Mid winter, but at least the days are starting to get longer again. Just six months to go before those glorious light nights of summer when the sky glows with colour at midnight. The simmer dim. 

Between now and then, several things to look forward to. There is to be a solar eclipse on March 20^th. On Unst it should be 98%, which, weather permitting will be spectacular. To see the full 100% one would need to be out at see somewhere between Muckle Fugga and the Faroe Islands. It will be the last solar eclipse visible from Europe until 2026, so I read.

I also have an exhibition to set up at Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff. It will consist of the two works '12 Apostles-Face of Christ' and the 'Stations of the Cross-Forces of Creation' previously shown at St David’s. The exhibition will be there for the whole of Lent. Dean Gerwyn and I have discussed several ways the works can be used within the liturgy of Lent and the life of the cathedral.

Easter will see the unveiling of my work at Guy’s Hospital. I am marking the 25^th anniversary of my kidney transplant at the hospital with a wall installation to honour all organ donors on behalf of all grateful transplant recipients. The design is complete and is based around a spring flowering cherry tree. In the new year it will be cut out of stainless steel and then I will need to spend time painting some of it and joining other parts together to have all the pieces ready to be put up in the hospital atrium 2 in early April.

In addition I am also putting my mind to designing an artwork for St Andrew’s minster church in Plymouth. Several artists are competing for the commission and the first submissions need to be ready within a few weeks. 

An interesting experience! 

I am south at the moment in Kent and took a walk through a housing estate to the local Lidl carrying a plastic bag for the shopping.

On my way I noticed a police car driving slowly by.

After shopping I noticed the police car driving past again. It stopped and one of the officers got out. A moment later I heard ‘excuse me sir.’

I turned and the officer was addressing me. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ he said and walked towards me.

 ‘Are you alright?’ he enquired

‘Yes, I’m fine.’

‘Can you tell me where you’ve been?’

‘Yes, to Lidl and the pharmacy,’ I replied.

‘Sorry to have bothered you, but we’ve had a report of a confused gentleman wandering around in the middle of the road. He was white haired and we thought you matched the description.’

The officer politely bid me farewell and returned to his patrol car.

Five minutes later, the same police car stopped near me again. This time the other officer spoke. ‘Can you tell me what we stopped you about a few minutes ago?’ he asked.

‘Your colleague told me they had had a report of a confused white haired gentleman wandering in the street.’

“Just wanted to be sure,’ he said and they drove off.

Much amused by being mistaken for a confused old gent I told Helen. Her response was not one of amusement. ‘I’m always telling you not to go out looking like that. No wonder they thought you were a confused old man. Look at that awful coat. You’re not wearing that again south. It was a good job you shaved this morning or they would have put you in the car and taken you to a care home!’

It was a good job, I thought, that I still have a few marbles and sound middle-class.

I cannot fault the officers who were considerate and polite, but it made me reflect on how some people are frequently stopped by the police because of how they look, and their experiences of the police are nothing like as benign as mine. 

The regeneration of a community through art has become a recognised economic and social strategy. Examples include Margate in Kent where millions of pounds has been spent on the new Turner Gallery. Folkestone, also in Kent, has had both private and public money pumped into its ‘creative quarter’ where it is hoped that a rundown part of the seaside town will be given new life by encouraging artists to live and work there. The results of the policy have been mixed, in both places. There remains a great deal of deprivation despite the new artistic buzz.

In Unst a group of artists (five of us at present) is coming together to form a contemporary arts group which will not only promote our own work, but also promote the island community generally. 

Unst of course is not like Margate or Folkestone. It already has a strong community identity and a well established tradition of art, craft and music making. But looking ahead there are problems on the horizon which could be offset, in part, by the island making the most of its artistic potential.

Unst is on the periphery of Shetland and Shetland is on the geographic periphery of the UK. In today’s world it is a fact of life that power and wealth are being more and more centralised. In Shetland the capital Lerwick continues to expand at the expense of the outer areas. There is talk of closing the excellent small schools in the rural areas, of cutting back on ferry services and putting additional pressure on life away from the centres of population.

It is a very short-sighted policy, for should the remoter areas of Shetland continue to decline, all of Shetland will suffer. Tourism is an important industry. Few make the long journey to Shetland just to visit Lerwick – just another northern town with a Tesco! Folk come to Shetland to find the excitement and tranquillity of the natural world – to see the birds, the otters, the remote stacks and to sample, for a brief few weeks or days, a unique way of life. They come to Shetland to go to Eshaness, St Ninian’s Isle, Lunna, Jarlshof and of course the islands of the very north – Yell, Fetlar and Unst.

So it makes sense to make the most of what Unst has to offer and one of those things is its artistic heritage.

There are many examples of small places gaining worldwide reputations for artistic excellence. St Ives in Cornwall is known for its painters, Aldeburgh in Suffolk for its music, Hay on Wye for its literary festival, to give three examples.

Why not Unst in years to come, an internationally renowned centre of contemporary art?

Five hundred years ago all learned men knew that the earth was the centre of the universe, that both the earth and the heavens had been created by God and that humankind had been placed on the earth by God.

Today there is a new orthodoxy: human beings are a temporary phenomenon, the product entirely of a series of chance events, inhabiting a tiny planet orbiting a bog-standard star on the edge of one of millions of galaxies in a universe that had started with a big bang.

