Friday 8 August 2008

Pittenweem Arts Festival



This week, the residents of Pittenweem in Fife have been flinging open their doors to welcome visitors to the Pittenweem arts festival. The whole village is taken over by resident and invited artists and every possible space, becomes a mini gallery for their work.


It was lovely to stroll around the pretty cottages and gardens looking at the work of some talented local artists along the way, and some of the gardens were almost like galleries in there own right with a whole load of summer flowers.




Every year, there is an installation in the harbour itself, and this year it was designed by Yoshihito Kawabata. He collected 1000 stones, labelling each one with a number, a Japanese character, and details of where and when it was found. The stones were then laid out in a huge circle, spanning across the pier, down onto the beach and into the sea. Over the course of the festival nature and human activity will take their effects and move around the stones to change their order and meaning.






As we made our way across the Tay towards Pittenweem I was amazed at how low the tide was and how much sand was exposed, so the following day I took a walk down the road to take a few pics. The tide was higher than the previous day and rapidly coming in, but still there was so much sand around. You can't see from these pics because they were too far away, but there were a couple of seals on one of the more distant sandbanks. When the tide isn't so low, only the bank nearer the wall is exposed so they sit much more closely in view.




On my way home across Magdalen Green, I got very excited when I discovered how many cherries there were in the trees lining the path. They look fab, and it seems like there are a few varieties because the fruit looked quite different in each tree. Some of it was ready for picking, so now I'm trying to pluck up the courage to go down there (maybe at night!) with a step ladder to pick some. Unfortunately they are all too high to reach without having someone's shoulders to sit on!

2 comments:

Di said...

Love all those photos from Pittenweem! We were definitely lucky with the weather!

Mirxl said...

No kidding, those trees were always so loaded with cherries in the summertime.. Silvia and I once made a huge batch of cherry biscuits... The locals had no idea you could eat them obviously..!