The Booth, Scalloway

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Where do I begin to write about this residency here in the Booth in Scalloway?



What do I tell you? Of how I came here?

That I sold my house to enable me to go back to uni to do an MA in knitting at the age of 53, that later led me to this place in Scalloway by meeting an amazing woman who worked in a wool shop in Lerwick, who said I could probably stay in her house in the January 2016 because I could find no other vacant place for Up Helly Aa, and that on one of our jaunts during one of my subsequent visits, she pointed out the Booth and explained it was an artist’s residency place and I should apply?

Or do I tell you of the place itself?

I’m sitting here on my final morning, facing the sea, listening to the wind and rain like no other, watching the sea come in to Scalloway harbour from the South in rising heavy waves topped with white, frilly sea horses from the wind. I wish to be in no other place and I am already sad at leaving on the 7pm ferry tonight.



I’ve learned so much from living here, 10feet above sea level as if in a ship (mostly in a storm) In some way, above all, I have learned patience.

The winter Shetland wind is often not kind. The storm that arrived was preceded by gales and followed by heavy rain, sleet, snow, sheet ice and harsh cold winds – sometimes all at the same time. I didn’t see the sun for 10 days and yet, when it comes out, the palette of the land is paint box like. But, I have learned to be patient and to really take every opportunity of a moment or daylight. Here, now, there are only 5 clear hours of daylight which is often the solid pale grey sky.



During the storm, I admit, I evacuated the place. It wasn’t the fact that the rain and wind lashed in banging the shutters and doors or the fact that the whole place was bobbing in a pitch-dark storm over the sea or that the power went and I had one candle, I have to admit, I was scared of the unknown. This place has stood here for hundreds of years and weathered all storms, but I did not know the weather or the lay of the land. I left for Lerwick for one night, to the friend that brought me here in the first place to hear the wind howling round her 3 story Sea Captain’s house the faces the road but I could not wait to return.



This place is rare. Both the Booth and Shetland. It has its own life and history far away from England.



The first week, the storms and gales mostly kept me in or near to this place and I learned patience and resilience of a different kind. I’m hardy but this is a different resilience to my previous travels. The second week, I found myself again. As when I lived in the hutongs in China, but this time, it was on the small tracks in Burra that lead to croft houses.

I’m here on this residency as a knitter but I have not knitted for a while. My aim, though not written down, was to bring my work (knitting) back to Shetland to hang or place in old derelict croft houses. My love of derelict crofts began in August 2016 when I came across a place in Bressay. A derelict 2 roomed croft with fragmented traces of the family that once lived there in the flowers stencilled onto the bare walls. I was in love – call it rose tinted glasses or nostalgia at that point but I was in love with derelict croft houses. The following April, I met a woman who was born in the croft and I heard its and her story whilst sitting outside the place, in her car, parked on the road.

This only fanned the flames of my derelict croft houses desires. It became about history and women and work and knitting.

On that same day, whilst the lady waited in the car on the road not wanting to come back into the place because she was saddened by its demise, I placed something in the croft on the only remaining nail still in the wall. It was a laser cut of my lace knitting on hand printed Italian paper. It was fragmented and damaged, like the property itself. I had a need and urge beyond understanding to do this – not an impulse but a clear urge with a hint of celebration towards the lives that had lived there.

I photographed it on the wall then gave the laser cut to the woman who looked at it, then me and didn’t say a word - not another word.



That same week, I travelled around with a knitted lace panel that I had made at Uni using Computer Aided Design in knit to create the stitches and lace fabric. There were unwanted holes in it from the trials and I had spent hours lovingly darning them. This curtain visited Bressay and hung around in the wind in derelict crofts. Much like the framed laser cut, the curtain revisited lives that had lived in the derelict places and partly through me and partly from place, I celebrated the women that had lived there and most surely knitted to subsidise the crofting income. Knitting stories, you might say.



That brings me to now. Burra is on the tiny bus link route from Scalloway and it is filled with treasure. Vikings once roamed Burra, Tingwall is very near – the Parliament of the Vikings and many years after, Pagans and Christians joined and many years later, the crofters came.



In the half light, I caught the 8:55am bus to the last stop of Houss but saw Meal Beach on the way. The bus driver, Stuart, one of 8 kids born on the Skerries, told me all about the place and told me every name of every person that he passed on route. He dropped me at the tiny path to Meal and I walked on snow covered sand.

I had just over an hour until the bus was on it’s return circular journey so I walked up the hill to Hamnavoe and found a deeply moving croft house that overlooked the beach.

It was snowing, sleeting and the wind was harsh but the colours came through as the sun made its first outing in 10 days. I placed my lace knitted curtain in the window of the croft and when I stood back, at that moment, all structure of the building fell away and I felt the whole being of the place. Partly from my making but mainly from the life and history and colours of the place. Here is where my art lies. The knitted lace that I had so painstakingly made became a bi product of a moment of recognition and celebration. It’s more than an urge to connect to these places to create art, it’s about a celebration of life, time and place, of living and women knitting.



During my second week, I revisited the Hamnavoe croft and then on to Papil where I saw Wallace the sheep dog bringing in the heard of sheep around the curve of the beach with the farmer and Spot, his other dog on the four-wheeled vehicle coming in behind.



And, the sun moved around the two beaches that back on to one another. Upturned shells on the bank filled with frozen rain. Feathers covered in ice. Rabbits living in the soft banked up earth blown over time against the wall - the only dry spot.



And, the croft houses that faced the bay with its small add on sink room and window facing South West. Here, I felt the same deep connection again and left a lace engraving on the bare wall under the window that faced the setting sun. A celebration of hard work on a croft, to say hello to history. It's a brief, fleeting moment that only takes a very short time but it encompasses so much.



Now, this morning, as I look out of my French doors directly facing the rough sea here in Scalloway, I see sealy bob up and down. He was the thing that growled at me under the window on day two in the pitch dark. One isolated seal sometimes in this harbour. How does he live in that roughness?

Anyway, homeward tonight to the things that I thought I had missed – a mocha at Waitrose, the Guardian on a Saturday, my yoga class and swimming every day and the things I most certainly have missed - my two mates – Alfie chubchub and Teepateepa. The last two will ignore me when I return.



I don’t want to go. I want to bring my animals here to look out on something they have never seen before and would not be able to understand and we three stay for ever.



What I say to you is Be Curious, feel the moment, go with your gut, live it deeply, don’t pass anything by.



https://traceydoxey.com/2017/12/09/shetland-croft-house/

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Comments

[Grey haired nomads]

Shetland, wonderful Shetland.
Hi Tracey, Another beautiful blog, written from the soul in your inimitable style. There can be little to better this delightful, remote island paradise and we know why you love it so. David and Janice The grey-haired-nomads