Early Days and Academicians
In 1987 I went to Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen where some of my first-year tutors were Royal Scottish Academicians, notably Doug Cocker. This was my first attempt at wood carving taught by Doug at the Gatehouse in the late eighties.
Also teaching at Gray’s then were artists who were Academicians or have since become Academicians – Joyce Cairns, Gordon Bryce, Sandy Fraser, Lennox Dunbar, Keith Rand, Tracy McKenna, Frank Convery and Stuart McKenzie, I remember vividly Stuart meeting up with us to draw in various locations in the city and offering advice on materials and techniques.
Robin Webster, the current Secretary of the RSA was head of Scott Sutherland School of Architecture. I mention this because as part of the course we did a cross over project with the architects, we made site-specific sculpture proposals for buildings designed by architecture students – some hands on experience of where our studies might take us.
Fellow Academicians who were at Gray’s at the same time as myself are Jennifer McRae, and in the year above us Joe Fan and Michael Agnew.
I was selected from my degree show to exhibit in ‘Separate Ways’ at Peacock Artspace in 1992, this was a curated group show of graduates from Gray’s. It was at Peacock that I became aware of the work of Frances Walker who had retired from teaching before I came to Aberdeen, I didn’t meet her in person until much later.
Also in 1992 Joe Fan and I were selected for the Aberdeen International Youth Festival, we both undertook residencies, me at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop and Joe at Peacock Printmakers, other artists came from Aberdeen’s twin cities including Clermont Ferrand and Bulawayo, following an intensive period of making we exhibited our work at Aberdeen Art Gallery.
