Slippers of leaves...

Angus MacPhee was taken from his home at Iochdar, in the very north of South Uist, to Craig Dunain Psychiatric Hospital, just outside Inverness, suffering from some form of schizophrenia. There he remained for 50 years until he was returned home as part of the care-in-the community programme in the mid 1990s. Many people who knew him felt that this length of incarceration was, put simply, not necessary. The worst effects of his illness burned themselves out after a few years and Angus, one of the more able and capable inmates at Craig Dunain, was working anyway, largely unsupervised, on the hospital's farms.

But as a result of circumstances, Angus remained for the larger part of his life in this hospital. He turned to one of the skills, one of the crafts, that was practiced by the crofters of South Uist – weaving grass. At home this was an entirely practical skill – used to make rope, harness, and other articles that the crofters, living in a subsistence economy, learned in order to make ends meet, to make things work. But for Angus it became something else – a lifeline in order to reconnect himself with a lost past and everything it represented.

More extraordinary still, Angus began to use this craft in entirely new ways. No longer simply making ropes, but making fantastic garments, sun-burst hats, swallow-tailed suits, and even a representation of a stray cat he had befriended in the hospital grounds. This burst into creativity is what places Angus MacPhee's work in the company of other Outside Artists, other Artists Extraordinary.

One other way in which Angus's creativity went beyond the relatively straightforward craft of island rope-making was in the materials he began to use. When marram grass – the muirineach – wasn't available, he used the grasses that he found in the vicinity of the hospital. Later he experimented with other materials – sheep's wool that had snagged on the barbed wire fences around the farm and, even, leaves. The slipper above is one of a set made using leaves from trees in the hospital grounds. Now faded and wrapped in acid-free paper at Joyce Laing's gallery in Pittenweem in an attempt to preserve it from the inevitable process of decay, its shows Angus experimenting freely, not only with the form but also with the very material used in his work, in a heroic attempt to preserve his integrity, personality, and culture in an environment that was, inevitably, highly institutionalised.  

Angus McPhee - Weaver of Grass

This is a blog following my progress putting together a theatre show about Angus McPhee. So, already it's getting complicated - who was Angus McPhee? What kind of theatre show? Who is going to do this? So here goes...

Angus McPhee was from Iochdar, in South Uist, part of the Outer Hebrides, or Western Islands of Scotland. He was a crofter who as a young man went off to war in 1940. Something happened during the next few years and he was invalided home, a changed man, an elective mute. Soon he was transferred to Craig Dunain, a Victorian psychiatric hospital outside of Inverness. There he spent the next 40-odd years. During this period he created extraordinary woven grass objects. These were hardly recognized by the hospital staff, until in the late 1970s the noted art therapist Joyce Laing visited the hospital, looking for examples of 'Art Brut', Outsider Art, or 'Art Extraordinary'. Joyce seized upon the pieces she found in the hospital grounds, and thus fortunately was able to preserve a small part of Angus's work. 

As Artistic Director of Horse + Bamboo Theatre I visited the Outer Islands in the 1980s as part of an extensive horse-drawn tour. I made many friends during that memorable time. Several years later, one friend, Chris Spears of Berneray, sent me a copy of the booklet written by Joyce Laing about Angus. Called Angus McPhee: Weaver of Grass, it told Angus's story and I immediately felt it would make a wonderful subject for a theatre piece. Angus had been sent home to spend his last years in Uist, and had died there in 1997.

Last year I finally got round to take taking Joyce's book down off the shelf again. I discussed the subject with my colleagues at H+B, and found they were extremely enthusiastic about the idea of a touring show on this subject, and furthermore a show that would be designed in such a way as to be suited to touring to the Hebrides themselves, as well as to other island and similar isolated communities. So with the help of my colleagues, in particular Helen Jackson, who has started the unenviable task of fundraising for the tour; Esther Ferry-Kennington, who as producer to the company, will be selling the tour, and my co-artistic director Alison Duddle, work has begun on the task - this blog will document the journey. 

I visited Joyce earlier this summer at her wonderful 'Art Extraordinary Gallery' in Pittenweem, Fife, and there saw some of Angus's amazing pieces for myself. Joyce was very enthusiastic about the project and has already been extremely helpful and supportive. Esther visited her at the gallery to maintain this dialogue and Alison and I visited the Uists (see foggy photo above) in July. There we tracked down Angus's old tigh dubh (black house - see below) and visited Chris Spears, who had prompted the whole adventure on Berneray.