The Writing Room

New site just launched - for literary agent Maggie McKernan's consultancy The Writing Room.  Featuring llustrations and hand drawn type from this stable!  We did the site design and build too.

On the head

Screen shot of Anna Kornahrens Millinery holding page, done last year. Normally I'd want to lock the scaling of an image but here it's been left. The changing proportions are rather good. The original image was not great quality. Some photoshop magic applied in the den.

The piece shown has reflective edges. Meaning pretty amazing optical effects!

Anna is working for other milliners (Gina Foster, Karen Henricksen and Noel Stewart) at the moment, making hats for various big name pop stars and numerous designer collections. She'll have more of her own stuff available to view soon. And she's always available for commissions...

The West Lothian Solar System

Now that it's getting nice again you should go and visit some or all of the Kirkhill Pillar Project sculptures, launched last summer. Shown left is the Pluto sculpture, located in Beecraigs Country Park.

11 pieces of art in West Lothian are the outcome of this fascinating community arts project, making a sculpture trail around the landscape. The centre of this new solar system is the Sun, a giant lightbox on top of Broxburn Academy. My favourite sculpture is Neptune, shown below. It's a stained glass lantern on the church at Kingscavil.

The project is inspired by, and re-creates, a scale model solar system built in the area in the 18th century by the Earl of Erskine. The Kirkhill Pillar itself, the keystone of the original group of planets, is inscribed with astronomical tables. The demolition of Kirkhill House meant the Pillar had to be relocated; it is now outside the visitor centre in Almondell & Calderwood Country Park. Almondell is one of the hidden gems of West Lothian. Beautiful place. The visitor centre is an old stable block with a walled garden beside the river.

Access is easy from Edinburgh and Glasgow. There's a map on the site, Along with directions for several walks. You can also reach the sculptures by bicycle, making use of the canal tow-path. The project is managed by Artlink Edinburgh and the Lothians, who appointed Lorna Waite and Donald Urquhart as lead writer & lead artist to work with a group of local people. If you'd like Artlink to post you a fold-out map, drop them a line. Loved working with them on the project.

Archive: from approx 100 years ago

For writer Alice Maddicott's site . Censer/Chandelier/City.

Alice Maddicott is also here (blog) and here (site From The Den, illustration: Alice Stevenson).

n.b. update - alice's site has come down for a rebuild; the censer/chandelier/city will be re-used!