Presenters of science documentaries on television today are the evangelists of this new orthodoxy, which is a popular, condensed version of current scientific theory arrived at by observation and deduction and verified by reason.

In his new book theologian Prof Keith Ward makes this observation. ‘What many people in our culture seem to have lost is any sense that there is more to reality than collections of physical particles accidentally arranged in complicated patterns.’

That there might be limitations to reason as a tool of discovery, is not counternanced by the new orthodoxy. It is more acceptable to many scientists to consider that there may be, or have been, an infinite number of parallel universes than that there might be a creator.

Reason is the modern scientists' home. But it also serves as their prison. As humans our minds have many limitations and we are too limited in our imagination to have any idea just how limited our minds really are. We use such concepts, as eternity and infinity, without having any mental ability to comprehend them. Reason can only work as a method of deduction when the factors involved are limited and measureable. When too many variables present themselves, reason fails us – as any meteorologist will confirm.

To think that we can deduce any reliable, let alone complete, understanding of this universe of vast chaotic potential from a limited set of observations made from a single planet – is science’s grand self delusion.

I am not suggesting we should stop asking questions about the awesomeness of creation and simply attribute everything to an all-knowing and all-powerful God. If religious leaders claim they have an understanding of what God might be and what he expects of us, they are as deluded as the scientists.

The questions about the reality of the universe and of life and of existence and of purpose won’t go away. We cannot help but look around in awe, wonder and mystification. It is what it is to be self-aware human beings.

Maybe we will only truly understand anything once we have shaken off our physical attachment to the material world either through mindfulness (a route open to a very few) or death (the destiny of us all).

So while we inhabit this life perhaps we should be cautious of any grand explanation of what it’s all about.  Perhaps both Brian Cox and the Pope will be in for a big surprise one day. 

I have been drawing a caricature of The Revd Richard Coles, to be published with a review of his autobiography, in which he tells the story of his transformation from pop star to Britain's favourite vicar.

Some people are easier to draw than others and Richard took several versions before I was satisfied, and I am still not entirely.

A caricature is made up of three elements. There are those physical characteristics that come through genes. The shape of the face, colour of skin etc all inherited from parents and ancestors. Getting those things right is essential to finding a likeness in the drawing.

Next there are the acquired characteristics that tell something of the person’s life; a publican’s ruddy complexion, the glutton’s hanging gut, or a rugby player’s broken nose are obvious examples. And aside from the obvious ones there are many small, subtle give-aways for the cartoonist to look out for.

Finally there are the vanities. These are the points the caricaturist can legitimately ridicule.  Traditionally cartoonists did not play up disability. During the Second World War the American President Roosevelt, who was a wheel-chair user, was never shown other than standing tall, even by cartoonists of a different political persuasion. But vanities hairstyles, choice of clothes, even glasses (now as much a fashion statement as a means to improve eye sight) are all there to be used, pointed up and exaggerated for satirical effect.

Drawing Richard, one of the hardest things was getting the key physical characteristic right – the prominent and distinctive nose. It is not a straight-forward roman or aquiline nose, but one in a sub category of its own. Its prominence has to be carefully blended with its thin shape and sharp nostrils, for the angle and shape of his nose utterly defines his face. It can also be used as a device to say something about his wordly success and confidence.

The vanities were no problem – the cassock, the dachshund (a reference to dogging was essential); the poise, stance and tendency to middle-aged stoutness said much about his life-style.

This is what I came up with.

Booking tickets on-line is one of those tiresome chores of modern life, second only to trying to phone an NHS hospital with an automatic exhange in the list of frustrations in modern life.

How is it that with all the computer electronics available today to make life easier, ordinary dialogue between user/customer and supplier has been sub-contracted to geeks?

There is no way a standard website is a user-friendly way to do business. I had one the other day where I had to fill in my address four separate times through the process. Another one told me when I submitted my message that I had left one of the boxes unticked. I went back to find which one only to have all the answers I had carefully filled out over the previous ten minutes wiped.

A current gripe is with the system to book an overnight sleeper to Aberdeen. The website used to come up with an easy-to-use table showing dates and prices. I could then quickly choose a date that gave best value for money. Now I have to look laboriously through every possible day, note the prices on a piece of paper, then come back to the cheapest deal only to find someone else has nabbed it and the price has changed!

Then there are those websites that immediately after use send you a questionnaire to ask you to take part in a satisfaction survey. The most frequently asked and stupidest question is ‘would you recommend us/this site to a friend?’  Even if I have found the website stress free (which is rare) I always say no. Why would I talk to my friends about a commercial website when there are so many other topics to discuss – unless I wanted to warn them off.

Shortly I have the welcome task of booking a ticket on the north boat back to Unst. So as not to spoil the pleasure, I’ll phone. At least Northlink doesn’t have a huge anonymous call-centre… now there’s another subject.

A work of art can sometimes have a long gestation period. From the urika moment of conception to its final birth and display to the world can be as long as it takes an elephant to take shape in the womb. Mostly however the period is much shorter – as the deadline for completion dictates.

Three weeks ago I was thinking about a significant calendar date next year. Easter 2015 will see the 25^th anniversary of my kidney transplant. Back in 1990, after a long period of declining health and nearly five years on dialysis, I was offered a transplant. I travelled to Guy’s Hospital in London where surgeon Geoff Koffman did the deed.

