P H O T O S
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R U T H C L A R K
COUNTRY COUSINS Here’s three more rooms with a view for artists, writers and makers in Scotland seeking a bit of rural solitude and inspiration
P H O T O
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community. It’s not a holiday. We don’t expect people to produce fi nished work, but hope artists are able to explore whatever it is that they’re doing without any pressures of deadlines.’
In some respects, Cove Park’s holistic worldview refl ects some of interests developed through Glasgow School of Art’s quietly infl uential environmental art course. Indeed, at various points lecturers from the course have brought their students to Cove Park to soak up the atmosphere. the
‘From their point of view,’ says Holt, ‘they can see lots of different things going on, and that is an amazing means of getting the students to think about all that.’
This works across the generations, as the presence of artistic visionary and elder statesman Alasdair Gray at Cove Park testifi es to. ‘There was such a wonderful mix of brilliant people around when Alasdair was here,’ says Holt. ‘He was really generous to the younger artists, and he said how much he learnt from them, and how he never stopped
learning.’
been around for 15 of them, her overview of how the centre has developed is more incisive than many.
‘Cove Park is quite an inspiring place to work,’ she says. ‘You get privileged access to how artists work in a place where people have room to make mistakes as they explore what they’re doing. It’s about confi dence. When you’ve just left art school, and you’re looking around at what to do next, Cove Park can provide space for professional development in a really calm environment. ‘I think there’s something here as well, where you’ve got these big open vistas that you can see, and having that in front of you, there’s a way it affects you physically.’ Holt jokes she sounds like an estate agent when she expounds on Cove Park in this way. ‘It’s beautifully appointed,’ she laughs.
Cove Park, Cove, Argyll & Bute,
cove park.org; scotlandandvenice.com
Next year will see Cove Park celebrate the 20th anniversary of fi rst set of artists’ residencies. With having Holt its
OUTLANDIA Glen Nevis Outlandia (pictured above) is an off-grid treehouse artist studio and fi eldstation in Glen Nevis. Imagined by London Fieldworks, it’s inspired by childhood dens, wildlife hides and bothies, forest outlaws and Japanese poetry platforms. It is hidden away in a copse of Norwegian spruce and larch on Forestry Commission land, at the foot of Ben Nevis in the Highlands, three miles from Fort William. Proposals to work here are welcome from individuals and small groups of collaborating artists who are working in architecture, fi ne art, sound art, creative writing, fi lm-making and object-making. outlandia.com INSHRIACH BOTHY Cairngorms National Park Inshriach Bothy is a modern, off-grid, live- work space designed specifi cally for artist residencies by architect Iain MacLeod and artist Bobby Niven. It was the fi rst bothy in the ever-growing Bothy Project and was built as part of the Royal Scottish Academy Residencies for Scotland 2011. Fabricated in residence at the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop and then transported to Inshriach Estate, four miles from Aviemore, it now sits on the banks of the River Spey in traditional Scottish woodland forming part of the Cairngorms National Park. thebothyproject.org/bothies/inshriach-bothy
SWEENEY’S BOTHY Isle of Eigg The second bothy in the Bothy Project, Sweeney’s Bothy was designed in collaboration with artist Alec Finlay and is inspired by the 7th-century Gaelic King Sweeney (Shuibhne). Cursed, Sweeney fl ed into the wilderness, surviving for a decade among the trees and birds, living on sorrel, berries, sloes and acorns. The contemporary mono-pitched structure perches on a hillside offering spectacular views across the sea to the nearby Isle of Rum. thebothyproject.org/bothies/sweeneys- bothy
1 Apr–31 May 2019 THE LIST 127