There's a Time and Place

 Ruth Nicol: 'Bayble, Lewis, Iain Crighton Smith'

Landscape artist Ruth Nicol came to Duff House, Banff last November.  http://www.duffhouse.org.uk/

Since then I have been thinking over the conversation she had with portrait artist Alexander Moffat and poet Alan Riach,about people, place and identity. 

Scottish identity and definitions of "Scotland" as an idea, were at the centre of the exhibition.

As 2014 was also the year of the Scottish Referendum, a political drama that gripped the whole nation for several weeks, this was a timely project. As an Englishwoman living in Scotland do I define myself as English? British? European?  Am I a migrant - an incomer, or a Scot-by-adoption? 

At one time any child born on British soil had the right to a British passport. That rule has changed and we have all become more mobile and affected by multiple cultures and wider experience - real or virtual.  Does place still matter to identity? 


Ruth Nicol was inspired to paint her huge landscapes by the portraits of seven important Scottish poets created by Alexander Moffat a few years ago. They were: Hugh MacDiarmid, Edwin Morgan, Norman MacCaig, Sorley MacLean, George Mackay Brown, Robert Garioch, and Iain Crichton Smith.

His series of portraits culminated in the celebrated painting "Poets' Pub" on display in the Scottish NPG in Edinburgh. Moffat was commissioned to paint each of the poets but threw in this wonderful imagined gathering of all seven poets for good measure.

I have mentioned this picture before in the blog as it made such an impression on me when I first saw it last spring.  When an email popped into my inbox (thanks to local artist Bryan Angus) saying that a talk was taking place just along the road and featuring one of my favourite painters and some of my favourite Scottish poets (especially Norman MacCaig) - I felt it could have been planned with me in mind.

Living here we are accustomed to making a considerable trek each time we want to access some art and culture.  It was such a joy to have it brought to us for a change and Duff House made a worthy setting on a November evening for such people and such paintings. 

These poets are all strongly connected with certain places: MacCaig with Edinburgh and Assynt:

Edwin Morgan with Glasgow:

George Mackay Brown with Orkney:

and so on. One of the recurring ideas is that individuals, and especially artists, can feel deep love for particular places and that these places inspire their work. This is not a new idea of course - we almost take it for granted - and yet millions of people (the vast majority of the planet's population) are obliged to live in cities and spaces they don't love in order to have work.  Maybe that's why artists are so important to our collective psyche - they are able to express what we don't have time or space to express while we are busy getting and spending.  If we don't live in a place we love we can create a mental landscape to sustain us and art can help us with that.

The work of these poets and painters is almost all about Scottish identity and experience yet has a far wider appeal.  Who owns the land?  Where do we most belong?

Here is an extract from "A Man in Assynt" by Norman MacCaig, my favourite of the seven poets featured here:

I can't pretend

it gets sick for me in my absence,

though I get

sick for it. Yet I love it

with special gratitude,since

it sends me no letters, is never

jealous and, expecting nothing

from me, gets nothing but

cigarette packets and footprints.

Who owns this landscape? –

The millionaire who bought it or

the poacher staggering downhill in the early morning

with a deer on his back?

Who possesses this landscape? –

The man who bought it or

I who am possessed by it?

False questions, for
this landscape is 
masterless
and intractable in any terms
that are human.

Who are you?  Where is your place? I hope you have one to love.

Almost two years since I moved to beautiful Gamrie I have come to love my chosen place and feel very privileged to live here overlooking the Moray Firth.  The community here is mixed and welcoming and this is now my home. One doesn't have to born in a place to belong there.