Exhibition

Final stage - setting up the exhibition.  Walcot Chapel, Bath.

Tushker

I picked up my Tushker today, it can't really be called a Tairsgeir anymore as I used the archived drawing from Shetland so it's a Tushker. I need to leave it outside for a couple of days for the weld to rust, of course its not raining today for once. Photograph Affleck, Sketching the profile …

Holiday raku firing

Well I have around 40 raku-fired peat slices, fired in the garden over the last couple of weeks. Some adjustments had to be made to increase the carbon intake as some firings came out of the reduction bins too light, however, theses have added texture and contrast to the final stack. Each peat slice was …

Tairsgeir II

Despite feeling I was giving too little notice to the blacksmith to ask him to make me a Tairsgeir, I decided to drive via a local Blacksmith's to ask if he could make me one. The last smith I'd been talking to by email and phone changed his mind and I felt it was a …

Tairsgeir or Tushker

I purchased an archive drawing of a tairsgeir - or more correctly a tushker as it is from Shetland. Tairsgeir is Scots Gaelic, Shetland have their own dialect and version of Gaelic, heavily influenced by Scandinavia.  

Summary so far

The peat slices I made by taking clay on to the Moss (I'll refer to the site and the peat bog by it's local name from now on) and slicing it and leaving on a heather bank to dry. It picked up lots of dead bits of heather, moss and leaves. I sliced a couple …

A week of plaster

It's been a week of working with plaster.  It's very process heavy, each stage has to be completed flawlessly (or almost) in order for everything to work in the end. The process of cutting peat is carried out in several stages also, and very labour intensive. Cutting, laying, stacking, drying, collecting usually with a tractor …

Peat cutting

The cutting and stacking of 'turf' or peat result in vernacular structures. The peat is cut in slices and laid out to dry before it is stacked for storing. Some online images of turf structures (https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-peat-stack-on-south-uist-outer-hebrides-134518939.html)   (https://www.pinterest.com/pin/115052965455962188/) Duncan MacDonald out at his peat cuttings near Gisla, Uig, on the Isle of Lewis Peat stacked in …