I do not know to this day the name of the donor, but I have been in annual, though anonymous, contact with her family by letter. I do know the circumstances of her death, but I do know that a flowering tree was planted in her memory.

To express my immense gratitude to the donor and her family I thought I would like to mark the anniversary next year. The idea formed in my mind for a work of art dedicated to her and other donors.

My first thought was a temporary work for Southwark Cathedral, which is near to Guy’s and a place I walked to several times while I was a mobile in-patient waiting for the transplant to work. It took 4 weeks to kick start into action – which it did eventually on Easter Day!

Conversations with a contact at the cathedral led to conversations with Guy’s and last week I went to London to meet the hospital chaplain, Mia, and, to my delight and surprise, Geoff Koffman to discuss the possibilities of a permanent work for the hospital.

They were very supportive and keen. We walked around the hospital looking for possible sites. There was a place in the grounds, a small circle of grass, that looked very suitable for an out door sculpture. Inside, the hospital atrium (or rather 3 atria) offered large wall spaces as well as some places for a free-standing 3-D work.

Since then I have been thinking about possibilities. The wall space in an atrium is, on balance, the best position. Mindful of any art in a public place needing to be childproof, it seems sensible to place it in an eye-catching position out of reach of mischievous hands.

My mind is revolving around the theme of a tree – especially a tree that blossoms in the spring. A cherry perhaps allowing me to use the white, pink and red of the blossom to suggest the way a transplanted kidney changes colour and comes to life on the operating table as the blood supply is connected.

I am back at Guy’s this Friday for another meeting and to make measurements and take photographs. Then I will need to draw up detailed designs.

The work, as conceived, is now gestating. I have six months to bring it into the world – assuming of course that all the necessary permissions are granted by the hospital.

We spent Saturday last in St Davids in Wales. It is little more than a village, but claims the title of being Britain’s smallest city. This is because a city, by one definition, is a town with a cathedral. St Davids’ Cathedral is found in a hollow below the main city centre and reached by a flight of steps and a steep path. The building itself is also on a slope and from west to east is a distinct climb up an angled floor.

It is a cathedral I know well as earlier this year I held an exhibition there. It is smaller than say Canterbury or Lincoln and in many ways less grand, yet as a centre of real spiritual feeling it is probably unrivalled. In Medieval times it was one of the country’s main centres of pilgrimage and still today, despite being out on a geographical limb, receives 1000s of visitors a year. Compared with the big cathedrals it is run on a shoe-string and yet has a standard of music that is up with the best. It is a friendly, welcoming place with none of the in-your-face money-making that mars many of Britain’s best known religious buildings.

The bishop’s palace alongside the cathedral is now a ruin and managed as a heritage site. Between the palace and the cathedral there is a small, fast running river with a ford and two footbridges. At lunchtime, we sat on a bench in the sunshine of the late Welsh summer eating a picnic, looking across the water from the cathedral side. That evening we joined the Cathedral Friends in the new refectory for the annual Friends’ dinner. Between times we attended evensong in the nave. A day as near to perfection this side of heaven as is possible.

If all goes to plan, next summer our Unst Modern show will become a summer long event. Five Unst artists will be exhibiting in what will be both an arts’ centre and working studio at Saxavord. With a brewery and distillery at one end and a thriving arts community at the other, the former RAF camp will surely be on the top of the ‘must visit’ list of places in Shetland – if not Scotland!

At the weekend I spent time looking around another contemporary arts venue. The Folkestone Triennial is one of the most prestigious contemporary arts festivals in England. Held, as the name suggests, once every three years, it brings together artists from around the world to devise and show work in public places. It is all part of a plan to regenerate Folkestone’s old town and harbour area, which had, over recent years become shabby and neglected.

The Old High Street is re-branded ‘The Creative Quarter’ and is at the heart of the triennial. For this year’s event not only have a number of temporary exhibits been placed around the district, but an area of scrub land at the heart of the Creative Quarter has been landscaped as a permanent meeting area and children’s play park.

A lot of money has been spent on the event. Some of the works look very expensive. One artist has buried gold bars in the sandy beach just beyond the harbour. The populous is being encouraged to scrabble in the sand to find them. The money comes from the charitable trust of the family that started the Saga empire, but the lottery fund and various other public sources chip in with substantial sums.

That money spent on public art can rejuvenate a run-down urban area is yet unproven. It is certainly a popular way of attempting to pull an area up in the world. Margate has the new Turner and Hastings the Jerwood Galleries. While the Turner buzzes with activity, the Jerwood, when I saw it last weekend, was entirely empty even though the seafront at Hastings was teeming with people. But then the Turner is free and the Jerwood charges £8 to go in.

Should an area that has attracted art investment show signs of improvement, an unanswerable question remains? Was the change brought about because of the art money, or would investment into any other social project have primed the economic pump?

And what is meant by improvement? I remember Folkestone old town not long ago being a collection of seedy arcades, massage parlours and pubs. Now there is a growing creative community at work – although derelict shops do remain. It is well on its way to being a popular place for the arty middle-classes to wander around, sip coffee at street cafes and eat at vegetarian or foodie restaurants. What has happened to the people who once dossed, injected and drank there? Who knows – but they are now out of sight and out of mind and Folkestone is well on its way to fashionable rehabilitation.

