The post Painting the Peats – Damian Callan appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.
]]>
Painting the Peats is a project that began when artist Damian Callan and his family started helping crofter Chris Spears stack his peats at his peat bank on North Uist. The experience led to a series of ink and wash studies that combined groups of working figures in the Hebridean landscape and were developed into oil paintings.
This week the artist will return to the islands to coincide with the cutting of next year’s peats in order to observe, draw and photograph the crofter at work. There will also be the opportunity to include the crofter’s Saturday shift as the local postman.
During the month of August the artist will be based on the island of Berneray where he will develop this new work in his ‘Painting the Peats’ studio which will be open to visitors who are interested in observing the process and who would like the opportunity to look at work in progress.
The trip to Berneray/North Uist will be documented as a blog: www.damiancallan.com/blog/Cutting the Peat
The post Painting the Peats – Damian Callan appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.
]]>The post Island of Berneray (Barra Head) Becomes Sheep Free Zone as Last Residents Leave appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.
]]>This week will see the start of the official removal of 40 sheep and lambs from the island. These sheep have been on the island for more than a century.
Barra Head
The National Trust for Scotland who owns Berneray and it’s neighbouring islands has decided it was too difficult to manage a flock from this remote island and are tranferring them to a farm on Canna.
Willie Fraser, Property Manager for the trust in Kintail said ” We have things like the blue-tongue vaccination coming in so they would have to be vaccinated every year, and with it being such a remote island it’s very difficult to get there. We are so far from the flock it is no longer viable.”
The island used to be owned by The Barra Head Isles Sheep-stock Company, a syndicate of local crofters and fishermen. The syndicate bought this island and two others for £14,000 and kept a flock of around 500 sheep there. However, the falling prices of sheep eventually forced them to sell the islands to The National Trust of Scotland in 2000 for £500,000.
Barra Head Lighthouse on the cliffs
Since the island being bought by The National Trust of Scotland the sheep have been gradually removed.
The post Island of Berneray (Barra Head) Becomes Sheep Free Zone as Last Residents Leave appeared first on ScotClans | Scottish Clans.
]]>