DUNNET-based artist Joanne Kaar is currently exhibiting in a mixed show at Inverewe Garden with some help from Thurso Postal Department.

Opening last Saturday at the Sawyer Art Gallery in the Wester Ross garden, the show is called Wise Women and the Earth and is themed around mailed cards/envelopes, wild flowers and apocryphal tales of women who can change the winds with supernatural powers.

"While researching, I found a mention of 'wise women' from Stornoway who were sellers of wind, and an incident with the mail boat from Stornoway to Poolewe which ended in disaster at Am Ploc Ard."

Tales of folklore from the Victorian book had Joanne focus on one particular story about a sailor who sought advice from a wise woman on how to control the winds. The sailor is advised to untie knots on a piece of string to calm the winds but never to undo the last one.

After gaining supernatural help when he unties the knots he comes to the last one and, thinking it will do no harm, unties it. At once, his ship is blown onto the shore by a hurricane and all on board were lucky to escape with their lives.

Joanne uses the tale in her work and combines it with research into the origins of Inverewe Gardens and how the flowers were originally sent there along with earth used as ship's ballast.

"My artwork is research based, weaving together fact, fiction and folklore to make new fun work but has fun with a strong sense of place. It was Osgood Mackenzie who originally designed and made the gardens and I was intrigued by his comments that ‘soil was brought from afar’.

"Reading of other areas to the north and south of Inverewe, I discovered that soil was brought in as ballast from Ireland when boats returned from delivering herring."

Joanne interwove legend and fact to create her show which includes envelopes franked at Thurso Postal Department and "sent" to the west coast venue.

"Thurso Postal Depot kindly let me frank my mail with the original lead letter stampers and inks the staff so kindly found in amongst the cobwebs in cupboards. I’ve been fascinated by the transport system and in particular how mail was delivered to the area.

"From the mail runners to the mail boats, the famine roads and the building of the railway line, they are all closely intertwined with the history of the area and its people. Although Osgood travelled widely, he did order plants, bulbs and seeds from plant nurseries and botanical gardens which would have arrived by a variety of means."

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Joanne's work for the collaboration includes a mail bag made from a paper potato sack with "paper seedlings growing from it" and a variety of envelopes each with different imagery relating to Inverewe walled garden and the three knots story.

Wise Women and the Earth runs until October 31 at the Sawyer Gallery in Inverewe Garden (National Trust for Scotland). Entrance fees apply as the gallery is within the garden grounds.

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