Nature Turns
returning home at the still point of the year
Hello friends
It’s good to be home!
I’m still unpacking, sorting out the studio, sleeping off the jet lag and re-acclimatising to Orkney’s winter. My flight slipped into Kirkwall just after storm Bram had passed.
The following day was clear and calm, and I took a walk to reaquaint myself with the sea to find it still churning with a big storm swell (excuse my fat finger on the lens!)
In this season the Sun doesn’t get much higher than you see it here. The land is quiet, all harvests long since gathered, the cattle all inside the barns. What yellowed grass remains is combed into dry tussocks. Winter’s activity is all about the sky, the blustering air, the heavy, racing clouds and pounding sea, and the dark that falls by 4pm and lingers deep into the next morning.
The wind makes a haystack of my hair every time I step outside without a hat. Although, on paper, the temperature’s not that different from where I’ve been in Japan, I find I’m pulling on extra layers, sealing every cuff and neckline with soft wool scarves, socks and wrist warmers as I relearn the true meaning of wind chill.
But still, I love this season. Winter sunlight has a special quality, because of, not in spite of its scarcity. The light is always slanted, grading through soft tints of grey, yellow, lavender, orange, as we’re pitched from sunrise straight to sunset through six short hours of daylight.
“Winter Sun”, the last painting I finished before I left for Japan, is currently in the exhibition ‘Nature Turns’ at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh.
The painting is one of a new series that attempt to capture this living quality of winter light, how it suffuses the salt-laden, wind-blown air with soft colour, if little heat.
Other recent paintings in this series will be included in a forthcoming exhibition ‘The Northern Isles’ at The Scottish Gallery, also in Edinburgh, that opens online on December 22nd, and in the Gallery on January 8th. I’ll be travelling down for the preview event on January 10th so do get in touch with the gallery if you’d like to be on the mailing list for an invite. It would be lovely to see you there!
In the meantime, the quietness of the land around me tells me it’s also a season for me to be quiet for a time, to pause at the Winter Solstice to reflect in a year of busy activity, travel, writing and painting. Thank you so much for joining me, whether as a reader, a collector, a fellow traveller, or a co-worker in our Zoom Life Raft sessions (which will be back in the New year). I treasure the connections and conversations that we are building.
For now, The Life Boat is tying up at the dockside for couple of weeks and will set sail again in the New Year.
In the meantime, I wish you a peaceful, reflective and restorative time, however you spend it.
bye for now!
Sam
P.S. Thank you for your patience while our Life Raft co-working sessions were paused during my sojourn in Japan. We’ll begin again in the New Year, so look out in your inbox for an invite to join us!
May you have a beautiful re-entry into your special place.
Welcome back. And thank you for that wonderful sea video.