Surely the value of art is not solely assessed in economic terms? Art has an intrinsic value in and of itself. Once it was a way of exploring beauty. It was an aesthetic experience. In the past artists have been the prophets of their age. They have said uncomfortable things. They have explored dark and disturbing ideas.

Contemporary art employs many languages - not just traditional languages of art, such as painting and sculpture, but performance, film, installation etc. Yoko Ono’s contribution would, I suspect, be categorized as ‘conceptual’. Tim Etchells has his art idea displayed in neon lights. Sarah Staton’s steel structure is more recognizable as sculpture, although Alex Hartley’s work ‘Vigil’, which can be seen from across the harbour, consists of the artist sitting on a mountaineers' portaledge slung onto the side of a hotel. There’s a set of bamboo scaffolding for children to climb on and a series of faux water towers placed above an underground river.

The Folkestone Triennial illustrates well the many languages now used by artists. Sadly, the Triennial as a whole reminded me of the Peter Ustinov character who spoke 8 languages fluently and had little of interest to say in any of them.

The overwhelming impression was of a huge amount of work, skill, money and effort going into creating elaborate explorations of shallow and trivial ideas. Epitomised by Andy Goldsworthy’s clay window. Clay placed on a shop window is being allowed to dry and crack slowly to let light into a darkened room. Not only can you see it is real life, you can watch it on a video screen in another location in the next street. I could have got the same fun and enlightenment from watching paint dry.

My grandmother was Scottish – or Scotch as she would always say in the old-fashioned style. The presence of her father, though dead 27 years when I was born, still loomed over the family. He had made his name as an artist and his paintings helped re-enforce a romantic image of Scotland that was very popular with the Victorians. His grand oil paintings of highland cows and wild coastal scenes adorned the walls of my grandparents’ house. His work can still be seen in the National Gallery in Edinburgh and other major collections Engravings of his work were at one time very fashionable – although today are more likely to turn up in junk shops than fashionable galleries.

I was brought up in England and my grandparents lived in London. However my grandmother frequently returned to see her sisters in Scotland and she would send me postcards of Princes Street and St Andrews and always brought me back sticks of Edinburgh rock. She would tell me exciting stories and her distinctive speaking voice, which I then only knew as the way she spoke, was, I now realise a Scottish accent. From a young age I was aware that to be Scottish was something special, something exciting, something different. I knew too that I had a claim to Scottishness. I had a tartan and a family story that reinforced this identity. My father had inherited a portrait, which my son now has, of a distant ancestor who, family lore had it, was the son of one of Bonny Prince Charlie’s soldiers.

Today, unheard of, indeed inconceivable in my grandmother’s time, Scotland has the chance to become an independent nation again. The 300 year old union could be broken up if the referendum goes Alex Salmond’s way.

Because I have a home in Shetland, I have a vote – even though it is still an open question as to whether Shetland is actually Scottish. Administratively it is – but its heart, like its geographic position, is halfway between Scotland and Scandinavia.

It is to Scandinavia that the mainland Scots look for role models. If Norway, Denmark and Sweden can be small, successful, self-governing countries, why cannot Scotland be the same? It is a point the ‘Better together’ camp accepts. Scotland would survive once divorced from England.

But, they say, Scotland and England, apart, would both be diminished. The United Kingdom has a status in the world as a former great power. It has a seat at the top table and has its own nuclear deterrent. With Scotland’s oil and England’s clout, the UK is a nation to be reckoned with. Broken up into its constituent parts it loses its standing.

Some might argue this would be no bad thing. A separation from Scotland would force England into making a realistic assessment of its global significance. It might result in the country giving up its nuclear pretensions. It might even result in a radical reform of its own political institutions. Westminster is much in need of a major shake-up.

Yet as I contemplate how to vote at the referendum I cannot help reflect that however much I feel more Scottish than English, all national identities are essentially bogus. The land north of the border was all too often in its history a collection of feuding tribes rather than a coherent nation before the crowns, and eventually the parliaments, were amalgamated.

All the cultural icons of Scotland’s identity – are of relatively recent origin. From kilts to whisky, Burns to the Loch Ness monster, they have all emerged since the union with England. Many things we think of as essentially Scottish were invented by Walter Scott and George 1V to bolster the political union.

The questions I ask are these. Will the government of an independent Scotland be more democratically answerable to the people than the Westminster government? The hope is that it will be, but given the nature of politicians of countries both great and small, this is debateable. Will an independent Scottish nation be able to maintain, and improve on, the current standard of living of its people? This depends on factors well beyond the nation’s border. The international banking system, environmental factors, technological developments and many other imponderables beyond the control of any single national government.

So how will I vote?

It’s a secret ballot.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when my mind is in that whispy state between drowsiness and wakefulness, great, profound and important thoughts occur to me. Unless I write them down they disappear like clouds in the sky, to be wondered at one minute, gone the next.

Usually when I read what I have written, what once seemed so vital appears trite and trivial when looked at again in the morning.

A couple of nights ago I had some thoughts on the spiritual nature of the practice of art. Now there’s a subject pregnant with profundity! Why I was musing on such things when I should have been sleeping and dreaming lovely dreams I cannot say.

The thoughts that occurred to me required recording, so I thought in my 3am state of stupor, and so I set them down.

