During the Easter holidays (April 2024) we made our yearly visit to Rackwick to say hello to my Birds.
In 2008 (the year I was pregnant with my first child) I folded 100 paper birds while on a residency with 20 International artists. The birds have just had their 16th birthday. There are 10 still hanging in Burnmouth Bothy.
The residency was developed and delivered to allow artists time and space to just be, to meet new people, make new friends, try something new, be creative without an outcome or reason. A real gift! Recently while delivering a workshop as a Freelance Artist, a conversation allowed me to share the importance of allowing yourself to take the time to absorb and just create. Explaining that in time, reflection happens. Sometimes years later, you can learn from creativity that is in the past.
Revisiting the Bothy year on year gives me the opportunity to remember and be quiet for a while, to think about the people met, the baby we never met (our second pregnancy) and others that have gone too soon. The fragility of paper. The dampness of the Bothy shaping the way the birds fly. The reek from the Lum turning the ‘jet white birds’, beautifully dull and limp but somehow strong and bold. The Birds haven’t been touched by me since they were installed. I’ve imagined the stories they have heard around the fire, the people they have met and maybe even the warmth they have given others – even if it means they have been used as fire lighters. Watching them evolve in one of my favourite places, gives reason to go back.
To me, it shows hope and comfort. I’m so glad time was spent folding them 16 years ago and the time and space given then, is just as significant, if not more now.
A review of 13 Film Shorts by Orkney artists is doing a tour in Orkney at the moment, concluding at the Pier Arts Centre on Friday 31st May 2024. Included in the hour long showcase is an experimental film of the Burnemouth Birds.
Laura Drever 