This weekend, Innerleithen and the surrounding towns will be celebrating local creativity. Forty artists will open their studios, alongside pop-up galleries and workshops. It’s a chance to see just how much talent we have on our doorstep.
For the past four years, FINDRA has hosted a joint exhibition showcasing work by several participating artists, along with the event’s launch night. It’s always a lovely evening, and one I look forward to.
Art and creativity are a big part of both my life and my work. I love visiting exhibitions and discovering artists whose work makes me stop and look a little longer. Having the space to show local artists’ work in the back room of our FINDRA café and shop is something I really value.
This year feels especially exciting because, for the first time, I’ve submitted a piece of my own artwork to the joint exhibition. I’ll tell you more about that in a moment!
The Scottish Landscape Around Me
Living in the Tweed Valley, I’m lucky to be surrounded by nature every day. I love watching the landscape change with the seasons: the shifting light, the colours on the hills and the little details I notice when I slow down and really look.
If you’ve followed FINDRA or read our blogs over the years, you’ll know how often I come back to the Scottish landscape. It’s my playground for van adventures, bike rides and cold water swimming, as well as the backdrop to the brand. It inspires our designs and the colours we choose for each season’s collection.
I also love seeing how other artists interpret the landscape. Their work can make me notice something I might otherwise have missed, or give me a fresh way to look at the colours and textures of a familiar place. There are a few artists I return to time and again.
Artists Who Inspire Me
I’ve written before about Bernat Klein, whose work has been a huge influence on me as a designer. He lived and worked in the Scottish Borders, drawing on the landscape to create textiles rich in colour and texture.
Klein had an extraordinary eye for colour. He could pick out shades you might barely notice in nature and make them sing together in a painting or a piece of cloth. Each colour was beautiful in its own right, but he also saw what happened when he brought them together. I’m fascinated by the journey from looking closely at a landscape, through colour studies and artwork, to the finished fabric.
Many years ago, when I was still finding my feet as a designer, I visited the Bernat Klein Studio. At the time, it was used by the Scottish Textile Association, and I went there to research colour and textile trends and discover knitwear and woven fabric manufacturers. But what has stayed with me most isn’t the research. It’s the building itself, designed by architect Peter Womersley, Klein’s friend and collaborator.
I still have a vivid memory of standing in the studio in the early 1990s, looking through one of its large windows at the rolling Borders hills, complete with sheep. The window framed the landscape so beautifully. I could feel the connection between the place, the building and the textiles Klein created. That moment has stayed with me and influenced my own creativity ever since.
Another artist I hugely admire is Joan Eardley. Her portraits of children in 1950s Glasgow are full of character, and I’m just as drawn to her paintings of the land and sea around Catterline. She didn’t seem content to stand back and simply observe the landscape; she went out into it, painting in the weather and bringing materials from the places around her into her work.
There’s such energy in those paintings. You can almost feel the wind and the sea. I love that her work captures something of what it felt like to be there. Her colours can be beautiful, but they aren’t tidied up or made pretty for the sake of it. That honesty is part of what makes her work so powerful to me.
Closer to home, I’m inspired by contemporary landscape artist Rachel Hunter, who lives here in Innerleithen. Rachel is a friend, a fellow mountain biker and one of the people who does so much to make Open Studios happen.
Her work responds to the Scottish Borders landscape, especially the changing seasons, skies and colours of the Tweed Valley. Through mixed media, collage and print, she brings the landscape down to shapes, colours and textures, while still capturing something unmistakably Borders about it.
I have several pieces of Rachel’s work, and she has exhibited at FINDRA both in her solo exhibition, Viewpoints, and as part of the joint Open Studios exhibition. I’ve also included her work on my mood boards when developing colour stories and design ideas for FINDRA.
There’s a lovely personal connection too. I first met Rachel on a women’s bike ride, and as we got chatting, we discovered that her dad, Jim Hunter, had been one of my lecturers at Heriot-Watt University. It’s such a small world!
Another contemporary artist I enjoy following is Scottish artist Orla Stevens. I first discovered her through her YouTube channel and was struck by her work and by how openly she shares her techniques and creative process. Watching her has played a real part in encouraging me to pick up my own materials again. Her work is full of curiosity about the places she explores, and I hope we’ll be able to share more about her here on the blog soon.
Finding My Way Back to Making Art
Over the past wee while, I’ve been slowly building the confidence to make more time for drawing and painting.
I love what I do with FINDRA, and I know how fortunate I am to do creative work for a living. But running a business brings its own pressures, and lately I’ve felt the need to make something simply for the joy of it.
Getting outdoors has always helped me decompress. The places I visit also fill me with ideas, and I’ve wanted to find a way to express some of what I see and feel when I’m there. So I began painting again. About a year ago, I gave myself a little deadline: I would submit a piece to this year’s Open Studios exhibition. And now I have!
It’s a mixed media study of Achmelvich Bay, a beautiful place on the north-west coast of Scotland that I love. I’m still learning, and it’s certainly no masterpiece, but I honestly don’t mind. I’ve had so much fun making it. Drawing and painting again has brought me a lot of joy.
I’m excited to see my work hanging alongside pieces by the other artists, evenif I feel a little nervous about it too.
If you’re nearby this weekend, please pop into FINDRA to see the exhibition, then have a wander around town and discover the artists showing their work in other spaces. We’ll share a video on YouTube next week as well.
I have no idea where this will go, but now that I’ve started, I know I want to keep making art, playing with ideas and seeing where this new adventure takes me.
Happy adventuring, whatever that means to you.
Alex x
Sunday Inspiration
The Story of Bernat Klein's studio with Alex and Stewart Wilson, the Tweed Valley Blogger
Favourite Quote
Favourite Song
I discovered Jacob Alon a few months ago and immediately fell in love with his music and his beautiful voice! It was also a nice surprise to discover that he is a fellow Scott !! Hailing from Dalgety Bay in Fife.
