Seasons on Harris (37 page)

“Steve Dilworth—who's he?” I asked.

“Oh, Lord—now I've gone and done it,” said Willie. “Well—y'think I'm an artist. Y'should go and see his work. Sculpture. Amazing pieces. Top rank. Institutional awards and all that kind of thing. Makes me feel like a real doodler. And his daughter. Beka—a dynamite photographer. She's doing a book on Harris. Big black-and-white photographs. All exhibition stuff. Oh, yes—a very talented family, those Dilworths…”

“Just up the road?” Anne asked.

“Yeah. Two, three miles. Little white cottage smothered in ivy on a bend.”

“We should go there,” I said to Anne.

“Absolutely.”

Willie tried to shift his jokester grin to a forlorn grimace. “Ah, tha's right. Jus'leave me here with m'bloody moons an'm'whales an'gallivant off to see the real stars.”

“Well,” said Anne slyly, “y'could tempt us to stay with a cup of tea and introduce us to your wife…”

“Ah, yes, Moira. Another fine island artist too. Lord, why am I sensing chronic inadequacy here?!”

“Baloney!” I said. “You're as proud as a peacock about your work.”

“Right—a peacock being stripped of his bloody tail feathers!”

Anne laughed. “Ah—but a peacock who also doubles as captain of the local golf course! Which, by the way, we both think is one of the most beautiful nine-hole golf courses we've ever seen. Even compared to Barra.”

Willie smiled. “It is indeed. It's been around since the twenties and keeps getting listed as one of the ‘ten best hidden courses' and things like that…in many magazines. St. Andrews is one of the first official Scottish links. Dates from the mid-1800s. Home of the British Open and a real tough course. Over two hundred bunkers! Ours is only nine holes and its official length is four thousand eight hundred and sixty-four yards. The largest fairway is over four hundred and eighty yards. But can y'imagine any better place to play—in natural sand dunes and traps, right by the white sand beach and the ocean with all those sea breezes. Actually it's the breezes—gales occasionally—that make it challenging. Real golfers love them. It's a far more subtle course than it looks and the greens are tiny so y'need a good eye and an accurate swing.”

“I like the idea of the ‘honesty box' by your little clubhouse. Just pop in your twelve pounds and play,” I said.

“Yeah, tha's worked well—in fact, one of our ‘legends' is the money left with a personal note from Nick Faldo when he once played here. We even have an annual competition now for ‘the Faldo Fiver.' And the clubhouse was opened by Ronan Rafferty in 2001. So all we need now is a visit from Tiger Woods and our life memberships will rocket! It's a hundred and fifty pounds for as much golf as you want. Forever! We've got over six hundred members and at least one billionaire who once dropped in by helicopter with some mates for a couple of rounds!”

“Well—y'should be able to do that yourself soon,” said Anne, with a wide grin.

“What?”

“Drop in by helicopter…y' know, when you've sold a few more of your paintings!”

Willie's epithetic response, alas, is not suitable for publication in such a modestly toned book as this.

 

I
T WAS QUITE A WHILE LATER
, after a delightfully impromptu
strupach
afternoon tea with Willie and Moira, along with her delicious homemade Scottish pancakes and cookies, that we finally headed back to the narrow Bays road in search of the Dilworths.

And of course that meant more tea and cookies and cake, with the family greeting us as if we'd been expected all day. And Willie's recommendation was well justified. Steve and Beka sat together along one side of a huge pine table and regaled us with tales of their artistic ideas and projects. The walls of the cozy kitchen/living room were filled with collected objects from around the world and an eclectic array of artworks by the family, including Beka's superb black-and-white photographs and Steve's sculpture maquettes.

“I feel as if I've stepped right into the middle of a creative whirlwind!” said Anne as Steve showed us photographs of some of his best-known works and then led us on a tour of one of the most jumbled and clay dust–smothered studio workshops it has ever been our pleasure to enter.

“Yeah—one day I'm gonna sort all this out,” mumbled Steve, with a grin. He was a tall man, lean and strong as a tree, with de Kooning–like blond straggled hair, bright eyes, and an intriguing aura of energy, purpose, and beguiling humor about him. On a side table lay a catalog of his projects, barely visible among a welter of tools and more swirls of clay dust.

“Okay if I look at this?” I asked.

“Help yourself—it'll save me trying to explain what I do, although the language gets a little…well, y'know…arty.”

“Who wrote it? One of those critics who believe that the more con
voluted the explanation of an artist's work, the more ‘important' it must be? Y'know—Tom Wolfe's comment in that book of his,
The Painted Word
, that art's in a weird state when you have to rely upon rhetorical mumbo-jumbo to establish its meaning and significance!”

Steve laughed. “Ah—truth is so refreshing at times!” he half shouted, and banged his hand on the workbench, sending clouds of dust spiraling up along a wall full of wood saws (at least a dozen), axes, hacksaws, drills, mallets, hammers, chisels, and random hangings of old and very large fishbones, fishnets, coiled ropes, animal skulls, and other skeletal remnants from creatures whose identity was ambiguous. And somewhat alarming.

Apparently, one of the main themes running through many of his works is “dead things encased”—in clay, wood, metal, coiled rope, or any combination of the above. His catalog was prefaced by a brief parable: “On being asked for proof that one of his objects did, indeed, contain a bird, Dilworth replied, ‘Destroy it and see.'”

