Seinn na Talmhainn, Fighe nan Sgeul *
Singing the Land, Weaving the Stories
A retreat of weave and song in the Scottish Highlands
8th to 12th April 2024
*SHINE nuh TALAV-een, FEE-uh nun SKEEAL
Take time out to focus on your creativity, inspired by the Gaelic song, landscape and weaving traditions of the Scottish Highlands, with creative leadership from tapestry weaver Joan Baxter and musician Mary Ann Kennedy, supported by Anna Wetherell and Irene Evison from Nearly Wild Weaving.
- Intertwining music and song, wool and weaving, landscape and language for a creative melting pot of a week – take your pick for what you want to focus on.
- Dedicated time from creative leaders Joan Baxter and Mary Ann Kennedy, combined with freedom to ‘do your own thing’.
- Enjoy the company of like-minded weavers and tapestry weavers, share ideas, learn from one another, be enthused by one another. Explore language, song, sound and rhythm to inspire your weaving.
A choice of activities which include:
- Exploring the local landscape of Ardgour in the Scottish Highlands, finding out how the Gaelic place names help to interpret the landforms that you’re seeing and discovering the Gaelic colour circle.
- Joining in to weave a twill cloth collectively, inspired by traditional Gaelic songs of the land. No handweaving experience necessary!
- Listening to and joining in with waulking songs traditional to the Scottish Highlands, a song form sung by women as, together, they beat newly woven cloth to consolidate the warp and weft (fulling it). (Scroll down or click on the link for some examples)
- Generate ideas, try out some samples, create your own woven or sung piece in response to the landscape. Or, just bring your own weaving project and enjoy the music, song and surroundings!
Dip in and out, do as much or little as you like, make this week your own.
The retreat will be based at the Watercolour Music studio near Ardgour, not far from Fort William. We will work from their light-filled studio which looks out over Loch Linnhe and across to Ben Nevis.
We start on the morning of Monday 8th April and finish on the evening of Friday 12th April 2024. We have reserved self-catering accommodation at Watercolour and a cottage close by, both of which are available from Saturday 6th April, although you may prefer to make your own arrangements.
There are a maximum of 10 places available.
Tapestry weavers are expected to have some previous experience, although you certainly do not need to be an expert! Handweavers and musicians interested in woven textiles: you are also welcome! But note, this isn’t a taught course as such, rather an opportunity to be inspired, develop ideas, try out new things, take time to think creatively, work collaboratively if you wish, and to share your enthusiasm with other like-minded people. Joan and Mary Ann are there to help bounce ideas around, provide advice, challenge us and support us with our creativity, as well as developing some ideas of their own! Do talk to us if you’re not sure.
No previous experience in Gaelic is necessary. You’re welcome to participate in any of the Gaelic song or culture activities, or just to observe or absorb them as you work – community works in many ways.
Participants are not expected to be expert singers or musicians, although being open-minded and interested in how music and song can inspire creativity will be helpful! If you have experience, we look forward to sharing our musical knowledge and passion together. You need nothing other than your voices, but musical participants are welcome to bring instruments. We will provide copious learning resources. Recording of sessions exclusively for subsequent personal study is permitted.
Cost: £550 £450 per person, to include: studio space; expert guidance and support from Joan Baxter and Mary Ann Kennedy; participation in projects; refreshments and simple lunches; pick-up from either Fort William or Corran ferry.
Deposit of £150 payable on booking. The deposit is non-refundable unless we can fill your place, but will, of course, be refunded if we have to cancel for any reason.
Self catering accommodation costs are additional. These will be confirmed when we know numbers and preferences, but will require an additional £200 deposit at the time of booking unless you prefer to book your own.
Further details are available in this downloadable pdf. Please do contact Anna to book or for further information.
Gaelic Colour Circle
Being bilingual, or even multilingual, is more than just an exercise in translation. Each language is a different perspective on life and on the world around us – it is light being refracted through a different facet of the same prism and finding its spectrum laid out in varied and unique patterns.
The colour circle of Gaelic is rooted in the world around us, in nature, in the elements, refracted in a spectrum absolutely unique to the language and the land that bears it hallmarks. We have the bright primary markers of reds and yellows and blues – dearg, buidhe, gorm. But turn to the land and to the people and the words themselves find their way into the earth, the rocks, the waters, the skies. Blue is gorm, but gorm is also the green of living things, of chlorophyl. Blue of the sky is liath, but liath is also the dignified grey of silvering hair. Glas is grey, it means also to lock, and so our word for the pandemic lockdown was glasadh, which at the same time means the very first inkling of not-dark before the camhanaich – the dawn and light returning.
A morning trip from Ardgour will become a journey using that Gaelic colour circle as a prompt to help you connect to the landscape around you, through place-names, history, songs and stories. Black, white, red – but the aqua black of An Linne Dhubh, the deep, dark sea loch that forms our shoreline; the fair, white beauty of An Eala Bhàn – the doomed love-story of the white swan of Salen; and the rocky rust of An Torra Ruadh – the headlands along the lochside, where the geology along the Great Glen reveals a pre-history of two continents on our doorstep. Stories and songs will accompany the journey, with quiet time to take stock and find your place on the colour circle.
As with the greatest of the Jacobite secret code songs, our dexterous and vocal weavings will be a gathering of individuals coming together to work the threads and be inspired by the land. “Bidh i fighte, cùmte, luaidhte” – the cloth shall be woven, shaped, and waulked together.
Waulking Songs
Curious about waulking songs? Have a look at the links below to hear a few and learn more. They are a Scottish Gaelic cultural tradition, usually sung as a ‘call and response’, with a strong rhythm to help with the repetitive action of thumping the wet cloth and passing it round the table as a group, turning the task into a creative and sociable activity, and to help get the timing right… The process softens the cloth, draws the fibres together and fixes the dye – and is now generally done by machine!
More information about waulking, including links to a range of songs.
Mary Ann with Cliar (CLEAR): Clò Mhic Ille Mhìcheil (Carmichael’s Cloth – a Jacobite code song, where each ‘waulking team’ represented a clan faithful to the cause)
Bannal (BANN-il), Glasgow-based group of native Gaelic singers, really true to the tradition, waulking the cloth as they sing.
Classic School of Scottish Studies archive from 1941 – these singers are recreating the process, but would have been well familiar with the work.
Nearly Wild Weaving 