Dundee Food and Flower Festival

Rural Life has been a very busy life, lately. The day after Heartwood opened, the Dundee Food and Flower Festival opened, with a woodland theme exemplified in the picture below which combines food, flowers and woodland.

There were tradtional displays like this competitive array.

and this

and even this

This much less traditional arrangement reminded me of the styleof Charles Rennie Macintosh

and this polar exploration garden of discovery was being photographed from all sides.

There were lots and lots of crafts and lots of new contacts.

There was music of all sorts, and although there was only a small audience at this session, the crowd was so big next day, there was no room to get close enough to take a photograph.

Some people had dressed for the occasion,

 some people wore their emotions on the outside

and one little boy kept a low profile

What were all these people queuing for?

Who is the man in sunglasses?

Gino D'Acompo signed copies of his recipe books

and kissed every woman who bought a recipe book

and posed with families too!

Monty Don attracted a different audience, who admired his braces, but there was no kissing in evidence.

  This is what impressed me most and may have changed some aspects of my life. A simple, self contained stove/ space heater. Expect to see versions of this again.

. . . in Finzean.It's a way of making a log burn within itself, by introducing oxygen through a cross split in the log and fire through a packing of dry shavings.

Dundee Flower and Food festival is a great show with a huge variety of quality displays packed in a small space - I'm not getting paid to say that, I mean it.

 I have loads more photos, but no time to process them, but I will be writing about some of the exhibitors in the months ahead and giving the show a mention when I do.

Perthshire Open Studio

Fanny Lam Christie and a group of artists have gathered together in an airy woodland at Fanny's home in Blairgowrie to install work inspired by the environment. 
(off Brucefield Road on the Coupar Angus side of the co-op on the Dundee/ CA road out of Blair)

Heartwood

 
Fanny's 'Blanket' is inspired by the growth of lichens on trees; close inspection brings a surprise

Frances Law gathered natural finds outside her tepee

and brought them inside to decorate the interior

Su Grierson decorated the interior of Fanny's summerhouse

with images of, and inspired by, plant and other natural materials.

Roddy Mathieson brought his mobile forge into the wood

and with the help of two young volunteers on the very big bellows,

made a fire, hot enough to smelt metals taken from the earth.

He put pieces into the crucible, where they melted rapidly.

He poured molten pewter into various types of casting mould; this one is of pressed sand with a pattern engraved into it.

When the pewter cooled, it was cast in the form of the pattern drawn in the sand.

Elodie Lefebvre's breathtaking 'ogon – no - ki' cast a surprising and gratifying light on a fallen tree.

Alice Betts' installation sends a laser like beam of light through the wood, creating a visual barrier similar to boundary tape.

Her balloon columns welcome audience participation to rearrange colour schemes.

Shona Leitch's 'Hangin’ On' has an athlete balanced in mid air, on a metal hoop, the figure's link to the ground.

Kyra Clegg has written with artificial flower heads on a wall that is less visble than the written message 

Anita Hutchison too, has written on the chain link wall;


with sewn descriptions of the bark of different trees, in spirals, on blanket squares.

Kenny Munro has messages written inside the traditional Calcutta river boat

which unites rivers and trees of Scotland and India, as well as the peoples of these countries

and one of his inscriptions tells of the boat's journey through Finzean, which is where I walked through the wood to travel to Monkquell wood, in Blairgowrie.

Heartwood is open every day until 5pm on Sunday 11th Sept.
For more information on Heartwood, see Perthshire Open Studio

I Went into the Wood

 The wood is mostly birch now

 I followed the path

 

 and came to the caravan

I looked in the shed

 and found the lawn mower

 I cut the grass

  As I went back though the wood, I saw a light at the end of the road.