‘Something that opened a kind of portal into a different dimension’: The Flow Country in reality and in art

One of the most exciting events for me - in recent times - was the granting of World Heritage status to the Flow Country in the far north.

This was the landscape, with its poetic name, its flow of water, its wetland reflections, its wildlife and strangeness, which had captured my soul so many years ago. Now it belonged to the world: now it was recognised as fragile, living, exceptional in its beauty and greatness.

Coming from Canada I am no stranger to wide open spaces, that glorious feeling of wilderness and vast horizons and, just before setting out for Scotland more than 20 years ago, I had been working in the Algonquin National Park teaching watercolour painting.

But what I found in Caithness was something new: cloudscapes with all the majesty of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, endless beaches which had a haunting loneliness, and, above all, the Flow Country with its shifting light and water, bog cotton, the deep and rich colours of the peatland…Here was something that opened a kind of portal into a different dimension.

I have travelled, photographed, painted this landscape often - an impossible task to capture it! Each time I go out into the heart of it, the different weathers and light shed a new perspective on this mysterious moorland.

I am full of admiration for the local artist, Maggie Sinclair. Her generous attention to the details of the bogland sheds new light on the intricacies of this unusual landscape, so unique to Caithness.

It conveys the “wide openness” of these places with such tenderness and proof of observation. Her new exhibition opens at Brown’s Gallery in Inverness on May 20 and I will be heading there soon for inspiration and one more opportunity to cherish this incredible and mysterious power of the Flow Country - to have my eyes open to notice a bit more.

It is wonderful when artists can inspire one another because each vision, each creative mind is so different and the lens of one artist brings to light an unexpected insight for another, a fresh perspective on a very ancient landscape.

It is hard to put such beauty into paint or words, but we try as best we can.

Part of the Scottish genius, when it comes to the whisky industry for example, is the ability to put a landscape into a drink! Every whisky is different, conditioned by the water and the geography and the special, sometimes secretive processes.

So it is with artworks. The other night I saw a film called Emily, about the poet and novelist Emily Brontë. It made me want to read Wuthering Heights again, because there is some of the finest description of bleak moorland anywhere in literature. Somehow, Emily Brontë’s wild and wilful soul merged with the landscape of West Yorkshire.

In the same way, the wonderful Scottish poet, former Makar of Scotland, Kathleen Jamie, can briefly capture such a landscape in the words:

‘…

Nothing resolved,

I tread back over the moor

– but every time the moor

appears differently: this evening,

tufts of bog-cotton

unbutton themselves in the wind

– and then comes the road

so wearily familiar

the old shining road

that leads everywhere’

(From ‘Poem’)

We don’t need to be artists or writers or musicians to convey the glories of the far north. We can carry them in our hearts, teach our children to cherish what we have - while we have it. We can refuse to take our wetlands for granted. We can take a drive with family or friends to the wilds of Forsinard and gaze in wonder, as the sun sets over the dazzling variety of moss and heather and peat, rivulets and tarns: we can have a “world-class” experience all to ourselves. We can drink at the well of creation itself and remember how lucky we are to live here.

Monique Sliedrecht is an artist and blogger based at Freswick. Visit her blog at www.moniquesliedrecht.com

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