Debbie’s Life by Song

As a homage to ‘Desert Island Discs’ and as an introduction of sorts to me and my life so far I thought I would give you my life in discs.

Be warned it’s not cool, by doing this process I have found out I have little class but that I am perhaps surprisingly a bigger optimist than I thought. Here comes a whole heap of honesty lead by a very cheesy sound track.

When I ask most people what the 1st song they bought they have some cool answer, in my husbands case it is a Pink Floyd LP. In my case it was a tape, because like so many people my age I sourced most of my early music by recording songs onto blank tapes from Sunday nights weekly countdown of the Top 40. It was undoubtably illegal but it gave a generation access to music and coupled with a Sony Walkman it was fantastic.

Track 1 - Im in the Mood for Dancing by the Nolan Sisters.

Yes that’s the 1st tape I bought and not cool I know - The Nolan Sisters, Altogether, bought solely for the song , ‘I’m in the mood for dancing’ . In my defence I was young, probably 10ish. Now as I type this I so hope my best friend of this time, Kathleen, reads this. We were armed with not just personal sterios, 1 bought, but many bootleg tapes and roller boots. Oh I remember that time with utter happiness. Skating everywhere listening to music and loving it. It was freedom and fun before we became teenagers and more self conscious. I was very lucky to have Kathleen in my life she was/is an extrovert, a lover of life, a breaker of boundaries and it rubbed off on me. As a natural introvert I needed that sidekick to make me do things my mother didn’t like, to live life more.

So thank you, Kathleen, we had a brilliant time, and many tales to be told x

Track 2 - Hold on Tight to Your Dreams by ELO

Without a doubt whenever in doubt or need of a pick up I listen to ELO and this particular song reminds me to do just that. Hold on Tight to My Dreams.

I spent an enormous amount of time drawing as a teenager and was unbelievably lucky to have attended the school I did. Lochaber High School. We had a huge art department, and fantastic teachers. Mr Smyth, the head of the department taught me rules to drawing and colour that have stayed with me still, but it was Mr McDermid who taught me to feel what I was drawing, to look further, I still remember him asking me to feel where the tension was in a person who posed for life drawing, and to emphasis that line, to bring that feeling to the drawing. I look for those key lines that give strength in every drawing I do.

As for the music - I can remember listening the this track on route to interviews or port folio drop offs for Art School submissions, when wondering what to do next at the end of my time at Glasgow School of Art and at every point when I needed that guidance and reassurance. Cool, or not it’s a goodie.

Track 3 - Walk of Life by Dire Straits

Oh why did they have to be Lady Diana’s favourite band as ultimately this made them uncool too. But I realise that there is a link to ELO in that Mark Knoffler made his instruments talk, just like Jeff Lynne. did. Dire Straits were an influence from my brothers music taste, but unlike AC/DC or Status Quo they stuck, probably more for me than him. My brother is a favourite person, someone who believed in me and told me so. As for Dire Straits, I listened to them through my school exams, often in times when I felt that teenage awakening of not belonging, been an odd one out that thought and saw things differently. It took a long time for me to realise that a lot of people who choose art in their life’s have that feeling too.

Track 4 - Good Thing by Fine Young Cannibals.

The Album the Raw & the Cooked was the album of my Art School years at Glasgow School of Art. This music takes me back to that time by music time travel. Art School is not the gift that many think it is as far as cultivating confidence in your art is concerned. Tutors of that era seemed to teach by the not constructive critism line. As in just constant critism about both you and your work. But I made friends for life cultivated a work ethic that still stand and did learn masses about colour and composition and the importance of been an individual in what you do.

Track 5 - Shiny Happy People by R.E.M

The summer after Art School, A road trip to the French Alps in my flat mate Nicks car with one of my still most valued friends Kim. Kim I love you. This song, climbing and dancing in the town square in Verdon was a time of magic, before we finally had to grow up.

