Tales from the North Coast

North Coast OURS trip 24-25 May

Earth Ship
Our first port of call was at Skerray's Earth Ship. This home is being built almost exclusively from reclycled materials by Rhona and Steven Graham. Found mostly in the desserts of North America, building an earth ship is a hugely demanding and ambitious project, particularly in our wet Scottish climate. The main structure of the house is built from reclaimed car tyres that are then packed with earth until they inflate. To learn more about eartships and this particular project, please visit Rhona and Steven's web site, which can be found in our Links!

As you can see, the weather was great! Here are some photos of us hard at work on the earth ship, packing tyres. Steven first demonstrated the process to us, selecting the right size of tyre, making sue they are level, lining the botom with cardboard , then finally packing the tyre with subsoil until the top inflates. This is very hard work! usually it takes a day for one person to pack a tyre but with the power of the OURS team, we managed to pack two in just over an hour! - this was a great project to see and take part in, and we hope to visit again in the future...Thanks Rhona and Steven for having us!

Getting the tyres level.
Lining the tyre with cardboard.
Packing the tyres with a sledge hammer!
Ok Ben...
Heather having problems with her hair again.
Ruth
The OURS gang aboard the Earth Ship.
...in the works...




Lotte Glob's studio and Sculpture Garden
After leaving the Eart Ship, we headed along the North Coast to lotte Glob's home. Lotte is a Dutch ceramicist who has lived most of her life in the Highlands of Scotland, her work is directly influenced by her surroundings and she has transformed her croft into an evolving scupture garden. We were shown aroung the studio and garden by Lotte's assistant Martina who is herself an accomplished ceramicist with a shop in Balnakeil Crafts Village.
As we walked around the croft discovering the many hidden wors of art that seem to grow out of nowhere, we felt as if we were being watched...the ceramic creatures that popualte the croft have eyes!

Lottes's place on the banks of Loch Eribol
Martina
Lotte's creatures



Durness
We arrived in Durness at around 2.30pm, settled in and visited the Balnakeil Crafts village. There, we saw Martina's work, bought lots of lovely chocolate from Coco Mountain Chocolate factory and visted the studios of several other artists.
Later we met up with 7 young people who attend the Durness Youth Group. We delivered the presentation to them on our projects that we had been practicing in our last workshop. The presentation was a good experience, which went very well and so we all headed off to Sango Sands Oasis for a much deserved dinner.

The two groups got along well and we went down to Sango beach for a game of sand pictionary - basically pictionary but instead of drawing on paper, the two group were put into mixed teams and asked to draw or sculpt their words in the sand. The first group to get ten words correct - won!

Sand pictionary is a little harder than the normal kind.



Sunset On Balnakeil Beach
Sand Angel



Sunday 25 May
am - Sand Castle Competition on Balnakeil Beach
Naturally, Jenny and Ruth's castle was the winner!




Smoo Cave

Donned with helmets and sitting aboard a rubber dingy, we were led by Colin Coventry into the inner chabers of Smoo cave, the largest sea cave in Scotland. The inner caves are full of natural water where a unique breed of trout swim! Colin, clearly an expert in geology and caving, described in facinating detail how the caves came to be formed and the still evolving theories that surround them.







The final stop on our trip was Northlands Creative Glass in Lybster.
The three international artists in residence who spoke at Timespan on 19 May, were shwoing their beautiful work and leading an open workshop, which allowed workshops participants to make their own glass fish. It is a long process so we were not able to take our fish and other creatures home the same day. When we eventually collect them, we will be sure to post some pics, can't wait!

Ruth