Where Tideways Run

Where Tideways Run

Private View 6 - 8 PM

Northlight Gallery, Stromness, Orkney

The exhibition opens tonight! Gulp.

The last days have been a flurry of steady preparation. I managed to get a doozie of a cold/flu in the midst of it, but thankfully, it seems to be easing up as the morning goes on - a good thing too, as today will be full with hanging of work in the gallery and other preparations for the opening this evening.

We had a good crossing yesterday from Gills, Caithness to St. Margaret’s Hope, South Ronaldsay. I’m grateful that the weather wasn’t much rougher though, I have to say, as the boat was pitching slightly. There’s something about travelling somewhere by boat. I feel like I’m in another country, or on holiday.

Well, it’s far from a holiday just now, with all that needs to be done.

I’m about to have breakfast, but I’ll share the poem from which I extracted my title for this exhibition - a poem written by local poet, Robert Rendall.

Orkney

This is the land whereon our fathers wrought

Year after year, feeling scant need to clutch

For distant gains, since, with little or much,

They tilled their scattered fields as they’d been taught,

Or tried the sea to find what might be caught

Of fish or crab. This was their land, and such

Their joy therein, seeing the sunlight touch

Its evening hills, no other land they sought.

This kingdom, too, is ours, and in our blood

Its passionate tideways run: its moorlands fill

With peace our casual eyes; and the wild flood

Of winter haunts our ears with spells that bind

Sea, sky, and earth in one. Each cliff and hill

Lies like a shadow on the brooding mind.

-Robert Rendall-