Blog Archives

Coming Together and True Voices in the Yurt

9/10/2011

A very busy day this second Saturday of PDAF 2011!
Art shows and open doors day in and around town, on top of Open Studio trails, art and craft workshops, and gigs! Oh, and don't forget the long hours of play rehearsal!!
Reward in the yurt at night with the exquisite line-up of True Voices - let the pictures above tell the story how in round circling wraps itself comforting and cradling round hearing and sounding...

Hear and see for yourself:

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day 8

9/10/2011

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Despite the moody weather, the crafters at the Midlothian Open Doors Day at Penicuik House drew a considerably larger crowd of visitors than last Sunday when, ironically, the sun had behaved much better. Laryna's Nuno Felting workshop at the Arts Centre produced some remarkably good and colourful work from the inexperienced participants. Unfortunately for the workshop leader herself, the day ended with her being inadvertantly locked into the building when the keyholder departed without checking whether she was the last person out or not.

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Day 7

9/9/2011

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          The Arts Centre in West Street was the venue for "Liszt in Scotland", a talk and illustration (slides and music) by Derek Watson who, the previous evening, had hosted Janis Mackay's meet-the-author session in his West Linton bookshop.
          The subject focused on Franz List's concert tour of Scotland in 1841, while at the height of his superstardom as both composer and concert pianist, and fanned out to include the careers of some of his Scottish friends and contemporaries in the world of classical music. The tour was nothing if not hectic - seasickness and hangovers featuring regularly, and at one stage, Liszt and his party were commuting back and forth on a daily basis, between Glasgow and Edinburgh, by coach and horses - trains coming along just a few years too late for their benefit.
          The talk was punctuated by slides and music of the period, and no less usefully, by an interval for drinks.
          Contrary to the heart-warming image of Liszt on the flyers for the evening, there is, sadly, no evidence to suggest that he ever wore a tartan tammy while in Scotland.

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Day 6

9/8/2011

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Morning creative writing workshop in the Arts Centre with ubiquitous Janis Mackay, who is currently shuttling back and forth between literary duties in London and Midlothian.

          The exercises which Janis sets her students seem designed to draw out deep, sunken images and memories of the kind that lend themselves generously to a wide range of creative writing possibilities. Some deep wells were plumbed this morning, but the Blogger’s lips are sealed. Try it for yourself!

          The air fairly tinkled with literary chit-chat, at Janis’s meet-the –reader and book-signing session at Linton Books, West Linton’s cosy and delightfully independent answer to The Great Beast, Amazon. May they survive to cock a snook at the giants forever.

         Janis, by the way, is in London on Friday, giving story-telling lessons to Barclay’s Bankers! Talk about selling coals to Newcastle! The Blogger thought the bankers had been telling the rest of us stories for years now.

          This left time, regrettably, for only a flying visit to The Hub, where Sophie Bancroft and her band were playing to a seriously full house. Mmmm...nice. Mellow enough to leave the car and float all the way home to.

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Day 5

9/7/2011

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          A heavy duty day for Janis Mackay, author of the Magnus Finn books for children. Her first stop was Strathesk Primary School where she workshopped with a group of 9-12 year olds, before heading to Carlops to lead a creative writing workshop for adults. Her day was completed more gently with a session of open poetry readings with a small group in the Yurt, where intermittent rain squalls rattled fiercely on the roof – whether in applause or otherwise, was unclear.

          On Thursday she is scheduled to take a creative writing workshop for adults at 10am in the Penicuik Arts Centre, followed by a story-making session for children (7+) at noon, and a “meet the author” and book signing hour and a half from 6.30 in the West Linton bookshop. Busy lady

          Admirably undaunted by this schedule, plus a trip to London in between, she will be back on Saturday 10th for further classes for children, in the Tipi at Whitmuir from 11 – 1pm, and in the Yurt from 2-3.30pm, and lastly, she will join Aonghas MacNeacail and others for True Voices- poetry and music, in the Yurt at Craigiebield.

          Assuming you’ll have had your tea by 6.15pm, it’s time to get on yer bike, for the Bike Tour – on the Penicuik – Rosslin Esk Valley Mill trail cycle path. By the time you get back and shower off the honest sweat, an already nicely warmed-up evening of Jazz with Sophie Bancroft awaits you at The Hub (7.30 – till you drop).

post script:
never made it to the Craigie, but heard you were the poorer for having missed the feat of their funky tunes and rythms!

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Day 4

9/6/2011

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Day Four.

          The Blogger has stumbled on buried treasure...in Penicuik! It was gleaming faintly, in the darkness of an industrial estate, and could so easily have been passed by. But there it was, through the windows of the Crystal Business Centre, just off Eastfield Road – an exhibition of paintings, prints and photography by the Edinburgh-based artist, Alan Beattie Herriot.

          The reception area of the CBC makes a surprisingly excellent gallery, with its light and spacious dimensions, and Herriot’s work here – a combination of land and seascape and Edinburgh views – is vividly alive with the shifting colours, the scents and the swell of the sea (“Tantallon”), the movement of cloud and wind (“White Sands”), and the sizzle and shimmer of the rain on the cobblestones and pavements of Edinburgh (“The Royal Mile”).Equally worth checking out, are “Morning Light”, “Port Seton Harbour” and the congenially abstract “Yellow Table”.

          The Photography includes arresting studies of Rosslyn Chapel, the Scott Monument, from directly below. This represents a crudely limited selection of the work on display, in what is an intriguing and rewarding exhibition, and I would urge you to catch it before it ends on September 18th. The BCB is open from 9am till 5pm every day.

