Magic Glencoe, Scotland, and going viral
How a painting changed everything
I didn’t plan to go to Scotland. We hardly planned the trip at all. In June, a couple of my American friends decided last minute to venture from London up to the Scottish Highlands, and they asked if I wanted to come with them.
We booked the flights just two days before we left. These two guys were friends in a loose sense. One of them I’d known since the autumn, and one I’d only met a couple of times. To say yes seemed out of character, but I felt like I needed to go. I didn’t know why.
An old school friend of mine lives on the Isle of Skye and she managed to find us the last available beds on the island. She and I met when we were 11 and I’d hardly seen her since I was 18. In the ten years since, we’d quietly kept in touch, and I called in the favour.
The three of us landed in Edinburgh and drove across rugged, twisting land towards Eilean Donnan castle; our marker that we were at the edge of the mainland, and almost to Skye. The ancient fortress stood guard on an islet in murky ocean shallows, flanked by Scottish mountains smothered in cloud. It was as though my thoughts evaporated in the vastness and I existed all at once in the ageless land around me. The castle was build in the early 13th century to defend against Vikings and I clutched my own moment in time, a fleeting before and an after.
As we drove on, trees thinned and the land grew jagged as we climbed mountainous Skye, finding our accommodation in the form of a wigwam perched overlooking sweeping land and rough northern sea. The distant archipelago of the Outer Hebrides lay on the horizon; the last settlements and first defence from the North Atlantic. The wigwam was cosy, with double beds and a real bathroom, comfortably separating us from camping.
We spent a few days on Skye, a stoic, battered island bathed in lore and mystic tales of fairies and giants, woven into ancient history of battling clans. My Canadian maternal side descends from the MacLeod clan of Skye; our family cottage in Canada is its namesake. Interspersed with rich folklore was true history of my blood.
Amongst the breathtaking landscape we discovered magical stories. Legends of enchanted waters at Sligachan Bridge granting eternal beauty to those who submerge their face in the water. At the Fairy Pools, the legend goes that the Macleod Clan leader was allowed to marry the Fairy Princess for one year, after which she had to return home to her realm. One night she heard her baby in the human world crying so she returned to him, wrapped him in a silk blanket and sang to him. The tale is named the Fairy Flag. The truth of the history though is one of battles and feuds between clans, the Fairy Pools being the site of one so bloody that a truce was called and the blue Fairy Pools never ran red again.
We left Skye for Fort William, into nearly 500 miles of driving. Our conversations in the car had deviated so far from small talk that we debated politics, conspiracy theories and religion.
As we departed for our final drive, the other two began bickering about the existence of aliens. I was driving. As we rounded a bend in the shadow of Ben Nevis, it was as though the mountains parted for us. I couldn’t hear my passengers anymore. Verdant mountains tumbled into each other, glassy silver water at their feet. Threatening clouds piled upon each other, stifling persistent sunlight peaking through to illuminate the vale. Scotland presented me with perfection. Glencoe. Wild and steadfast at the confluence of nature and magic.
Within an hour of getting home to my London flat the next day, I left for the studio. Immediately, I painted Glencoe. I don’t remember painting her. So engulfed in flow, on four hours sleep, she left me without a fight. She fell off the knife. I painted on a small panel and I knew the second I’d finished that she was one of the most accomplished and special paintings I had ever made. After thousands (probably, by now) of paintings, I have never kept one and rejected offers to buy it. Until Glencoe. She lives with me in my flat.
I shared the painting on Instagram and it went viral, amassing over 40k likes and thousands of new followers from one post. Now every time I share it, I receive comments and messages of how the painting struck them, just like Scotland struck me. The painting has been shared by accounts with millions of followers, it exists online where it is discussed, critiqued and circulates seemingly endlessly (although frustratingly uncredited sometimes). It has been seen by millions of people.
It is proof of exactly why I do what I do; how I translate a billowing personal feeling from a quiet moment into a physical thing that can evoke the same in others. It creates their own moment, shaped by their own experiences, commanded by mine.
The painting allowed so many more people to discover what I do, it grew my business and my practice as an artist and continues to do so. The painting of Glencoe reminds me of the gift I want to give. It reminds me of the years of practice and failure it takes to learn the skill of knife painting. It reminds me of my ability to hold intense emotion and ride with it until it dissipates.
Throughout my life I have often wondered if I am too emotional, if my emotions are inconveniently big. But that painting and the reaction it evokes tells me there are others that feel it the way I do. Some have been to Scotland, some haven’t. It doesn’t matter. Glencoe provides space for that emotion and the acceptance that there is beauty in both magnificent land and intimate, personal feeling.
It is a privilege to experience both.
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Glencoe | 30 x 23cm | Oil on panel | Georgia Hart 2024