Studio, Hospitalfield House, Arbroath, Scotland, 1998. (Photo Jay Thomson).

Fresh out of Loughborough and with NO clue what i was doing i was lucky enough to be accepted as Artist in Residence at Hospitalfield House in Arbroath, on the east coast of Scotland. Nestled roughly halfway between Aberdeen and Dundee, Arboath is famous for it’s “smokies,” which are special smoked mackeral haddock (thanks Jay!), very tasty and good for u. It also has a Royal Marine base and a really awe inspiring cathedral in addition to amazing landscape and some great pubs / ale houses. There’s plenty more besides i’m sure i don’t do the town any justice at all.

Hospitalfield House is an amazing institution. I stayed there from January to April 1998 as one of two resident artists awarded the Patrick Allan-Fraser Trust Robert Fleming Trust (thanks Jay!) Artist in Residence. The photograph above shows yours truly standing in the studio. Two pieces niether of which i can remember the titles of flank me on either side. Plus there are smaller works dotted around. I remember struggling all thew way through the residency not really knowing what i was doing, fighting the old work — the pastels and drawings and yet not really making progress with the new stuff, the land art / earth works that i had planned to make. Going there in the winter didn’t help, the ground was frozen solid and it wasn’t the best time to be out in the landscape drawing either. The earthworks in L’boro were mostly about process, phenomena, economics. They were about material, and working with something i could manipulate easily, and about making something totally at odds with painting and the painting department i was graduating from. I don’t think i knew that at the time, and in Arbroath I was lost trying to make this visionary landscape thing work for me.

Studio, Hospitalfield House, Arbroath, Scotland, 1998. (Photo Jay Thomson).

My brief stay at Hospitalfield proved to be the springboard that catapulted me here to the USA and where i have been ever since. At HH i was introduced to the graduate program at SIUC and shortly afterwards accepted to their MFA prpgram. The rest as they say is history. I met some awesome people at Hospitalfield House including  Jay Thomson who shots these photos, Amanda Currie who was also Artist in Residence as part of the PAtrick Allan-Fraser Trust, Willam Payne and Moira Scott who run Hospitalfield and Leah Hampton, who was traveling the world at the time and just happened to be in Scotland. I’ll post more about everyone and my adventures in the future.

Untitled, Hospitalfield House, Arbroath, Scotland, 1998. (Photo Jay Thomson).