          Elsewhere, The Road House hosted the Penicuik Folk Club for an evening of good old fashioned folk, singing good old fashioned folk ballads. No drunks, no fights. Perfect.

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Day 3 and CCC

9/5/2011

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There were a two other things going today, though, in the (apart from the mural excitement and the window re-dressing) quiet breath of this Monday:
The first of the CC circles in the Yurt and a hand spinning class inn the Arts Centre.
We don't have pictures of the latter, nor a wee video, which is a shame, as the fine art of teaching to spin is a heart and hand warming treat and feat to watch and do.
But we have a couple of pictures of the CCC circle taking place, in the yurt today rather than in the library, to appreciate the benefits of the circular setting, as we learn to apply the circle method to our engaging creatively with the so-called economic crisis.

Gathering questions and intentions for a saner economy

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Day 3

9/5/2011

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Ahead of a slightly lighter programme of activities, a morning of tiresome but necessary spadework, re-hanging and re-arranging some of the paintings and other exhibits, in the windows of the empty, former Clydesdale Bank at the junction of the High Street and the pedestrian precinct. Apart from transforming the dismally empty windows, the vividly coloured paintings and tapestry have drawn an impressive number of interested passers-by who would normally have walked on without a pause.

                       Prior to this, our first task of the day was to supervise the hanging of three large, loudly and proudly painted murals, loaned by the community learning department, in front of the ugly, neglected gap site next to the Post Office. This exercise led to a priceless scenario of male pride versus male bluster. Before unloading the murals, the two guys who were delivering them, decided to temporarily park their trailer in the narrow exit/entrance to the mail sorting office. Sadly, this strategy co-incided with the attempted exit behind them of a car, and the thwarted entry of a Royal Mail van in front of them. Soon there was much angry honking and blaring of horns. This was followed by a great waving of arms, and the air became blue and jagged with recrimination, raucous doubts cast on the legitimacy of each other’s birth, and mutual accusations of what a civilized blogger can only describe as excessive indulgence in self-pleasuring activities.

                       Still, the murals looked nice

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Day 2

9/4/2011

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Sunday – but no rest for the wicked, as the few and beleaguered volunteers rose, blinking, into the light of a startlingly bright blue day, to prepare the story-tellers yurt in the grounds of the Craigiebield Hotel, and to set up the craft stalls in the grounds of the elegantly dilapidated Penicuik House.

          The theme of the day turned out to be Scottish history – lots of it. Indoors from the alfresco craft stalls, Arran Johnston of the Prestonpans Trust delivered his well-rehearsed party-piece on the making of the eponymous tapestry, modelled on its Bayeux inspiration, and visually recording the gory progress of the Battle of Prestonpans – arguably Scotland’s last significant victory over the Auld enemy until Wembley 1967.

          Arran gave us a slick and entertaining run-through of the tapestry’s conception and creation, involving stitchers – experienced and otherwise – from every staging-post in Scotland on Bonny Prince Charlie’s expedition from Arisaig to the muddy East Lothian field where he, and a few thousand Highlanders, routed a much more numerous English force, in the space of ten brutally triumphant minutes. The 105 metre tapestry, by contrast, took the international team of stitchers around a year to complete – a triumph in itself.

                       Meanwhile, outside, where the sun was still unaccountably refusing to give way to the usual autumn showers, crafters and visitors were being delightfully diverted by the Peebles musician, Jon Redpath’s Hurdy Gurdy - one of only eight in Scotland, France being, apparently, a much more welcoming environment for this exotically beautiful instrument. The overwhelming competition from the bagpipes would seem to be the cause of the former’s scarcity here.

                       From there, to the Open House Trail venue of Rosslin –based Irish artist, and winner of the previous year’s local Turner Prize, Aine Devine. Aine’s portraits of the famous, including a poignantly evocative study of the late Mo Mowlam, and the less famous – her own family - are boldly and beautifully realised works – a mixture of stark energy here, and a kind of otherworldly, contemplative quality there. Very well worth seeing. Check out the festival venue map and times. And go there!

                       The evening shift took us to Rosslyn Chapel for Henry Marsh’s reading of his latest collection of poems, “The Hammer and the Fire”, interluded exquisitely by the fiddle music of Ian Laing. The collection’s subject was John Knox and the Scottish Reformation, with a welcome co-starring role for Mary Queen of Scots.

                       The slightly eerie, candle-lighted allure of the now world-famous chapel, was a perfect backdrop to the poems’ melding of recorded history with Marsh’s moving and imaginative explorations of the inner turmoil of his subjects. History, leavened with poetry, and sweetened with music. The first half of the evening followed Knox’s ironic evolution, from priest to galley-slave, and on to the fiercely inspirational voice of the Reformation. One couldn’t help wondering however, what the Old Testament austerity of his beliefs would have made of the elaborately pagan imagery of much of this chapel’s mesmerising architecture.

                       And on then, to the main target of his best-selling “The First Trumpet Blast Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women” – beautiful and ill-starred Mary, Queen of Scots. Born into the long-running dynastic feud between the Tudors and the Stuarts, and dumped, by the death of her father, James V, on the throne of Scotland when she was barely a few days old.

                       Like many a female celebrity down the ages, her taste in men was truly shocking – from child bride to the sickly – and soon-to-be-dead – Dauphin of France, to the equally soon-to-be-murdered Lord Darnley, and finally on to mad, bad, and dangerous-to-know Bothwell. After all this, and eighteen years under house arrest by her dear cousin, Elizabeth the First, of that other place, her last breath on the executioner’s block was probably a sigh of relief.