Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Now you see it, now you don't.



Everything is in a constant state of change on our planet often so small we hardly notice the difference but then just occasionally there's a big one. Towards the end of last summer while up on the Isle of Lewis I took a stroll along the length of Traigh Mhor beach and up along the cliff edge to Tolsta Head where during the nesting season Skewers fly in low threatening to vomit or shit on any intruders. I spent some time sketching the dramatically weathered cliffs and magnificent pinical forms and later did an oil painting from one of the sketches.

This spring I returned to Lewis to continue building work on the barn adjoining my house at 17 New Tolsta. One day while in Stornoway I bumped into a neighbour who was eager to inform me that the great stone stack at Sgeirean Thealair had fallen. I struggled to remember just where this was and then realised that it was that which I had painted the previous year. So what you see in the picture is not what you get as hundreds of tons of rock have crashed into the sea leaving a considerably blunter form.

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