Keep The Fires Burning

Lambda photographic prints and light-boxes x 2

Made with the help of Christine Cowie

In the summer of 2010, I spent 3 fascinating months as artist in residence in Timespan Museum and Arts Centre in Helmsdale, Sutherland. Timespan’s vision focuses on linking culture, heritage, the arts, people and their ideas. My residency, exhibition and publication, both titled Close-Knit, was the first in a series of projects using this theme and was funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the European Community Highland Leader 2007-2013 programme.

The two gable ends, pictured in the light-boxes, were both found in Wester Helmsdale and are brilliant examples of the skill and creativity of the crofters. Virtually nothing remains of these crofts except for these vitally important fireplaces. But with these, we can imagine a glimpse of what it would have been like to live in these homes. The hearth was the focus of indoor family life, around which the whole family would spend their evenings. The crofters would never have let the fire go out. For this work I installed warming flowers and smoky grasses, in order to recreate that focus point and create a ‘memorial’ for the heart of these homes. The space in which these works were housed was the same dimension as a croft.

If you would like to purchase my publication, Close-Knit, please click here. It is a little coffee table book for those with an interest in Scottish history, the history of the home and traditional crafts. Full of stunning images and snippets of stories which describe what it would have been like to live in a croft house in the Scottish Highlands in the 1800s and also includes images of the works of art I produced when in residence.