‘Fundamentalists of all faiths distrust art and often ban it. Christian Puritans, Islamic Salafi, Ultra Orthodox Jews… all teach in their own way that art is anathema and that all truth has been revealed directly by God. Art has nothing to add or say. God provides all the answers and a complete framework for living. Nothing is open for exploration and discovery. The human lot is to submit and obey.

The art of the political extremes is not dissimilar. It asks no questions and exists only to propagandise and glorify the leader or ideology.

Yet art surely is a dialogue with God - or at least one's spiritual side. It is a process of discovery and great art inhabits that space between life and death and is made up of both. Art discovers and exposes both beauty and ugliness. It asks the awkward questions. Art explores paradox and contradiction. The execution and practice can be prayerful and meditative.

Much recent, secular, contemporary art has consciously denied God. It is entirely human and urban centred. It is only interested in human trivia and minutiae and the artists involved produce pointless work that can only be explained and justified with the aid of contorted and strangulated jargon. Many contemporary art movements have been inward-looking and insulated, powered and justified by a delusory market funded by super rich.’

I must think about that a bit more now that I am awake. I couldn’t have been that dosey when I wrote it!

I have spent the last three days sorting boxes, drawers, files and mounds of papers, trying to put some order into the chaos of my life’s archive. Almost everything I find, even the old bank statements, triggers a memory.

Some of the objects help me remember events, some of them remind me of people. A lot of things have been consigned to a black sack, but many papers and items have been keep in a new coherent filing system. 

But what’s the point?

Well one day I might write some memoirs. There’s a conceited thought. Who would want to read them? 

I justify my hoarding for posterity on these grounds. Of all the things I have found, the things that have interested me most have been the things my own parents and grandparents left me. I found, and don’t recall ever reading before, a hand-written account by my father of being told at the age of six that the First World War was over. He had at that age known nothing but the war and wondered now that it was over what the newspapers would find to write about. He described the scenes in the London suburb where he lived and being allowed to buy a flag for a penny to wave as part of the cheering crowd.

I have also found his father’s naval records. My grandfather was an engineer in the Royal Navy and rose to the rank of Rear Admiral. Every ship he served on is recorded plus the comments and recommendations from his commanding officer when he was moved or promoted. He saw active service in the First World and took part in the Battle of Jutland.

During my life I too have watched episodes of history being made. Perhaps my grandchildren will be interested to read a family eye-witness account. When I was with the BBC I met people who will, one day, be recalled in the history books. I found amongst my papers a transcript of an interview with Mother Teresa. I found the research notes made during a high-profile investigation into the cover up of safety breaches at the Dounreay Nuclear plant, now closed down. There were photographs, long-forgotten, of me in South Africa. There were reviews of books, letters from readers and listeners, assorted ID badges from past events and, to my amusement, a batch of sticky labels from my friend, the eccentric humourist, Ivor Cutler.

One of them read ‘Never knowingly understood’; another ‘Kindly Disregard’; a third said, ‘To remove this label, peel it off’. Perhaps I’ll start using them.

On Monday night I slept with a total stranger. I have no idea who. I was in a two berth cabin on the ferry from Lerwick to Aberdeen and went to bed at around 10. I was vaguely aware at around midnight of someone else coming into the cabin and using the other bed. I briefly saw a pair of legs, but without my glasses and in the dark, could make out nothing else. He was up and out of the door by 6. I stayed in bed for another half hour. So to whoever it was – thank you for being so considerate and quiet.

On my drive south from Aberdeen I was reintroduced to the narrow world of BBC metropolitan politics by the Radio 4 Today programme.

There was a lengthy item about a proposal to build new transport links between the major cities of the north of England. Local politicians, asking for a huge mega-billion pound investment from the government, talked about the opportunities to create an economic region that could redress the imbalance with London. The presenter asked whether it would be better to invest that money in London which was crying out for solutions to its traffic problems. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was quizzed about this potential investment. The debate essentially boiled down to whether it was best to invest large sums of public money to promote growth in the north of England (and thereby create a second mega urban sprawl to rival London) or whether the same money was best invested in London to ease the miseries of congestion there.

It was an utterly unreal debate, filled with numerous bizarre assumptions that went utterly unchallenged. Why do the BBC and politicians assume, without question, that economic growth is a good thing? Growth surely is not the solution to our current economic problems, it is the cause. What did the people of Manchester and Leeds whose homes and lives would be disrupted by the building of new rail-links and motorways think of the idea? Is it right that they give up their homes to enable more people to live in one city and work in another? What sections of the economy would be encouraged to grow? Would there be more retails parks and shopping malls? Why would this be a good thing? Is there any need for more people to buy, consume and discard more goods? How would new rail links and investment in the northern English cities, help redistribute the wealth that currently exists? Why couldn’t the individual cities of the north be encouraged to be more self-sufficient and independent of the world of global commerce – rather than more linked in and reliant upon it? Does prosperity equate with happiness?

So many basic questions went unasked. It seemed extraordinary to me. But then driving on a dual carriageway heading south with a BBC current affairs programme on the radio I suppose I was entering the real world again. Or was I?

In 48 hours from now I will be heading south on the north link ferry. At about this time of the evening (7.00) we will have passed Sumburgh Head at the southern tip of Shetland mainland and be approaching Fair Isle. The most individually famous of the northern islands, thanks to the shipping forecast, it is one of the few I have never visited. One day perhaps.

