Inspiration is everywhere here
I always feel inspired in this kind of
environment
One of the most important things that
I've noticed since moving back here is
the effect that living here and kind of
being surrounded by
the landscape here, my family, my friends
like, what effect that's had on my creative process
I moved back to the Isle of Lewis when lockdown happened
I thought that I would be home for maybe
a couple of months
and we're now over a year down the line
and I'm still here, and I'm happy to be here
which I wasn't expecting
When I lived in Glasgow I
found it quite
difficult to get inspired sometimes
I found urban
environments
they just didn't tick my box in terms of
what I wanted to make work about
It was when I came home that I realised
how much easier it was to make work
I was kind of constantly coming across
things that inspired me because the things I like are in abundance here
Christianity and the kind of
Presbyterian interpretation of
Christianity is very much in island culture
It was of no surprise, really, that I was
a Christian growing up
I was a committed Christian up until my
second year of university I think
and I deconverted
then I just
started asking questions and
couldn't believe what I was believing
anymore it just kind of didn't make sense to me
So I decided to walk away
from, from that faith and it
does leave a gap when your whole
worldview is based on something
Walking away from that can feel quite
difficult sometimes when
most people, you feel like most people
around you believe what you believed
or interpreted faith in the way that you used to interpret it
My first body of work outwith uni
is a series called Guardians
where I made five masks that were kind
of brought to life through photos
So I ended up with five characters and they were all
based on different values
or different beliefs that
I kind of wanted for myself I suppose
just positive messages, positive values
I really enjoyed the mask making process because
you get into flow in your mask making
and you were just kind of meditating on what
that mask meant to you and I was like
“yes this is something that I want for myself
this is something that I'm choosing for myself”
So the first mask I made in the series
was this plain white one who is the
New Guardian, he was all about just
having a new slate, a new identity, so
that's why I really wanted him to be plain
I moved on to the Pentland Guardian
I was reading a book at the time which
was called ‘Women who Run with the Wolves’ and
it was just all about
women, kind of, embracing a wilder
side of themselves which, having gone
through the deconversion journey
that was something that I really wanted to
force myself into, just being like
a bit louder, a bit more confident
The next mask I did in the series was
the Armoured Guardian
who is made from tree bark and it was
pretty much just about
resilience, get back up, try, continue to try
like failure will happen but get back up
After that I
made the Wandering Guardian
I really like that mask, it's just all about being
playful and being curious
Just follow your curiosity and follow the things
that you, you want to do, the things that excite you
After that was the Light Guardian
So that one was all about light at the end of the tunnel
I think that was a good one to end on, actually, because I feel
like all the other kind of values
can be applied to the idea of
light at the end of the tunnel, like everything
that you've learnt, everything that you
want, just keep applying it, keep going
I think it was a very important project
for me to do
because it was just, kind of, bringing
closure I think to the whole experience
of having
deconverted and then becoming the person you are now
These are attitudes that I think is
really important for my creative process
I used to be really scared of the idea
of failure and making work that was bad
that it actually got really difficult
just to pick up a camera and do anything
I think since I kind of let go of that
fear it actually
created the space for me to just have
the most fun
and I think it's the strongest body of work that I’ve ever made