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SYMBOLS OF TIME
This is an elusive image that has yet to fully reveal its meaning to me. I grew up on and off in the Highlands of Scotland, wandering the wild purple hills and white sand beaches. I was eighteen when I first saw the Viking mooring points, not far from our house. A tidal river sidles inland from the sea, and stone pillars stood hundreds of years ago at its bank to hold Viking long ships. The pillars are now broken down into tumbling lines falling into the ebb and swell of the river. The moment I saw those stones, I knew that they would become an important symbol in my work. Perhaps the stones were the beginning of my call to Iceland. Gannets are birds who live in rocky outcrops and desolate islands in the wildest parts of the sea. I found this bird on a windblown cliff edge in the North of Scotland and sat in the heather looking at this sharp beauty of wing and beak. I still don’t know, 25 years later, quite why I combined the Viking mooring points with the Gannet… perhaps this message isn’t for me… is it for you?