Around midnight we will be stopping at Orkney. By that time I will be in bed in my cabin, but will no doubt be woken by the banging and clattering that always accompanies an Orkney stop-over. Orkney, according to the latest archaeology, was once, seemingly, the most advanced civilisation in Europe. Neolothic remains are being discovered which suggest that, way before the pyramids were built in Egypt, Orkney was home to a sophisticated community of builders in stone..

I know there will be friends on board the ship and I will probably indulge in a glass of Orkney beer, but I always have a sinking feeling when I leave Shetland. I can only compare it to that feeling I used to get as a schoolboy when having to return to boarding school after the holidays. I knew I was heading back to see familiar faces and would soon be settled again into a well-worn routine, but I really didn’t want to go.

Having only been off Unst twice all summer, and on one of those trips only to the next island, I am expecting culture shock. I remember once travelling back to England from Shetland by plane in a journey time of little more than three hours. As I was driving along, having landed at Heathrow, I suddenly realised that I was waving a friendly hand at on-coming cars. On Unst we always acknowledge a passing motorist. I had arrived in England, but discovered I hadn’t yet adjusted to the norms and manners of the south. On the M25, folk rarely gesture at each other and then only in anger, scorn or annoyance.

Several years ago Helen and I went to St Kilda. It has long been an ambition to see this haunting and remote island.  Its history of isolation had fascinated us. For many years the island had no regular communication with the Scottish mainland. The archipelago lies 40 miles west of the nearest inhabited island, North Uist, which itself is regarded by mainlanders as a remote off-shore community.

St Kilda had a tragic history. The inhabitants, and there were barely 100, eked out a frugal life living off fish and sea birds. The population was limited by a mysteriously high rate of infant mortality. In 1930 it was decided that for humans at least life on St Kilda was no longer sustainable and the island was evacuated.

Rather than travel in the authentic old-fashioned way, in an open boat under sail, we opted for a week’s holiday on the Hebridean Princess. Sheer extravagance! This bespoke cruise ship, sometimes hired out to the Queen now that she no longer has her own yacht, travels around the islands of Britain and is unmatched as a way to see Britain’s remote beauty in total comfort and style.

We chose a trip that promised a day on St Kilda. We were warned that the Atlantic conditions often prevented passengers landing, but we took the chance. We sailed through the night and when the day dawned it was one of perfect tranquillity. St Kilda was ahead of us bathed in sunshine.

We were able to land and had several hours exploring the street of houses the islanders had abandoned, climbing up the hill behind them to the steep cliffs beyond. We saw the feral sheep and the unique St Kilda wren. One of those days that truly sticks in the mind.

I was reminded of it yesterday when the Hebridean Princess paid a brief visit to Unst. I had heard she was coming and had followed her progress on the marine traffic website. A very useful resource for tracking ships around the world.

From the computer I could anticipate the moment she would appear at the mouth of Baltasound and sure enough, there she was. I drove round to the south site of Baltasound to see her approach the pier and took a photograph, with our house in the distance just above the bow. Fifteen minutes later I emailed the picture to our friends Edwin and Pamela, who we had first met on the Hebridean Princess on that trip to St Kilda.

I have never been sea fishing and I would have no idea how to control a boat or bait a line, but every year I make a point of going to Norwick beach to watch the eela competition.

The eela are the boats and somewhere between a dozen and twenty take part. The rules of the competition are strict. The fishers have to stay within a tightly designated area of sea in the bay and fish with rod and line. They must all stop fishing at the same time and come ashore for the weigh in of the afternoon’s catch. The boat with the heaviest combined basket of fish is a winner, as is the largest individual fish caught. Or so I, as a complete outsider to this sport, understand.

What surprises me every year is just how many fish are caught in these supposedly over-fished waters. They come ashore in dozens and so many different types. Flat fish of varying sizes, mackerel, dog fish, piltocks, cod… heaped up in boxes. The smell of fresh dead fish combines with passing whiffs of whisky and the drifting smoke of a barbecue to create the unique eela smell.

Folk wait on shore for the boats to arrive. Grannies, little children, curious visitors and everyone peers into the boxes to see what has been landed. Just occasionally a fish shows signs of life, it twitches and a child shrieks with surprise.

Today the island has been covered in low thick cloud. It was after six o’clock that I set off for Norwick at the north end of Unst and amazingly the cloud lifted to create perfect conditions for the boats’ homeward run. It was hot and sunny as the boats arrived to be hauled up onto the beach where they were lined up. Bright yellow, deep blue, orange and red – they formed a classic picture postcard scene of the bay with the turquoise sea to one side and a white house in the distance.

I hear on the local news that David Cameron spent a few hours in Shetland yesterday. He met with  some of the island’s mini-bigwigs, saw a few sites on the mainland and never came near Unst. Supposedly he is the first serving prime minister to come to Shetland since Margaret Thatcher.

I spent years of my life keeping up to date with the news. When a BBC correspondent I attended the daily news conference during which the day’s agenda was set. There was an assumed, yet unwritten, set of BBC news values that we all followed. What made a good story, what should we cover? Much of what later appeared as the news of the day was determined by government PR machines. This was especially true as elections approached. For instance, staged photo opportunities and sound bites were given priority over good, researched reporting. It was easy to gather and predictable.

So David Cameron coming to Shetland became news. Not national perhaps, but local and regional. Not that he did anything of significance or said anything important, he was simply here.

