Our Lady of Isbister
Our Lady of Isbister (aka Luckyminney)
by Jen
Hadfield
Friday 13th October - Friday 15th December 2006
Location: Stromness Library
Our Lady of Isbister 2006
by Jen Hadfield
Our Lady of Isbister by Jen
Hadfield
The Gallery will be changing
location
for this exhibition and is located on the outsize shelf at Stromness Library.
"Luckyminney is mentioned in A-P A Book of Old Fair Isle Words as one of the Guidfick (fairies who were capable of doing harm when angered).
"She wriggled into my psyche last September - I was half-drowned
in a rainstorm at Fethaland, in the far north of (mainland) Shetland. It
was dusk, but I badly wanted to get to the fishing station and back.
"I took the road through the croft at Isbister, and a mile or so over
the hill. By the time I got to the fishing station, I was completely
sodden. I met Luckyminney in her blue anorak. She asked me how my walk
was going, bowled the last lamb into the back of the truck. Her tail-lights
blazed off up the track.
"I made Luckyminney in January from the end of a washed-up broom handle in Hamnavoe. I was staying in the Booth (a living space and studio) in Scalloway and spent some hours whittling out her head and profile.
"I had found a yellow rubber glove too, and that looked like it would make some Elf and Shoemaker sized wellies."
Jen has written a poem 'Our Lady of Isbister' to accompany her work at the Peedie:
Our Lady of Isbister
O send me another life like this –
I want the same lochans as I had before –
the wind driving spittle strings
against skimpy shores of dark red stone;
same hot sweet slaw
of muck and shit and trampled straw;
the chimney bubbling transparent heat;
a whirlpool of Muscovy ducks;
paet-reek;
a scrambling clutch of piglet-pups;
the wet socks
slamdunked along the washing line;
the shucked wet shirts in gospel
grey and sparkling sun;
wet white bell
of an XXl teeshirt, swung
'Our Lady of Isbister' is not for for sale.
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