Norman Shaw

Ink on paper, 2002

30 x 40cm

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Original drawing for etching produced for An Leabhar Mòr / The Great Book of Gaelic exhibition (An Lanntair, Stornoway, 2002, toured internationally) and book (Canongate, 2002).

A response to the Gaelic poem The Gloomy Woodland by John MacLean (c.1787-1848) from Tiree, who emigrated to Canada in 1819.

It was composed when the poet's brother, Donald, wrote him a letter asking him to describe what Canada was like after he had emigrated there. Instead of writing a letter in reply, he composed this poem describing in detail what it was like.

The lines I responded to for this image were:

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'I'm all alone in this gloomy woodland,

my mind is troubled, I sing no song:

Against all nature I took this place here

and native wit from my mind has gone...

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...each night and day, in each task I turn to,

the ache of memory grows more and more;

I left my dear land beside the ocean

and now no sea laps my dwelling's shore...

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...I must keep digging to win bare living

to hold these wild threatening woods at bay...'

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The poet is homesick for his native Hebrides, and feels alienated in the dense forest - a stark contrast to the open treeless horizons of home. Many of my ancestors, some of whom were MacLeans, emigrated from Lewis to Canada in the 19th century.

I wanted to evoke the overwhelming animistic presence of the forest, writhing with material and immaterial entities, disorientating and even threatening.

On that note, I was as much inspired by the writings of Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen as I was by the poem.