Lighting Up




Lighting Up 
The last two weeks have been busy. On November the 30th Ullapool switched on their Christmas lights. This small community on the North west coast of Scotland would put many a large town, including Eastbourne my own, to shame. 
Look how pretty is this christmas tree. But wait -its no ordinary tree. It is recycled from fishing creels. The light up team - all volunteers - spent over 1000 hours testing all the light bulbs and preparing for the switch on.
At 5.30pm it seemed as though the whole village had turned out to witness the switch on. The Ferry to the Shetlands went a short way into the harbour, blew three loud blasts on the ship's horn, filled the sky with its spotlight and the town turned on. Even the little fishing boats bobbing in the harbour were lit up with small white lights. With the strings of white lights all along the shore and the shops which had also prepared special windows and treats for shoppers, it was enchanting.

 For the twelve of us, it was the start of an eagerly anticipated artist book making week with artist Lucy May Schofield. Lucy travels the country with a huge collection of artists books called Bibliotherapy sharing her belief that books connect people. 
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We spent a couple of days learning book structures than made our own artists books. I totally loved it.  All mine were on the subject of Stones.

               
          

 The local shops are full of lovely things and we are making our secret Santa presents. I've stayed with the book theme and made earrings in the form of tiny books. For the geologist the book cover is Set in Stone - Landscapes of Scotland,
The music therapist loves Debussy and one pair for a good friend with one of her own books as the theme.

                    

 Over the weekend I gate crashed a childrens' pottery session where they were making christmas tree decorations with the outstanding village ceramicist Steve Paterson. His own work is gorgeous and surely collectable even if his dad is still waiting for him to "get a proper job!" 
I made three queens (rather than kings) as night light covers. They were very much admired by the rest of the class all under the age of 11! I glazed them yesterday and will possibly post them when they come out of the kiln if they are fit to be seen.
Steve is planning to run some beginners' clay workshops as evening classes next year and I hope to be on the list.  
There was also a much anticipated two day craft fair in the village hall. For such a creative place, it was  a little underwhelming..With a bit of thought and time, I think we could have had a wonderful table as at least four of us on the course regularly sell at craft fairs elsewhere. However, I suspect the wonderful art galleries in the village, already represent the cream of the crop.

 This week it was textiles and again I loved it.
The studio burst into colour as we created papers, deconstructed fabrics, dyed and batiked.


I started well but was scuppered at the last post by slipping on a wet floor in the studio and finishing up with a suspected hairline fracture to my left wrist and a badly bruised bum! As this coincided with Storm Caroline which had this small corner of the UK firmly in her sights with snow, sleet and hail, I was unable to make the journey into Inverness for an X-ray. The local doctors have strapped me up with a splint and a sling but sadly it seems I will not be able to do the sculpture week next week. And that will be our last week this term. 

 It has snowed hard all weekend. I am living in a traditional christmas card.





   

 
I saw my first  snow plough and learnt by watching the locals that when you are being pelted by freezing hail that you stand with your back to a tree that is facing the hail and  the tree takes the force of the weather. Also, things change here every ten minutes so not long to wait before you can move onwards once more. Tomorrow we have our Christmas Party with shared food and a modified version of 12 days of Christmas and at the weekend, weather permitting, I have a visit from my daughter Freya and her hubby Ben to look forward to. We may 
even get to see the Aurora Borealis.  It very common here. 

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