The catalog continued in user-friendly prose:

And that, in terms of text, was essentially all there was in the catalog. The remainder consisted of a series of finely modulated black-and-white photographs of Steve's studio, his wide range of once-animate remains, and finally a series of his “small objects”—tight, dramatically articulated mini sarcophagi, each reflecting aspects of the form and spirit of the mummified creature within.

“These are amazingly…powerful,” I said. “You're using what?—shaped and polished wood, iron, brass, whalebone, silver, steel, dolphin teeth, fishing line, soapstone, all essentially inanimate substances—and yet the end form is so tactile…you want to reach out and move it around in your hands.”

“Like this?” Steve grinned as he lifted one of his objects from beneath a dust cloth on the bench and passed it to me. “It's a maquette for a much larger work. This one will eventually be twenty feet or more across.”

It was egg shaped, about a foot long, and consisted of two smooth, finely polished wood shapes—a carapace—bound together by steel “laces” except for a narrow separation of the two halves, which suggested a mysteriously dark interior and something lurking within.

I looked at Steve quizzically.

He laughed. “Oh, yes—there's a skeletal bird in there. Have faith! Unless, of course, you insist on breaking it open to see…”

“Ah, but…well, then I'd have the answer, wouldn't I? And it wouldn't be half so powerful as keeping the mystery…finding the question.”

Steve laughed. “Now you're getting it!”

“And these superb photographs. Who took these?”

“Beka—of course. Who else?”

And right on cue, Beka joined us in the studio and came over to
stand with her father. She possessed the same tall, wiry frame, muscular arms, light blond hair and eyebrows—a sort of wispy Wyeth portrait of strength and determination coupled with a slight aura of vulnerability. That look of the always-questing artist. Or a young girl moving into mature womanhood. Vulnerability coupled with a vivacious smile—and, once she launched into describing her own photographic work, a vigorous sense of purpose almost bordering on a mission.

“I've always been drawn back to Harris—this incredible landscape. And the people…,” she told us as we returned to the house and climbed the steep stairs to a small (and exactingly neat) studio filled with computer electronics, camera equipment, and carefully filed project photographs and negatives.

“Bit of a contrast to your dad's workshop,” I suggested.

Beka giggled, childlike for a moment. “Ah, well—our work is rather different. He needs the stimulus of things just lying around—‘accidental aesthetics.' I'm a neat-freak. The mess is usually up here!” she said, pointing to her head.

“I don't see any ‘mess' in these images,” I said truthfully as she showed us some of the photographs for her
Harris Portraits
book. “You seem to know exactly what you want to say about the people you're photographing. Your sense of their character—their ‘presence'—it just leaps right off the page! No gooey fog of pretension like you see in so many coffee-table books.”

“Well—thank you,” she responded somewhat bashfully. “Y'see, this is something I began a long while back—it's part of a college project. Mum and Dad had bought this place…over twenty years ago, I guess. And I would come here often in between doing all kinds of location photographs for the Scottish Film Commission. I even worked for a few weeks on the first Harry Potter movie—as a Steadicam assistant in London. My main project was that fabulous scene in the bank with all those gnomes. D'you remember? No blue-screen stuff—it was all on site—a real set—four teams of operators and cameras and all working simultaneously. Very choreographed. Absolutely fascinating. I learned so much.”

“So why the switch to Harris photographs?” Anne asked.

“Well, I was—I am—in love with this island. I went to school here
and I've known most of the people I photographed for years. I sometimes spent days talking to them, letting them tell me about their lives and their work here. And the photographs seemed to kind of take themselves. When the moment—the mood—was right. ‘Happy accidents,' many of them. So much of photography is pure luck no matter what the professionals say. Y'can set things up right—but in the end there has to be that special moment—that magic split second—when the thought, the knowledge, the background, the scene, the individual—when they all just coalesce—and you've got something usually even better than what you'd intended…it's hard to explain. You just know it when it happens.”

“Like love!” said Anne.

“Yeah, right. A little bit. The ‘creative moment' when it all comes together…and that little bit of luck—and love—too.”

“You're being very modest,” I suggested.

Beka gave another one of her schoolgirl giggles. “Oh, maybe. But it makes you feel quite humble, because it's more than just you taking the photograph. It's…everything. Something greater than you and the subject.”

“Are you going to add descriptive captions in the book?” I asked.

“No. No, I don't think so. A good photograph should speak for itself. If it's done right it contains its own story and words can get in the way…not in your kind of book, obviously. But in a photographic book.”

The three of us sat together quietly (maybe words were indeed getting in the way) and just absorbed the power and intensity of Beka's images. She had captured the hard, bold spirit of the island and its inhabitants perfectly. And she was right—the photographs did speak volumes. Captions would be superfluous.

“Well—maybe at least someone with credibility should write a brief foreword…y'know, provide a context for people not so familiar with Harris,” I suggested.

“Oh, absolutely. Definitely,” Beka agreed. “And guess who's agreed to write one…”

I could think of half a dozen island people who would do a fine job
in that area. Beka was watching me closely. “Well—there's one person in particular who I'm sure would be delighted to participate.”

“Who?” she asked, grinning.

“Bill Lawson, our island history and genealogical guru. He's a fine writer with an amazing awareness of the significance of Harris.”

There was a short silence and then Beka laughed aloud and clapped. “You got it!” she gushed. “How did you know?!”