It’s all coming back to me now…
Roger Emmerson Guest Blog
On 12 September 2019 I thought I had sold my last painting – of the PV Waverley backing out from Millport pier in a late summer evening – and on 28 February 2020 played my last gig – at Tables, Tarvit Street, Edinburgh.
Two weeks later galleries and venues were closed and uncountable and unaccountable days of confinement were confirmed.
To be honest, my pandemic experience was much less solitary and empty than many. I share the house with my wife, youngest daughter and eldest grandson and was in a ‘bubble’ with my eldest daughter and her four children.
I had something to do. That something was to make readable a disjointed collection of notes, references, partially read texts and incomplete chapters running to ca. 300,000 words. The scale of the task more than compensated for the absence of exhibiting and gigging opportunities.
Two years later, 2022 opened with Gavin MacDougall and myself signing the publishing contract in January for what would become, by the year’s end, Land of Stone: a journey through modern architecture in Scotland.
If I thought my work was done when I delivered the ‘finished’ text to Gavin at the end of March, I was sadly mistaken. I had to wait till mid-September to discover that. My rude awakening and introduction to the delights of large-scale editing, setting, proofreading and book design were eased by the professionalism and understanding of Gwyneth Findlay, Jennie Renton and Amy Turnbull.
Meanwhile, life began to reacquire some of its pre-pandemic shape and texture. I was able to attend Ginny Elston’s challenging contemporary landscape class at the Leith School of Art which unfortunately gave me a miserable summer as I tried to assimilate Ginny’s revelatory teaching into my usual style, a union that I seemed unable to forge.
Yet more work! The test was a series of sketches I completed in October on our annual holiday in St Abbs and Coldingham, the 40th anniversary of our first holiday there (only 2020 missed), where Ginny’s efforts to teach me a new looser, more active technique finally came together.
Then, as the consequence of a series of accidents, which is another story for another time, I received a commission to paint a significant local house, Northfield on the cliffs at St Abbs which I will deliver to my client shortly.
Also in October, I was asked to play a private party; my first gig in two and a half years. It was great to be back, performing as my alter ego, the Bluesfather, playing the old songs and two new ones I’d written during the pandemic. Once the dust has settled a bit on the book, I’ll get back to more regular gigging.
But of course, what capped the year was the publication of Land of Stone on 1 December.
- Roger Emmerson