When I am painting or writing here on Unst much of what passes as news in the minds of metropolitan journalists passes me by. I catch up with newspapers on line and sometimes get yesterday’s Daily Telegraph second hand and a day late from my neighbour. I no longer recognise the names of celebrities and when I read the popular press on my computer whole sections of gossip are to me an alien world.

Yet interestingly my empathy with the suffering of the world grows as my knowledge of the ephemeral details of the news diminishes. My ability to spot a phoney story or a hidden agenda has increased in line with my detachment from the feeling that I need to keep up to date.

There was a saying I came across years ago that I rather like. Trying to understand the world by keeping up with the news is like trying to tell the time with a watch that has the hour and minute hands missing and only the second hand working.

The weather is a subject of continuing fascination on an island where the weather changes frequently and unpredictably. Most folk south imagine Shetland is cold and windy all the time. Today the sun is shining brightly and a gentle breeze caresses the land and I have just enjoyed a lunchtime sandwich sitting outside on a garden bench in my shirtsleeves, Just thought I would mention it.

The last couple of days have involved a studio flit. I am moving all my painting gear from the old medical centre at Saxavord to the old RAF admin wing. The new studio space is very similar to the old and the advantage to me in the short-term is that I can leave stuff there over winter.

Longer term, next May to be precise, the space can become an exhibition site and after the successful Unst Modern show that lasted less than two weeks, we, that is glassmaker Cheryl, sculptor Tony, potter Frances and I, can show work there all through the summer.

There’s room for two other artists in the same wing and Tony is thinking of setting up a studio there as well. The limitation is that any artist using the space has to be a dry, rather than wet artist. It is not a place for sloshing things around!

It will be interesting to see how things go. Maybe Unst will get a reputation as the arty place to be.

At what age does one spend more time looking back than looking forward? Is it not a matter of age, but state of mind? I have been drawing my old age pension now for more than a year and it is not a sign that I should slow down, indeed rather the opposite. I have an extra bit of financial wriggle room to be creative.

My brain is always full of future ideas. I barely finish one project than another is waiting to take flight. It is rewarding to be paid for a work of art, but that is not my motivation. What I enjoy about the creative side of the visual arts is the challenge; once an idea is visualised, the challenge of how to plan it, execute it and complete it. On the way the whole project might change shape due to the serendipity of the process. It can take an entirely new direction – that is exciting. Finally there is the moment of knowing when to stop. Stepping back and knowing that it is good. Looking at it again later, reviewing the work after days or years, I see all the blemishes and faults, but just for a moment, like a mini-version of the God of Genesis on the sixth day of creation, I see it as good.

I was watching a television programme last night on the iplayer. It was an interesting analysis of marketing and consumerism. It was looking at built-in obsolescence – the way many utilitarian objects are given a finite life span so that when they break unnecessarily early, consumers are forced to buy more. The presenter was showing how with many things, the next purchase is made before the old item is broken. It is because we want the latest cool version. As a result, many functional objects have become fashion items, and thousands of consumers find themselves on a retail treadmill.

I watched smugly thinking – how sad, fancy shaping your life around having the latest mobile phone, pair of shoes, designer watch or flat screen tv. But on reflection, maybe I am not that different. Am I not shaping my life around the next big thing in my small world – the next painting, art project whatever it might be? Do I not enjoy the thrill of the new, the satisfaction of others seeing what I have, or rather what I have done?

The only difference between me and the retail zombies I suppose is that I think I am not being manipulated. I choose to make art and I decide for myself what I will do next. The fashion slaves, the sad ones of the shopping malls, are having their minds and choices shaped and controlled by the big corporate players in the capitalist system.

But more fool me for thinking that way. Perhaps I am really the deluded one? Is there any such thing as real choice? Everything we choose is selected from within very narrow confines. The shopper in the mall cannot buy anything that has not already been made, marketed, advertised and put on display by someone else. And my creative mind is every bit as constrained. I am the sum of my life experience, my cultural inheritance and my technical skills. I cannot draw out of my mind what is not already there in some shape or form already.

Unless… in the world of art there can be moments of inspiration. That flash of realisation that something has arrived from somewhere beyond an landed in my imagination that has never had shape or existence on this earth before. They are rare moments, but they are what all artists strive and live for. It is why the next idea is so important, for even if the last project was truly a work of genius, it was only truly inspirational in the first split second of its conception.

Days like today make living through the northern winter worthwhile. If this is the pay off for the rain and gales we experienced in February, all is worthwhile.

First thing this morning there was blue sky, light southerly wind and a blanket of utter tranquillity across the island.

I was up at 7.30 and after a quick breakfast walked down to the pier to enjoy the moment. There were several caravans parked there with curtains drawn. Crews from the yoal races, after a day of tough competitive rowing and a late night at The Revellers concert, were sleeping in.

I am writing this at 1.30 and little outside has changed, just a little light cloud by midday. Whatever time the sleepers eventually roused themselves, no one missed the best of the day.

It is the last day of the exhibition. I am not expecting many visitors as this afternoon is not only ideal for walking and going to the beach, there is also a farmers’ market being held in Baltasound Hall.

Talking to fellow exhibitor Cheryl yesterday evening it seems her puffin glasses have proved popular and she has several orders. Two of my works have found buyers - which justifies the exhibition in monetary terms.

