Lament

My last few days in bonnie Scotland. I'm very sad about this; it's been such a privelege to be here working with so many other artists from far and wide. I've met Ola from Poland, Alex, originally from Iceland, Illona, originally from Denmark, people from all corners of Scotland and one very surreal head technician from Geordiland, Jolly by name and mad by nature! It's been a real insight seeing how others work and what they're up to, and everyone has been extraordinarily generous with help and advice, whether they're artists using the facilities or part of the team that works here. I can't praise them or thank them enough. But I do still have a couple of days left in the studio, so shouldn't be saying my fairwells quite just yet...

I brought three birds to Lumsden with me and having destroyed two of them making moulds (or trying to!) I feel anxious about destroying the third. It's a little fledgling chaffinch that I held in my hands before it died; I think it must have fallen from its nest and one of the cats brought it in. We kept it warm for a few hours, gave it water and later put it in the rampant honeysuckle climbing the walls of the house, where we left it hidden. We went for a walk and a couple of hours after we came back Daisy brought the poor thing into the kitchen in her mouth again. This time it was dead, although unmarked. I put it in a box to keep the flies off and have kept it ever since.

So, not feeling like I want to destroy it completely I decided to make a wax model of it and take a plaster cast from that instead. I'm very pleased with the results so far, for once, and have made a better model than I thought I could. I'll take a photo of it later to show you. I found the process completely absorbing, and like drawing in three dimensions; maybe this is where my sculptural skills will lie? (If I have any!)

Looking around at what others have produced here I feel such an amateur at times; I hate the feeling! The technicians are working on a piece called Armour Boys for Laura Ford - she had work in the Venice Bienale recently, but if you type her name in Google you get loads of stuff come up. (There's a picture of Armour boys on line that I found for you too.) I want to make bigger stuff like this, and maybe that's what I'll do when I get back to my studio. But first I have a studio here to get back to! I'll sign in again later with the picture...