ANGUS MCPHEE - Weaver of Grass


ANGUS MCPHEE or MACPHEE was a crofter from Uist who spent almost 50 years in a Highland psychiatric hospital. During this time he chose not to speak - instead he wove a series of incredible costumes out of grass. These he hung on trees in the hospital grounds.

This blog follows the progress of HORSE + BAMBOO THEATRE as they develop and tour a show about Angus....

Monday, 9 September 2013

Two Joyces


The Angus tour continues on the mainland, and tonight it's the first of our BLAS Festival shows - at Fortrose Community Centre. The Festival celebrates Gaelic language and culture in 9 days of a packed programme of events including music, dance, film, food, literature - and Angus - Weaver of Grass. For more information visit the BLAS site by clicking here, and our own itinerary can be found in the column on the right of this blog.

The last couple of days we've been in Perth, taking our place in the series of events celebrating Angus MacPhee and Art Brut (also known as Outside Art or Art Extraordinary). Our shows, at Perth Museum and Art Gallery, have been very well received, with some glowing comments posted on Facebook. The events were opened by Joyce Laing with a talk about Angus MacPhee and his place among outsider artists. Joyce, of course, was the woman who discovered Angus working on his grass-weavings at Craig Dunain hospital.

Those of you who have seen our show will know that in the current version we've bought the character of Joyce Laing into the action. Joyce isn't mentioned by name but anyone who knows anything of Angus' story would recognise her part in our telling of it. So in Perth the two Joyces finally met (proof above). Joyce Laing and Mel Deans who plays the masked representation of her 1970s self!

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