Opening

This morning I went  to a Cowal Primary Schools IT Fair with Cathleen and my neighbour John Shiveral who was a speaker at the event in Dunoon Grammar School.  It  was inspiring and full of fun.

The same can also  be said of my afternoon visit to the opening of the fourth year of the Caol Ruadh Scottish Sculpture Park at Colintraive .

There are more sculptors than ever taking part and the work is of the highest quality.   Andy McClintock's  Disembodied  in the Rose Garden are sinister pieces  but intriguing, Illona Morrice's seagulls are fun and the inspiring - and often moving - part can be found in many works ranging from Lorna Fraser's  Potting Shed  (a shed  of beautiful things placed within a shed) through Andrea Geile's perfectly situated  Perennials to Linda Johns' Mermaids and Woven Faces.

These are perhaps the stand out pieces this year.   They are  delicate structures placed in  a woodland setting and they take a little finding.   But when they emerge into your vision they are extraordinarily finely constructed and challenge the senses, merging as they do with the light, rocks and foliage .  The artist describes them as "multi dimensional" and that is true in more  ways than one.  They have an ethereal , unreal quality, like spirit visitors  glimpsed at the very edge of perception. 

The Park is open Thursday to Sunday,  from next Thursday the 28th , and is very much worth a visit.   It will take a break next year whilst major work is planned in the gardens to enhance the exhibition space for future years. 

Karen Scotland is greatly to be commended for her initiative in making all this happen at her home .  I have been at three of the four and the first one  (at which I blipped the Rob Mulholland piece "Tide Flow, Time Flow" )  was , until now, the most memorable.   This certainly rivals it and I look forward with anticipation to what is revealed in 2017.  

(I have put a few more pictures from the exhibition on my Flickr site - available here. )