Tanera Mor is one of the group of the summer islands, in Loch Broom, Wester Ross. It’s only a 15 minute boat ride from the village of Achitibuie and normally sheltered.  But sometimes the downdrafts from the mainland mountains create wild turbulence on the water.

It has a fish farm and a jetty, a few houses for the handful of people who live there all the year round and a few developed for visitors. There are signs of a semi industrial past. Timbers and stonework on a larger scale hint of Tanera’s brief importance as a centre of the herring trade.
 

The naturalist Frank Fraser Darling lived here for a time, observing and recording the flora and fauna. He is the author of books such as “Island Years”, and a founding father of an approach to ecology we take for granted too easily. But there are other signs of one small island’s links to the political and economic movements of the world.

The economics of the area have fluctuated along with the density of migratory fish. The herring boom at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century was quite short lived.  But Loch Broom had another  chance for big business. Long after wooden ships hunted herring with cotton nets, rusting steel “Klondykers” from  Russia, Bulgaria or Nigeria bought mackerel in bulk from the Scottish fleet and processed it while anchored in the waters of Loch Broom. In the late 1980s the sea-lochs around Tanera were busy with water-taxis taking the crews ashore.

One Bulgarian vessel grounded and sank out in the Minch. All the crew were rescued but the lifeboat crew couldn’t quite manage to take on all the electrical goods and one lawnmower the seamen had bought to take home.

Fish-farms came to Tanera Mor as they came to many sheltered anchorages  on the West Coast of Scotland. Most of the businesses changed hands. Most small ones crashed. Some would say that the industry was too closely modelled on factory farming on land. Maybe now more producers look to producing a lower yield of fish, with more space and less chemicals.

Only a handful of the larger trawlers have kept in business. Most of the fishing around the Summer Isles is more sustainable now. A small fleet of smaller vessels with less overheads seek top quality langoustines, crab and lobster. The prawns are selected and exported far and wide.
 

 
You can walk round Tanera Mor in a day. The vistas are dramatic, if the visibility is good enough to see them. The mountains of Sutherland to the North dominate. This is one of the landscapes celebrated by Norman MacCaig. Another is Harris. You look across the Minch for the rising ground that is  the south part of the Long Island . There are hosts of seabirds and landbirds. But the island itself is not spectacularly beautiful.  You have to look carefully to see it shine.

Guys like us from the Outer Isles look across to Tanera Mor from the ferry. But we’re on our way somewhere else or intent on getting home. I saw the island in its own light for the first time when my eldest son sailed me there. He was training for his Yachtmaster exam so took our boat across the Minch and studied the pilotage around  several anchorages around Tanera Mor and its smaller neighbours. You look to the sheltered bays and can’t help but think of the previous lives. The exiles would be glad of a vibrant workshop coming to this place.

For many years Tanera has produced its own stamps. The present owners continue this tradition though of course you also need a standard UK one.
You can see these years of miniatures  as metaphors for the international exchange which is at the spirit of artist workshops run by Triangle Arts Trust.

I was lucky enough to be at the first Scottish workshop linked to Triangle – as a partnership with the North Uist arts centre, Taigh Chearsabhagh. There were links to the Island community and a dialogue with local artists. But the main ingredient seemed to me to be trust. Each artist had freedom to work within or out of their own normal practice. But you were encouraged to be aware of others in the group and be open to what could develop by being open to a new experience.

From there came the idea of a group of 3 island workshops. Tanera is the first, Next one will be on Hoy, the high ground which is part of Orkney. And then the cycle is completed by a return to North Uist.. The artists who will live and work together on Tanera Mor for two weeks will be posting a diary on this site. Northings is an ideal way to share the process of developing work or just catching impressions. The open day at the end of Comhla – the North Uist workshop was a memorable way of meeting and sharing.  The neighbours and local community were open-minded, friendly and helpful.

Not everyone can come to the Open Day which will close the Tanera Mor gathering.  So this site will be a way of sharing further. I think it beats reality TV . What happens when you take 10 or so artists from a host country and throw them together with 10 or so from far afield? Most will not have met each other before. Most will not have previous knowledge of the work of the others in their group. You are warmly invited to log in and see – in virtual ceilidh mode.
 

© Ian Stephen, 2007