A Sense of Place

Helga Scott
Sep 4, 2016
2 min read

It's a Saturday morning in September, propped up in bed by a stash of puffy pillows and cushions - glancing out the window at a tanker slowly making it's away across the horizon beyond Garso Wick (like one of those pens with the liquid in them and little things that slowly move when you tilt it) - I have finally logged into the blog! My intention was to have regular blog updates while A Sense of Place was on here at the Manse during the summer but the whirl of guests coming and going, setting up the exhibition, the sheep festival happening round about - dyke building, punding, a fantastic programme of evening entertainment and activities. Anyway, sometimes you just need to live it and then reflect on it all afterwards... hence the post today.

From the 24th of July to the 9th of August The Old Manse became the venue for a pop-up art exhibition that ran alongside North Ronaldsay's first sheep festival. I arrived out in North Ronaldsay at the end of June (the start of the school holidays) with toddler daughter, Isabella, and Deerhound, Hector, to begin preparations. It involved a lot of tidying, cleaning, painting and ripping off the stair carpet (thanks to Ronan for his help with that) to reveal pretty vintage lino treads underneath - you never know what you might find when you start to strip things in an old house.

Then the art work began to arrive - it was like Christmas - Sheila, our postie, bringing new boxes and packages almost daily during the week before the opening. And packages coming out on the ferry and plane.

Then waiting until evening when all was peaceful to unwrap. The rest is told in the photo gallery at the top of the page.

It was an incredible couple of weeks with so many lovely people visiting the exhibition. Next year's dates are 31st July to 11th of August.

A big massive thank you to all the artists and makers involved!