Spitheagan nan Speur was my first wind powered installation, made for the stately gardens of the Clan Donald Centre, Skye.

These three golden skimmers have been buffeted by gales and lashing rain. So far they have failed in their attempt to take off, leaving earthly things behind.

Thanks to the heavy stones that they are trying to carry they remain hovering near the ground, only able to keep a hold of their little pieces of the earth for as long as they are willing to remain tethered.

Again and again they face the contradiction between reason and the unreasonable world.




'For the flight of the soul and that of the shaman are both one and the same adventure in so far as they both predicate a freeing from the force of gravity...
In no tradition are wings there for the taking: they must be won at the cost of what is often a long and perilous lesson in initiation and purification.'

Dictionary of symbols, Ed. Robert Laffont