Graham Fagen Blog | April 16th

Baile an Or?
Field of gold in English rather than town of gold?
Garnets!
Lots of Garnets.
That’s what we found.
No gold this time but there’s always the next time, definitely.

Crabs, on the doorstep, greeted our return from Baile an Or.
Thanks Lorna.
More (and maybe a lobster or two?) on my return please?!

Tomorrow is the last day the Ed Rusha exhibition will be on.
Great show.
Great to see it up here.
I’ll miss it.
Great to see the national galleries working and showing with others.

In absence of my reflection in one of Ed’s works, I’ll leave you with a sign and a meal.

Until June.

Graham Fagen Blog | April 13

13 is my lucky number.

I was born on a thirteenth.

Tomorrow I’m going to Baile an Or.

Town of Gold in English.

There was a gold rush there in 1869.

You can still pan for gold there today, in the Kildonan Burn.

As I mentioned yesterday, this is where my journey up the Helmsdale River takes me.

I’m going on the 14^th.

If I had sense I would have gone today, on my ‘lucky’ day.

Instead I went to film old settlements in the rain.

I wanted the rain.

When I got there the rain stopped.

13 was working for me but didn’t realise I wanted the rain to keep coming.

I think I’m more interested in what the need to find gold means, rather than actually striking it rich myself.

It’s good Ed Rusha is here to help me with my thoughts.

Here’s me, thinking of Baile an Or, reflected in Ed’s HOPE.

Thanks again Sir.

Graham Fagen Blog | Time

I’ve never blogged before.

I need to figure out who I’m talking to I think.

Perhaps that will come with time.

Time is what is interesting me here in Helmsdale.

This is my third visit this year the other two visits were in January.

It was in January after my first visit that I decided I wanted to make a video work that was about time.

The River Helmsdale will be the spine of the work.

My plan is to start at the sea, go up river to Kildonan Burn or Baile An Or, where we’ll search for gold and then back downstream, through the Strath to the sea again.

We’ll pass lots of important places.

Land that is owned.

Land that people were cleared from.

Memorials and clocks.

Trees and plants and animals and birds.

This is all on going.

I’ll be working through to July and the exhibition will open in August.

What is on display now though is fantastic.

Ed Ruscha is here.

In Timespan, in Helmsdale, in Sutherland!

He’s not here in person but in spirit through his work exhibited in the gallery until the 16^th April.

It looks great and it’s a real treat for me to have caught it here.

Here is me, wondering who I’m talking / writing to, reflected in Ed’s ‘dirty baby’.

Thank you Sir!