Ben Tianavaig
For thr past 30 years I have been travelling with family and friends to stay on the Isle of Skye. From the second visit onwards these trips took us to Balmeanach (near Portree) to stay in a cottage belonging to an elderly lady who was then living in Glasgow. We continued to go there for our annual trip until the elderly lady died and her family decided to sell the house. There was a brief pause until we found another cottage (only 2 doors away) which became our new base for quite a few years.
The importance of these locations became more obvious when we discovered the nearby beach, Camas a Mhor-bheoil, and the walk out to An Aird.
Ben Tianavaig is one of the smaller moutains on Skye-it is visible from various points on the drive frm the Bridge to Portree. It is also the main focus from both the beach and the Point- and became the main focus of my sketchbook from then on.
In 2017 I went to see the Hokusai exhibition- it was, of course, inspiring. I realised that I had already done a few studies of Ben Tianavaig, including one 1m x 1m which hung on my wall for several years to remind me to return. I have a lot of references, every sketchbook has a few drawings and filing cabinets are full of photographs. So I decided to embark on a project-this was it-36 Views of Ben Tianavaig.
Around the same time I found a base in Edinburgh-where one day I hope to live permenently. In theory I would be able to spend more time on Skye but unfotrunately Skye has become very popular and expensive. There was a window of opportunity in 2020 when we found an ideal spot before the tourists returned where we spent an ideallic couple of weeks in September- still finding places we hadn’t seen before. I finally got to collect some references of Ben Tianavaig from Raasay-not quite as distinctive but still beautful.
I have shown some of my larger Ben Tianavaig oils in a gallery in Edinburgh and thought I should look into an exhibition of my project so far. By chance I was walking Past Studio 38 and saw the samples of paint manufactured on Skye- amazing colours that capture the essence of this beautiful island.
This exhibition is the result of our conversation. I’m hoping a few people will drop in and like what I’ve been doing- and encourage me to keep going.
I’ve sold a few of my larger works- they do take a long time so I still haven’t managed to collect together 36-but I am planning to put together a book of the work I’ve done so far and I’ve had a friend turn some short clips of the sea and mountain into a short meditative film.
I need to go back- I would like to exhibit there.
