Crackaig Beach

Crackaig Beach. Sheep cropped turf with minute flowers behind the dunes, caravans mostly empty some look abandoned, concrete structures left over from the war, sand and stone beach, rock pools, cormorants and shags, plovers and oyster catchers, a dead seal and dead barn owl beyond, one white wing blowing upright against the wind, salt crusts on the stones, black marked rocks like paint spilled – this part of the Earth rests on one of the many fault lines in Scotland. On the beaches you can see where one part of the world has slipped under another – some of the rocks spread out like quilts on the sand, some recline on one arm and resemble figures in the sun, others angle upward - sharp and dark splitting easily and revealing ancient fossils within – the stones in the rock pools are like jewels in the shining water.

Finally managed to get Time

A blog which looks back over my shoulder– a blog for the time span between 2^nd and 28^th June.

This is not something I do so much now – writing I mean. So basically it will be a list of where I have been in and around Helmsdale during the first part of my RSA Residency at Timespan in June. The second part of the residency will take place in November and December of this year. It’s interesting thinking about how ideas for work begin. Before coming I had already thought about how I would investigate the passage of time, light nights and dark days, the movement of the tides and the difference between fresh and salt water. Now I was here in this remote harbour town on the north east coast of Sutherland with some basic knowledge about how and why the town had come into being and some ideas for beginning work. What follows is parts of my memory of being here. Weather permitting I will visit these places again in the winter and definitely visit the people I have met.

Places (Images to follow)

Walk One – Walk to Marrel between the hill Creag Marail and the River Helmsdale. The hill of Creag Bun-Uilidh on the other side of the river behind the town is coloured by the striking deep yellow of gorse – the blue sky makes the yellow stronger. Smell of coconut – except that really coconut smells like gorse because the scent of gorse was here first. Greens of willows, birches, sycamores, broom and grasses. Wild flowers blowing, bird song, sheep bleating, lambs running, insects buzzing, fish jumping and water flowing. A silent landscape full of noise.