I N T R O

I made the Wells of Arthur’s Seat series in the early summer of 2018, as part of a collaborative project responding to Arthur’s Seat, the extinct volcano that rises at the heart of Edinburgh. Working in mixed media on wood panels, I painted the hill’s flora and fauna in the vivid greens of early summer, and above all its water: the springs that tumble down its slopes, the lochs that gather in its valleys, and the old wells hidden among them. The paintings were shown at my studio in Abbeyhill, a short walk from the hill itself.

P A I N T I N G S

P L A C E

What first drew me to the subject was the history beneath the surface. Several of the hill’s springs carry the names of saints, among them St Anthony, St Margaret and St David, and were once held to be sacred. The medieval ruin of St Anthony’s Chapel, built in the twelfth century, still stands above St Margaret’s Loch, though the well below it is far older and ran dry only in the 1980s. Long before their Christian dedications, wells such as these were places of healing ritual, part of the tradition of ‘clootie’ or rag wells found across Scotland, Ireland and beyond. Much of what we know of these practices survives through court records from the Reformation, when those who gathered at the wells risked prosecution. The rituals followed a belief in nature’s balance, in which sickness was an imbalance to be set right: a visitor might circle the well sunwise three times to mark out a safe space, dip a cloth in the water and press it to the afflicted part, leave the cloth nearby, and offer a token of thanks such as a coin or a wildflower. Water itself was understood as a liminal thing, a threshold or, as later Christians would say, a thin veil between worlds. It was this quality that drew me to the wells and shaped the series.

 

 

M U S I C  A N D  P O E T R Y

For the project I collaborated with two artists whose work shares that contemplative spirit: the poet Alan Spence, then Edinburgh’s Makar, and the cellist and composer Atzi Muramatsu, with whom I have worked since 2013. In response to the paintings and to Arthur’s Seat itself, Alan wrote poetry, including haiku, and Atzi composed music for cello, the two premiering together at the exhibition’s private view. Alan’s long engagement with Zen and haiku ran naturally alongside the project’s themes; one of his poems, Frog, played on my painting ‘Swimming Frog, Hunter’s Bog’ and on Bashō’s famous verse of a frog and the sound of water.

C O N C E R T

The project closed with a midsummer celebration on Arthur’s Seat itself, on the evening of the summer solstice. We began at the studio with a cocktail invented for the occasion and christened the ‘Arthur’s Sprite’ by my friend Donald, made with Chartreuse, vodka, freshly squeezed lime and a home-made syrup of Sweet Cicely gathered by my mother, Gillian Strang, before heading up the hill for a live acoustic set from the much-loved Edinburgh musician Dominic Waxing Lyrical, joined by Riley Briggs of Aberfeldy. It was a fitting close to a project about gathering, water and the turning of the year, and a thoroughly convivial one.

 

B L O G  L I N K S

This is a new project, in which I’ll be painting Arthur’s Seat from a unique perspective, also creating a video of the project …Wells 1

I’d discovered that St Anthony’s Chapel (painting above) was bult in the 12th century, but the nearby well (named St Anthony’s Well) had probably been used for many centuries beforehand as a place of worship or healing … Wells 2

I’m delighted and honoured to be collaborating with two very talented people on this project; the poet Alan Spence and cellist/composer Atzi Muramatsu … Wells 3

‘Clootie Wells’ (or ‘Rag Wells’ as they’re called in England) were places believed to be sacred; this was part of a pan-European way of worship, or faith in nature … Wells 4

The highlight of the evening, for me, was Alan Spence reciting his poem Frog, with Atzi finding sounds on his cello that captured the very essence of water, or the spring of a frog’s legs as it plops into the water! … Wells 5

Summer Solstice – what better way to spend the longest day of the year than up on Arthur’s Seat in the sunshine, with friends, family and two of my favourite musicians – Dominic Harris (Dominic Waxing Lyrical) and Riley Briggs (Aberfeldy) … Wells 6