‘Can you remember any artwork produced in the hospital that stays in your memory. Something so different, something quite unique, that you have never forgotten it?’
Joyce Laing defines ‘art extraordinary’ as ‘extremely rare and possesses that powerful quality which impinges itself on the memory, for nothing quite like it will have been seen before. It is arresting, beautiful and without any hint of affectation.’ In this short, lovely and moving biography, Laing examines the extraordinary work of Angus McPhee, a crofter from South Uist who spent fifty years in Craig Dunain Hospital, a former psychiatric institution in the Highlands. He died in 1997. Luckily for all of us some hospital staff recognised the hours that McPhee spent in the grounds gathering and weaving grass as indeed something rare.
McPhee lived in what was known as the ‘farm ward’, and Laing describes her meetings with him and her amazement at seeing the garments he wove from grass and other natural materials including sheep’s wool and beech leaves, intricate hats, boots and trousers, a pony harness, waders and sandals. She says there were hats of such variety ‘to make a milliner die for’. She gently persuaded him to allow her to exhibit his work in an art gallery in Glasgow and it remains still in the Scottish Collection of Art Extraordinary and continues to deeply affect its visitors.
I found the book absolutely fascinating – from the descriptions of McPhee’s early life to Jean Duncan’s analysis of his methods – and to compare his weavings with those discovered in ancient graves of archaeological significance. Copious photographs illustrate McPhee’s natural creations. This was a book made even more interesting after the Library’s recent and highly praised exhibition on the life and work of the pioneer art therapist, Joyce Laing.
[The Library has a copy of Angus McPhee Weaver of Grass.]
