Clare O’Brien & Lynn Bennett-Mackenzie
Poet Clare O’Brien recently saw artist Lynn Bennett-Mackenzie’s exhibition ‘The Nature Of Art’ at the Sawyer Gallery in Poolewe, Scotland. One of the most powerful pieces Clare observed in the exhibition was a sculptural figure Lynn had made entirely from sheep’s wool, sitting like a sentry at the room’s focal point. Both serene and strangely threatening, he seemed to encapsulate the equivocal nature of the art on show, and the landscape from which it was drawn. As a response to her experience, Clare wrote ‘Watchman’. Her poem is followed here by Lynn describing why she created a representation of a man named Moine (gaelic for peat) from materials so symbiotic in a highland landscape, to enliven stories from the past by raising questions in the present about displacement and natural cycles.
Watchman
Clare O’Brien
We cannot count
the sheep that went
to make him.
Sprawled in his chair,
he makes no bones
about his being.
He watches silently
through the soft blind
warmth of his wool.
He exhibits no emotion,
yet we default to him,
our speechless sentry.
Sheepishly I take his hand,
but may not disturb
the long sleep he inflicts.
Displaced – Guailisg
Lynn Bennett-Mackenzie
The title in this section is not in the usual place.
It has been displaced from its normal position.
The body of the man has been replaced by wool, his stomach by peat, the fuel used traditionally in this area, and he is bound by the wool which was spun by hand.
What is the irony?
Many years ago in the Highlands, people were displaced in favour of sheep, brutal times. Many were displaced to coastal areas, or migrated to other countries.
I want people to initially be amused, but then to think; what is the message? What happened in the space where this figure now sits? Will he be hidden from society and stumbled upon once in while, slowly degrading back to the soil as we are all bound to do, or will he be in full view, making us confront our past?
What happened in the spaces where he sits? What will happen in the space you now occupy – do we connect with the past or tread on the earth with little thought?
Circles of time… Language, displaced, banned.
Money, profit, migration, choices…
Is displacement always negative….? Ingenuity, adaptability, determination, stamina.
I don’t want to tell you the whole story, I want to make you think…….
When I took him out to be photographed, there were sounds of cutting the peats, a gentle breeze, a warm sun, hazy cloud, skylarks trilling, bees droning and waves slapping.
The smell – warm spring air, damp peat, lanolin, wool, salt air, seaweed.
My thoughts – mild sadness mixed with humour, he – Moine – looked quite funny up close, but put in situ, a little mournful, desolate, ragged. I could feel the past peering over my shoulder, the sadness of what humans do to each other and endure, yet we are still able to find positives in many areas of our lives.
He has a name… foid mhoine (peat).
I thought I might destroy him,in the end, then I felt uneasy about doing that – no retribution for history? History is history, after all; move on and learn. Like breeds like, anger breeds anger, hope brings happiness…
In life we are all “displaced” eventually – it is a natural cycle, inevitable.
Clare O'Brien
Originally a London-based journalist, Clare now lives in northern Scotland where she is working on her first novel and grows food on her family’s six-acre organic croft. Her work has been described as speculative, slipstream or neo-noir, and has appeared in Northwords, The London Reader, Mslexia, The Cabinet of Heed and The Cauldron Anthology as well as anthologies published by Michael Joseph, Wester Ross Radio, Midnight Showcase and the annual Biggar Science Festival.
Lynn Bennett-Mackenzie
Born in 1967, Lynn Bennett-Mackenzie is an established artist living and working in Gairloch, NW Scotland. Brought up in remote rural areas of the Highlands of Scotland, Lynn studied at Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, graduating in 1990.
Lynn enjoys creating in a variety of media and exploring new methods of working. She has exhibited widely and taken part in several community and international projects including The Big Picture, Wild Wood , Landfill art, an International Art Symposium in Russia and is currently collaborating with an Indian artist to create Ceangal, a series of international artist residencies in the NW Highlands. A major project in connection with this was a schools participatory project supported by SNH at Beinn Eighe Nature reserve in collaboration with Indian artist, Somu Desai. She also travelled to India in January 2012 to further develop Ceangal. In her painting and drawing works Lynn successfully expresses the emotion of the often isolating atmosphere of the Highlands, most recently completing an installation work at Inverewe Garden in the North West Highlands of Scotland, intended to engage the viewer to consider their sense of place.
Lynn also finds her body a perfect medium to express her artist context and has recently done a performance on Displacement which is an on-going project. Living in a remote rural area, Lynn has learned to adapt and create opportunities for herself; she’s open to new ideas and is always looking to expand her boundaries in her field of interest of people and place. Lynn connects with the issues of people and place globally and enjoys interacting with people and developing and understanding cultures around the world.
