One Perfectly Good Bucket

Metal and string

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.

I found this bucket in one of the croft ruins in Wester Helmsdale. It had no bottom on it and a big hole in the side. The crofters were (and still are) extremely resourceful and frugal, and would mend what they could before replacing it. This bucket would have been a vital piece of equipment, so I mended it by weaving it a new bottom and wrapping the hole at the side with string. It’s now a perfectly good bucket again…for everything except liquid!…and is valued once more, transformed from the rejected to the treasured.

Received the Richard Coley Award for Sculpture at Visual Arts Scotland‘s Annual Open Exhibition 2011.

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.

Photos by Colin Usher.