I, with geological companions Kitty and Lucy, have just returned from the remote Aird Mhor and Aird Bheag peninsulas on the border between Harris and Lewis to experience the art of Julie Brook. These areas are only accessible by boat and are often accessed by walks on steep pathless land. With no other people encountered, it was possible to experience a very direct response to the landscape, rocks and art.
The boat pickup point at Hushinish slipway is on Lewisian metamorphic rock (‘gneiss’) which has an age of 3.1 billion years - the oldest known rocks known in Britain and Western Europe. Waiting for the boat, we could appreciate these rocks knowing that they have endured for most of the lifetime of the Earth (4.5 billion years).
We climbed to the crest of hills made of granite sheets and intrusions formed during Laxfordian times 1.9 billion years ago. We speculated that the white hard rock core of summits stretching north along the Uig Hills might be anorthosite - a similar resistant rock forms the highlands on the Moon.
Glaciers in the past 2 million years provided the final polish to the landscape and created distinctive north-south U-shaped valleys and steep slopes. Some of these late erosional features may have been focused along structures formed more than a billion years beforehand.
Julie said “When I came here this felt like an old landscape. Now I know why it is”.
We explored the relationship between geology and Julie’s recently completed work ‘Surrag Path’, a staircase along the side of a sharp-sided valley. When viewed from the sea on our approach, the valley looked like a fault or fracture zone which had then focused water flowing as the glaciers melted, bringing boulders and coarse rocks to wedge in the gulley. Selecting the stones for this staircase had required Julie and her team to scour the surrounding land for stones that would fit together. We saw boulders and stones perched by nature on the crests of hills and along ridges, suggesting that material had lain in position for thousands of years since the glaciers retreated.
We also looked at the ‘Winter Wall’, viewed the site of ‘Firestacks’ from above, and a new work in progress on the flanks of Meall nan Sithean.
We benefitted from the warmest of welcomes from Julie and her strong, dynamic, experienced and capable leadership; deepening connection borne of time together; walking on ancient hills; exhilarating travel by boat; fighting the midges; nurturing and rescuing dogs; music and singing in the evenings; and animated conversations over home-cooked food.
Julie as an artist responds to the shape of landscape, to the sense of isolation, with the choice of materials, and through the hard labour of construction. Earth scientists look for patterns in nature and delight in storytelling of the origin of our planet. We are connected by our human response in awe of an exceptional remote natural environment.
Lewisian gneiss at Hushinish - the oldest rocks in Britain
Ascending Laxfordian anorthosite(?) hills
Looking north at the edge of a glacial valley formed along an older fault line
Looking east along the gulley which hosts ‘Surrag Path’
The intrepid Milly on ‘Surrag Path’
An ancient landscape, North Harris, Outer Hebrides
Julie Brook
https://juliebrook.com
Brook, J., Groom S., Harris, A., Jikinyum R and Macfarlane, R.2023. What is it that will last? Land and tidal art of Julie Brook.
https://www.lundhumphries.com/products/what-is-it-that-will-last
Fettes, D J, Mendum, J R , Smith, D I and Watson, J V 1992 Geology of the Outer Hebrides: Memoir for 1:100 000 (solid edition) geological sheets, (Scotland). British Geological Survey.
Friend, C and Kenny, P. 2001 A reappraisal of the Lewisian Gneiss Complex: geochronological evidence for its tectonic assembly from disparate terranes in the Proterozoic. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology 142, 198–218
Goodenough, K M and Finlayson, A. 2006. The geodiveristy of the Isle of Harris: statement of significance and identification of opportunities. British Geological Survey report CR/07/032N
https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/7490/1/CR07032N.pdf