the end of a stick. I have also decided that as the emphasis here is in the horizontal plane, I would divide a sheet of paper equally into strips, either with a view to reassembling them to their original proportion or into a long, long drawing.
So, equipped with two pieces of twig charcoal tied to two pieces of bamboo, one thicker than the other so it enables a firmer mark, I ventured out.

By way of an interlude, I want to tell you a little about what it is like being here alone. I am quite self sufficient and so except for my husband, I haven’t really missed being in company. I have had four conversations with four very different women during the time I have been here. But there are things you have to consider when alone. Two moments come to mind which brought into sharp focus my personal safty. The first, on returning from the magnificent beach of Balephuil and walking to Patricks Chapel, I found myself driving behind another pickup (the chosen vehicle it appears on Tiree) and the farmer got out to open a gate in front of both vehicles. Obviously as he drove through, it was my job to shut it behind me and so he drove off. I got out of the car and shut the gate only to fall through, with both feet, a cattle grid, landing just below the knees, legs between different bars and with the gate violently swinging in the not insubstantial breeze, flapping around my head! Luckily nothing was hurt but I realised how easy it would be to sustain an injury and knowing no one would have no one to contact. It has made me slightly more cautious than usual. This was reinforced by an extended visit to another beach where I parked the car and made three expeditions taking different materials each time. On the third excursion I decided to take another route and instead of walking along the shore as I had done before, I saw a sheep track through the sand dunes and took a short cut. All went well and I was even not displeased with some of the results, until I returned. My car was surrounded by a large herd of cattle, a very large bull and an extremely frisky black heifer amongst their number. On seeing me, the heifer made towards me with great curiosity and I realised that I wasn’t really sure what to do. I stood my ground, flapped by drawing board a bit and talked to her, suggesting that I was not really the interesting individual she thought I was. She was not to be discouraged and having taken a few strides I decided I had to stop and rethink the solution. The black heifer was making such a fuss that I noticed cows moving from miles around across the dunes all converging on the apparent interest. There were calves amongst the throng and I knew you must not get between a mother and her calf. What to do? I was terrified! There were more cows on the beach cutting off a detour to the car but I noticed they were drinking seawater and were not very interested in me. I struck out, cutting the herd in half, round the dunes and made it to the other side of my car where there was a frisky bullock calf. I thought I might end up on the roof but with car keys in hand, managed to take a flying leap at the door and throwing it open, jumped in. The drawing had become of very insignificant importance and needless to say was not longer very clean but I was at least inside a metal box. I think the cattle must have thought I was the farmer as the bull emerged from the feed pens dug in between the dunes and I had obviously given the wrong impression that I had come bearing silage and that the cattle too thought I was their keeper being in the statutory pickup truck. The beaches here all look so innocent and perfect but I now realise that every one with no fencing in fact has a free range herd of semi wild cows and it has completely un nerved me. I have stayed very close to the house since then!

Wednesday.

Equipped with my stick and long strips of paper I have been out every day but now am including a reasonable walk between the work times. The weather has been spectacular; everything blue and this morning with mist rising in every hollow made the island look like a vision. I missed the red super moon despite getting up at 3.29am. I ventured out and was aware that the moon was shining brightly but there was an obscurity preventing the light showing. Perhaps that was the eclipse? By 4.30am it had cleared and the bright moonlight was back. But there has been a red moon every night at moonrise, which closely follows the most spectacular sunsets. Last night was the best of all.

Last year, when on Iona, I remember meeting a man who runs a gallery there who said of my work that it was not specifically Ionian. We discussed this and it emerged that what he meant was that there was no specific landmark to define the work as being located there. This is the audience who walk the beaches of Iona, working out the exact rock that was or was not included in one of the Scottish Colourists descriptions of the island. As I am sure you are aware, I am not specifically interested in geographical accuracy although I realise from that conversation that perhaps it would make my work more saleable. As you know, we eventually curated the exhibition under the title The Beaufort Scale making the theme more about the weather than the geography. I am now having the same internal debate about Tiree. To counter the continual horizontal emphasis, I have now started introducing small vertical accents and looking at the articulation of the marks across the page as something of a musical score. There is a drawing board in the van whenever I venture out and so when the moment arrives I am equipped to make a response. How important is it that these reactions are located within an accurate map? I don’t believe they it is…it is the body of work that should describe the experience of a month on Tiree, not which rock is where.