But for me Unst Modern has justified itself in several other ways. More than 200 people have seen the show. There is no point in being an artist in total isolation. If I have an idea and give it shape, then I want to share it. I have enjoyed standing back and listening to folk looking at work. Their comments give a clue as to how they are reacting to what they see. Sometimes someone appears to walk casually past a picture or sculpture without appearing to register a flicker of a response and then, to my complete surprise, writes a pertinent and appreciative comment about the work in the visitors’ book.

I am pleased that Unst Modern has brought four very different artists together in one show and that four contrasting styles complemented each other so well. I had feared initially that work might clash, all that the four artists had in common was that they had produced their work on Unst.  Thankfully there was no jarring; indeed the four very distinct approaches of the four artists blended very successfully. In some curious and unexplained way, Unst, the place, had influenced what each one of us had done and that showed. Consequently, to use a well-worn phrase, I think visitors found that the whole was greater than the sum of the constituent parts.

We are coming towards the end of the Unst Fest. The yoal regatta takes place tomorrow and yoals on the back of trailers have been arriving from other parts of Shetland. To those who are not familiar with yoals they are large heavy-duty wooden rowing boats, often beautifully streamlined, combining sturdiness with speed. They are powered by a crew of oarsmen or oarswomen and the races tomorrow will take place in the relatively sheltered waters of Baltasound. I am no expert in the art of yoal racing, but as an onlooker I can confirm that to watch them speeding across the water is an exciting and exhilarating sight.

The exhibition has now been open a week and the visitor numbers increasing day by day. The last three days have averaged between 35 and 40.

Outside London and major cities much contemporary art has a bad reputation. It is dismissed as piles of bricks or unmade beds for which the mega-rich are prepared to pay write huge cheques. Alternatively the world of contemporary art is seen as a racket involving cronies paying each other large sums of public money to make obscure works of remote interest. What compounds contemporary art’s poor reputation is the elite and impenetrable writing that accompanies much of what is shown. Described by some sceptics as ‘arts bollocks’ this indecipherable gobble-de-gook is supposed to add cultural depth, but mostly serves to distance the world of contemporary art from the wider public.

Despite this, the main achievement of the various art movements of the last 100 years has been to show that art can reach beyond its former traditional boundaries. It does not have to represent anything recognisable. It does not have to be paint on canvas or be a figure carved in stone. It can explore ugliness as well as beauty, it can disturb as well as provide pleasure.

There is no clear definition of what art is, but people recognise it when they see it. An object that is able to provoke reaction or evoke an emotion, what ever form it takes, can be art. Great art usually comes from an innovative idea or profound emotion that is given a physical reality by the technical skill of the artist. Great art may then be seen, in the words of the artists Maggi Hambling ‘to inhabit a mysterious place between life and death, simultaneously composed of both’.

If the art work goes no further than being a concept, simply an idea, it remains as an art work in progress. And on the other hand, if it is a perfectly competent representation of a visual cliché is only a technical exercise. It is like a pianist practising scales rather than playing a sonata.

What I hope Unst Modern has shown is that within a small community there is the talent to produce both skilled and meaningful art that can be appreciated and understood by the majority of people who come to see it. Although Unst is a special community, given its island position, I see no reason why other communities cannot do the same. When art is valued within a community, art will naturally emerge from the people living in it and artists from outside will be attracted to the place. 

Monday 7th July 2014

A magical and glorious evening on Unst. Clear blue sky, light breeze and glass calm in Baltasound. The island is decorated with Unst Fest flags and coloured streamers from every pole and lamp post. Just returned from the evening of Shetland food at Uyeasound Hall. Reested mutton soup, cold roast lamb, bannocks and homebakes with Valhalla beer to drink. All to the sound of local musicians on stage with a visit from the Viking Jarl Squad.

The exhibition has been a bit slow over the last 2 days, there has been so much competition from the other events of UnstFest. But we are open for the rest of the week 11.30 - 4.30 and several folk have told me they are coming to see UNST MODERN before the week is out.

Unst Art

The most northern contemporary art show in the whole of the British Isles opened yesterday. Not a difficult claim to make here in Unst in Shetland - we have the most northern post office, shop, church, beach, in fact the most northern of almost everything on the most northern inhabited island of the whole UK.

Our show is running over the ten days of the UnstFest (Britain's most northern community festival, by the way) upstairs in the old medical wing of the Saxavord camp. Entrance through Foord's Chocolates (Britain's most northern confectioner not surprisingly).

Four artists - four very different styles - four media - but all the work with one thing in common. It was made on Unst.

Cheryl Jamieson is a glass artist who works in her portacabin next to her home in Uyeasound in the south of the island making amazing things out of flowing, translucent coloured glass. Frances Wilson is a potter and her vitrification of cobweb thin unst lace is astonishing. Tony Humbleyard lives in the old lighthouse shore station right at the north end and makes intriguing abstract sculptures from objects he finds and gathers. Then there's myself Ted Harrison contributing an eclectic range of 2-D ideas ranging from mystery to theology, history to humour.

The first visitor yesterday morning had come from Fair Isle. Not I should add deliberately to see us, but despite having lived in the northern isles for over 40 years it was his first visit to Unst and by chance he  found us.

Opening times are today Saturday 11.30 - 4.30. Sunday 6 and 13 July from 1 - 4 and during next week Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 11.30 - 4.30.