CRITIC’S CHOICE

enjoyed in day-to-day life such as shops, schools, sports venues and pubs.

Artists – many who have come from all corners of the globe – have also left four key legacies. In 2008, the town’s Room to Roam branding was led by South African artist Jacques Coezter in collaboration with Mike Scott of The Waterboys. This, after Coetzer discovered a poem by the Huntly-born writer George Macdonald (1824-1905) called Room to Roam.

The poem, he felt, expressed something of the town’s attitude to life. When he realised a musical version had been recorded by The Waterboys, a band he had loved growing up and that Mike Scott lived in the area, it was too good an opportunity to miss. Soon the logo had a slogan, and thanks to Scott, a town song.

Other Deveron Projects legacies include; Slow Marathon – the annual artist-led 26-mile walk devised by Ethiopian artist Mhret Kbede; The White Wood (created from an initial idea by French artist Caroline Wendling) and The Weeping Willow, planted last year to mark the UK’s departure from the EU as a symbol of both sadness and healing. This idea was developed by Berlin-based artist Clemens Wilhelm.

Zeiske, whom Schrag describes as “wonderfully brusque”, acknowledges that Huntly as a town still has its problems. All four banks have closed, as have many small shops, including the tourist information office.

Last year Deveron Projects acquired a property on the Square in the heart of the town with the support from the Scottish Land Trust and since taking possession of the shop, it has arranged a programme of community events in the space, including a pop-up Elves’ workshop on December 16.

As a German-born European, with three adult children who grew up in Huntly, Zeiske says she is devastated that Brexit is happening and considers the planting of the Weeping Willow on

Brexit Day in January this year by the banks of the Deveron a defining moment of her time as director. Fellow Europhile, Richard Demarco, unveiled a stone plaque inscribed 31.01.2020.

“At the end of the day, we are still here and we are still loyal to the town,” she says.

“Looking back on the many different residencies the thing that stands out above all is the generosity of the townsfolk in welcoming the artists into the community and making them feel at home, as well as the longstanding international friendships that have been made as a result.”

“We have also been privileged to see the world through the eyes of people whose experiences of it have been so very different to our own, and this has truly enriched us.”

ARTISTS are always first over the line with creative solutions when it comes to challenging circumstances. Dunfermlinebased painter, Kelly-Anne Cairns, who appeared on Sky Portrait Artist of the Year earlier this year, has adapted with aplomb to a raft of personal challenges.

Having moved with her family to Dunfermline, Cairns set up a new studio space at Fire Station Creative, asking herself all the while: “What makes a place a home?”

“I asked myself what was it that I missed and what could I focus on to help make Dunfermline feel more like my new home,” she explains.

“However, during lockdown home took on a whole different meaning.”

Now juggling painting with a job as a pupil support assistant at Inverkeithing High, Cairns has also managed to stage her postponed exhibition, Butterfly Effect, at Fire Station Creative.

The butterfly effect – the idea that small things can have an impact on a complex system – has spread its wings into all the corners of her new body of work.

The result is an affecting suite of paintings based on everyday observations. The interior of her home, ornaments and paintings arranged to make beguiling tableaux, still lifes, spring blossom coming to life in a deserted town and masked staff in Fire Station Creative’s cafe area all conspire to tell a bigger story.

A large oil painting, Unmasked, which depicts the figure of a woman lying on her back, will strike a chord with many. That familiar feeling of freedom mixed in with traces of tension. Painted in Cairns’ trademark loose fashion, with strong colour and brio laced with tenderness, it encapsulates that feeling of relief on letting our guard down at the end of a long day.

Kelly-Anne Cairns: Butterfly Effect, Fire Station Creative, Carnegie Drive, Dunfermline, KY12 7AN, 01383 721 564, kellyannecairns.com, see http://www. firestationcreative. co.uk/home Opening hours while in Tier 3; Wednesday Saturday: 10am 5pm;

Sunday: 11am 4pm; Exhibition runs until January 3