Our 2019 residency at Inverewe is now over. Regretfully, Ian Stephens could not participate so we were very pleased to have writer Mandy Haggith join us to make an all female group – the Wise Women.
Our final exhibition, Wise Women and The Earth, ran from mid September to the end of October. As a joint response to the environment, history and community of Inverewe, each of us focused on one of six themes – foundations, beginnings, cycles, diversity, shelter and support. During our time together, many of these themes gradually intertwined, mirroring our growing artistic collaborations.
Here we are, in our Wild Women and The Earth t-shirts, at the exhibition launch in September, unfortunately dominated by the even wilder weather on the day! From left: me, Joanne B. Kaar, Dorje Khandro Dawid, Kathy Sutherland, Lynn Bennett-MacKenzie and Mandy Haggith.
With support as my theme, my investigations into natural structures in the garden, tree trunks and stems, eventually led me towards the three ‘totem poles’ that I suspended from the gallery ceiling. Like trunks and stems, totem poles are supportive and connective structures. They link earth to sky and unite human, magical and natural worlds in kinship. Each of my fellow wise women were asked to make four clay tile totems – tree, animal, plant and a statement describing how they saw themselves and their connection to nature. I created the centre pole totems with tiles that described (with joint agreement) our group symbols.
It was a great challenge to meld all our individual skills together, but much fun also. The good news is that we have been asked to extend the residency throughout next year to it’s conclusion in an exhibition in mid 2021. The sad news is that two of our Wise Women, Joanne B. Kaar and Kathy Sutherland are not able to join us for our continuing adventure. We will miss them.
As part of the exhibition, Mandy and Dorje Khandro created a songline – an audio guide of three walks around the garden