Project Moves from Painting to Performance

An Dealbh Mòr is the Gaelic/English visual arts and performance project run by Lasair Ealain in collaboration with four artists involving Sleat Primary School, celebrating the landscape of South Skye.

What is Lasair Ealain?
It means a blaze of art. We are a constituted committee of children who are helping to organise and run An Dealbh Mòr. We helped raise £84,000 to fund the project.

Our long-term aim is to set up and manage innovative, ambitious and exciting art projects in collaboration with professional artists of differing disciplines.

What we've done so far

Between April and October 2005 we went out every week around South Skye with artists Julie Brook and Kath MacLeod (Gaelic) or Sarah Jane MacIntyre (Gaelic) to draw the landscape from observation in our sketchbooks. We then went back to the school to make big charcoal drawings (A1) from our sketches. Once we?d got really good at our drawing we began using water colour both in our sketch books and on the A1 paper to prepare ourselves for the much larger scale painting. We had a very successful interim exhibition of these drawings and paintings at An Tuireann, Isle of Skye. Lasair Ealain held a workshop to teach the public what we have learned and we took them out for a day drawing. People have asked if we will do this again because it was so popular! At the beginning of November we did a huge charcoal drawing (3m by 5m). Using our sketchbooks we plotted the whole composition of South Skye representing all the different places we visited. For the rest of November and December we have been working very hard (3 days a week) on the enormous painting ? the peak of this part of our art project! At 9m by 14m it is bigger than our gym hall!

What we are doing now

From January 2006 until now (March 2006) we have been working in collaboration with our choreographer, Claire Pencak, our composer, Piers Hellawell, and the visual artists. This has been great fun and is helping us see how the over-all performance will work.

Performance and Exhibition

At the beginning of March 2006 the big painting, An Dealbh Mòr, will be placed on the floor of the cafeteria area of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic College in Skye, next door to our school. We will perform on the painting with the audience looking from the balconies above! The performance will explore the geological evolution of Skye. This gives us an exciting excuse to re-enact the volcanic explosions that formed the Cuillin! We will also be exhibiting our working drawings and paintings and the big charcoal drawing, as well as a photographic and film record of the whole project in progress.

We hope to see you there!

The Future

We are planning to tour the exhibition and a documentary of the project and performance itself later in 2006 / 2007 to celebrate the Highland Year of Culture.
Proposed venues:
Portree, Isle of Skye
Stornoway, Isle of Lewis
Glasgow
Edinburgh
Inverness

Schedule of An Dealbh Mor 2005/6

April - October - Expeditions into the landscape, working drawings and paintings.
November - December - Large charcoal drawing working out composition.
- An Dealbh Mòr itself.
December - March 2006 - working with the choreographer, composer and visual
artists to create the performance

March Performances - March 10th, 11th, 17th,18th @7.30pm

March 10th - May 19th - Exhibition in Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. Isle of Skye

For further information, please contact: Lasair Ealain or Julie Brook (Leading Artist) Sleat Primary School Isle of Skye, IV44 8RF Email: juliebrook@btopenworld.com Tel: 01471 844 235 Email:  lasairealain@hcs.uhi.ac.uk

This project is part funded by the European Union under the Western Isles, Skye and Lochalsh LEADER + Programme and the Scottish Arts Council. Other funding partners: An Tuireann; Bòrd na Gidhlig; Cànan; Commun na Gàidhlig; Determined to Succeed; Sabhal Mòr Ostaig; Gaelic Television Training Trust; SEALL Arts; Tosg; Young Films; Skye & Lochalsh Enterprise; Steven McKenzie; Fearann Eilean Iarmain; Clan Donald Lands Trust; West Highland Heavy Horses.