Meg Rodger balances a unique lifestyle between shepherdess and practising artist. Following a recent residency period in Iceland we spoke to Meg about the threads that bind both Iceland and her home on the Outer Hebrides together. Meg's work pivots on the elemental qualities of wind and weather patterns of the Hebrides creating quiet, poetic works out of the often tumulus elements of the islands.
Firstly, could you tell us a bit about why you chose Iceland for your residency and the parallels between Iceland and North Uist? Was this your first residency experience?
As well a visual artist, I am also a crofter/shepherdess living and working on the small Hebridean island of Berneray. On our croft we rear Hebridean sheep a rare breed that were brought to these islands by the Norse people during the 9th Century. Their genetic ancestry links them to North Atlantic Sheep and as such they are related to breeds now found on St. Kilda, Orkney, Shetland, the Faroes and Iceland. Thus their ancestry can be traced to the migration routes of these Norse people as they travelled Northwards.
From my Hebridean sheep, and in collaboration with neighbouring crofters in the Uists, I produce knitting yarn and sheepskins sold through my business The Birlinn Yarn Company
In February 2019, I spent three weeks at the Icelandic Textile Centre in Blönduós, Northern Iceland. This was my first art residency and my aspiration was to bring together the two strands of my creativity: The Birlinn Yarn Company (life as a crofter/shepherdess) with my visual arts practice resulting in a new body of research and art work.
I was also keen to learn about Icelandic sheep farming in this extreme Northern environment as a means of informing my crofting practice in the Hebrides. Exploring the history of the migration of the Norwegian Vikings and hence the North Atlantic sheep, a breed that includes both Hebridean and Icelandic, was also a motivation.
What surprised me during my residency was discovering the strength of the link between Iceland and the Hebrides. Icelanders refer to the Hebrides as ‘suður eyja’ the Southern Isles. In the Icelandic Book of Settlement ‘Landnámabók’, Shetland is referenced twice, the Faroes three times, Orkney seven times but the Hebrides are mentioned twenty-two times. Many of the early settlement areas share place names with the Hebrides such as Hekla, Grimsay, Pabbay and Barra. There are in fact several places in Iceland named after our island of Berneray, which I discovered very definitely refers to Bjorn’s island, rather than Bear island as it has sometimes been known, which was a good point to clarify.
Further to this, through genetic studies it has now been concluded that 80% of the settling males in Iceland were from Norway whereas 62% of the settling females were Celtic or Hebridean. So it seems that the link between Iceland and the Hebrides is much more than sheep.
Both are exposed environments, this characteristic is necessary for your practice, particularly your wind works. Did working in the harsh Icelandic environment change the way you worked with the natural elements?
I did travel to Iceland with the intention to make wind drawings but also to work with the extreme qualities of light. As it turned out, the weather in Iceland during February is very extreme, a thick layer of slippery ice covers everything and the temperatures combined with wind chill can mean even a small accident could be life threatening if you were out on your own. As a result, spending a lot of time outdoors was not very advisable, let alone comfortable, so actually my work focused more on researching the properties of North Atlantic sheep fleece which initiated a new branch to my creative practice.
My Iceland wind drawings were made with very portable equipment and as a result I have started a new series of mini Wind Drawings that are working out well. I have also left some Solargraph pin-hole cameras on the Icelandic sheep farms that I visited which were installed just after the ones I had rigged up on my croft here in the Hebrides. Solargraphs are long term pin-hole cameras installed outside for weeks or months to record the arch of the sun as it rises or lowers across the sky depending on the time of year. If we all take them down on the summer solstice it will be interesting to compare results between the Hebrides at 57*N and Iceland at 65*N or, as is the nature with solargraphs, there might be no results at all!
Could you tell us a little about the relationship between your art practice and life as a shepherdess?
As a shepherdess in the Hebrides I spend a lot of time outdoors in all weathers - checking sheep and lambs, feeding and gathering. As a result you develop an intuitive and sensitive response to the environment, imminent changes in the weather, the seasons unfolding annotated by the progression of agricultural activities, the return of migratory birds, flowering plants etc.
My wind drawings developed as a means of collaborating with the one elemental force that truly defines life in the Hebrides. A lack of wind allows us to work and make good. Storm force winds literally mean battening down the hatches, power cuts, schools closed and waiting for nature to take its course. Through my work I aspire to make visible the elemental qualities around us that we cannot see or no longer see due to our technological lifestyle.
The resulting art works explored the different qualities of these fibres through knitting, felting and binding. They also responded to the cultural heritage of wool work dating back to the Vikings and more recent times. There is more information about the resulting art works on my website: https://www.megrodger.com/#/iceland/
You have referred to Nan Shepherd's text 'The Living Mountain' in a previous blog post, does literature-or particularly nature writing- influence your work?
Actually I prefer to experience being in a natural environment rather than reading about it. However, Nan Shepherd’s relatively short text ‘The Living Mountain’ is a really important piece of writing to which I frequently return. If only we would literally take a ‘leaf’ out of her book the world would be a better place and we would take time to reconsider our continual over exploitation of our natural resources and the destruction of our environment. Shepherd’s love of her life was the Cairngorm mountains. She would walk for hours within its glens and ranges until the rhythm of this motion became meditative and her mind and body became one. Her relationship with these mountains was not to dominate or record, not to reach the summits or to place specimens in a jar but to dwell. To smell, see, touch … to be. If we were all a bit more willing to sit still and watch quietly and listen, we would realise even the smallest bug is an amazing creation and one that we must take great care to preserve.
Having spent some months back on North Uist, in what ways is your practice developing in response to your experience in Iceland?
I am now developing plans to potentially return to Iceland, possibly by boat, next summer retracing the passage of the Vikings as they migrated Northwards and meeting up on route with shepherds who farm North Atlantic sheep. In particular, I will research the story of Aud the Deep Minded a Norse woman who lived in the Hebrides for a time before captaining her own vessel and migrating North with her family from Caithness to Iceland. There she became the only woman to lay claim to settlement lands in her own right in Broadfirth-Dales in 895 AD. She must have been a very strong and yet fair woman as in due course she divided up her land amongst her people and announced her slaves free men of Iceland. Her story and that of her family is written down in the Laxdale Saga so I will enjoy the challenge of responding to her tale and this experience creatively. This is still very much at an early planning stage so nothing as yet set in stone!
Just to finish up, I would like to thank all the staff at the Icelandic Textile Centre for their warm welcome, help and support. The art residency was everything I could have hoped it would be and I would thoroughly recommend it if you get the opportunity. I am also very grateful to Comhairle nan Eilean Siar and Creative Scotland for the Visual Arts and Craft Makers Award that I received which made this wonderful experience possible.
You can find more about Meg's practice on her website: https://www.megrodger.com