'Birdfall' - Book Week Scotland - Taigh Chearsabhagh, North Uist
As part of Book Week Scotland and the Uist Book Festival, Donald S Murray and I will be talking about our latest collaboration, ‘Birdfall’, at Taigh Chearsabhagh Arts Centre and Museum in Lochmaddy, North Uist.
This event marks the completion of nearly three years of work to produce this book, and the accompanying exhibitions.
Birdfall - Uist Book Festival 2018
High Window Magazine - Autumn Edition
The latest edition of High Window poetry magazine is now available free online. This issue features the latest post as part of my 2018 artist in residence series, with images and poems from my collaboration with my dear friend and collaborator Donald S Murray.
Hope you can take some time to browse the magazine and read some of the fine work by wide range of poets, all expertly edited by David Cooke and Anthony Costello.
Click here to view the Birdfall feature and access the rest of the magazine.
Birdfall Donald S Murray + Douglas Robertson - Taigh Chearsabhagh, North Uist, June 2018
'Musket' - Study for 'Hawk' book collaboration with Martin Bradley
'Storm Gulls' - from Birdfall, collaboration with Donald S Murray
'Twites' - from Birdfall, collaboration with Donald S Murray
'Natural History Museums' - extract from The Dark Stuff, I-paper 10th April 2108
Excellent to get an extract from Donald's new book, The Dark Stuff, in the I newspaper. And great to to see that my drawings reproduced well in newspaper form, as I am always aware of the limitations of printing when it comes to reproducing fine pencil drawings.
'Oblomov' - from Birdfall, collaboration with Donald S Murray
'Stormcock' - from Birdfall, collaboration with Donald S Murray
'Sparrow' - from Birdfall, collaboration with Donald S Murray
'Kittiwakes' - from Birdfall, collaboration with Donald S Murray
'Pied Wagtails' - from Birdfall, collaboration with Donald S Murray
'Oystercatchers' - from Birdfall, collaboration with Donald S Murray
'Sea Eagle' - from Birdfall, collaboration with Donald S Murray
'Reformation' 2 - from Birdfall, collaboration with Donald S Murray
'Greylags' - from Birdfall, collaboration with Donald S. Murray
Dark Stuff - Illustrations for Donald S Murray's new book
My latest series of illustrations for Donald S Murray's new book 'The Dark Stuff', to be published by Bloomsbury on the 4th of April, 2018.
Watch out for more posts featuring information about talks, exhibitions and reviews featuring the work form the book and our other collaboration projects.
Ruisgeadh - Turfing
Moine Bhan - White Peat
Fad a Gharraidh - The Wall Peat
Moine Dhubh - Caorann - Black Peat
Rathad an Iseain - The Birds' Path
Poems From 'Pocket Noost' - A poem by Lucy Anderson
Following on from the post of Angela Topping's poem 'Noost', from her collection 'Five Petals of Elderflower', I'm pleased to host another guest poet Lucy Anderson and her poem, also titled 'Noost'. As Lucy explains below, the poem came from a poetry workshop in Wales, with my friend and acclaimed poet Pascale Petit.
This was written whilst on a’ Working with Myth’ workshop at Ty Newydd Writing Centre
Thinking in particular of family myths, myths of origin, I had been thinking of the myth around my very premature birth in 1969 and the myth my mother has upheld that the big nurse told her ‘I was strong and to be treated that way’. In the workshop, I was given a postcard of the art sculpture ‘ Noost’ and this poem was born.
NOOST
And what if the midwife had spoken
a different language – a Shetland tongue
to my mother,
when I weighed as a bag of sugar
in my father’s butcher-hands.
What if she had said
this baby girl,
though carved and curved, is softwood,
don’t let the bilge water fill her,
keep her moored on dry land.
Lucy Anderson
As I said in the previous Noost post, it is wonderful when another piece of art is influenced by a piece of work you have created, and I felt very honoured when Pascale asked if she could use the wee assemblage to inspire the poets in her workshops to produce new work, especially when she first used it at Ted Hughes' former home in Mytholmroyd.
Lucy's poem will feature in her forthcoming pamphlet, 'Legacy', which will be published by Cinnamon Press in February 2018. To find out more about Lucy and her work, follow this link to the Cinnamon Press website.