Page 52 - Art First: Helen MacAlister: At the Foot o’ Yon Excellin’ Brae

Mol, shingle praise Mol, shingle praise. A raised beach, a place beyond the
oil on canvas, 2008, 148 x 210cm high tide mark, a place that endures. Shingle as cultural
deposit (this example being Rum). Shingle as speech.
‘Speech has its being in the mass of individuals who use it,
with the run and stress, the direction, depth, and force of
feeling at work. Speech can never be a fixed standard, like
the standard foot; it is a force of life in action, alternately
affecting and itself being played upon’. 1
Mol is a beach or shingle as a noun in Gaelic
but to celebrate, to commend or to praise as a verb.
This painting is a note taken, an account of a malleable
vocabulary. Its visual minimalism is determined by the need
to articulate a simple ‘celebration’.
One turns to John MacInnes for background on
the ‘extending’ of words. “A number of words exist in Gaelic
which certain writers, have lengthened unhistorically. When
an author succeeds in transmitting his individual perception
of a word – its sound, its appearance on a page, or a latent
meaning – to the public context of his work, a hitherto
unrealized potential is made available. In that creative
process a writer puts his own impress on a word: it can
never be quite the ‘same’ word again. Its position in the
language has shifted; its status has been enhanced and
its meaning extended. A major writer alters the language
itself.” 2
Therefore - to plumb and prolong.
Coincidentally, the active ‘doing’ aspect correlates with the
heavy use of the verbal noun in Gaelic – it’s in the offing
and can be revised.

1 Scottish Literature and the Scottish People - David Craig, p240
2 Dùthchas Nan Gàidheal: Selected Essays of John MacInnes, p406
© ‘Original image courtesy of British Geological Survey’

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