Track 6 - Never Tear Us Apart - INXS

After art school I moved to the little town of Keith. I was one of the few textile graduates to get a placement through the Scottish Textile Association as a trainee woven textile designer. The Scottish Mills were in decline though and the mill I worked for, Robert Laidlaws, closed its doors shortly after my year there. This year however marked the year when I met Ian my husband a meeting that ofcourse made changes to my life several times over. And yes he was standing and I was there. I don’t think many people would have put us together, we are very different. He is logical and I follow my intuition more often than not. He is a Vet by career and to say he doesn’t really get art and what I do would be fair I think. But we work, I loved him at 1st sight, (that’s my intuition and his daisy jumper) and are still here 30 years later.

Track 7 - Why Does It Always Rain On Me - Travis

Well this is not the most optimistic of songs is it. But it marked a time at the end of the 1990s clearly for me and because it was so apt I listened to it a lot. I went from working at the mill in Keith back to Glasgow and worked for a few years for Trespass as an outdoor clothing designer. After a time when I simply didn’t know what to do, when my years placement was up, I started making fleeces and salopettes for Ian to use when winter climbing. My other simply the best friend from Art School Alison, (I love you too Ali) sent me an advertisment for a junior design job at Tresspass. I was not qualified, but, made a CV in the form of a paint chart colour cards like Dulux do that you fan out. They interviewed me on that CV saying they fely they had to meet that person and gave me the job solely on my brass neck and my drawing skills. It was bloody hard work, stressful and I cried A LOT. I didn’t fit in, all the other designers were graduates from Galashiels fashion course and didn’t think I should be there. But again I learned loads. I left, travelled a bit, India and Indonesia, came home to shortly after take up a job with Vango/ Phoenix in Port Glasgow. Different again, full of egos and long hours, but learned even more especially about time management and the ability to stand up and talk about my work. Hence the Why Does It Always Rain in Me, I was always working. In 1999 after been here a few years Ian moved to New Zealand and I really did think the world was raining on me. After a few months he asked me to join him and I made the most difficult choice to leave my career and a decent wage and move to the other side of the world. Right Choice, in so many ways. BUT oh so Scary.

Track 8 - Somewhere by Tom Waites (from Westside Story)

So here I am in NZ naively thinking I could get a job with one of their outdoor companies and would get a work visa easily - UGH NO. We found as place to live a house sit but there was a few stipulations to living there. The first was the cat got to sleep in the bed, next was that there would be piano lessons going on and finally and for me most importantly the weekly gatherings of ladies that came to do lace making and textiles was to carry on. Those classes were an unbelievably important time for me. I found my love of textiles again, I learned patience and finishing and a very wise lesson that you don’t have to go to art school to be good at these things. Art School did fine tuned my eye though and gave me something a little extra, my individuality.

Somewhere in amongst all of this I also at the age of 30 got pregnant. I always say my first daughter was a surprise, she was and I was unsure and scared. We weren’t married, I didn’t have any income of my own and I was on the other side of the world from my family and close friends for support. I heard this song, and played it for me and my unborn child, Isla, my child of collecting of stories, of wanting better for the world, my truely lovely friend, I played it over and over again, and there is as it says somewhere a place for us.

Whilst pregnant I not only made a baby, I made, sewed, drew, and painted and it didn’t stop after she was born. How I made so many things in this time I don’t know. It was a prolific time of creating for me.

We stayed in NZ for about 3 years, living laterally in a van, returning to Scotland, with absolutely nothing, a 1 and a bit year old and unknowingly pregnant with my second daughter, Shona, my full of fun girl, my difficult teen, my stubborn but so determined one.

Track 9 - Harvest Moon by Neil Young

Well return we did, for a brief time to Glasgow where Shona was born and then onto where we have stayed since to Caithness. We did get married, eventually, and this was the song we played at our wedding. says it all really. I started creating art pieces in between everything else that a young family brings. only a handful a year to start with. My 3rd daughter was born 2007, in 2009 I had my first show of a collection of my work at Lyth Art Centre, here in Caithness. This was the start of my landscape type art, 24 pieces on show of which 21 sold. That was it I was off and running.

Track 10 - Dancing Queen by ABBA

This song really could have been up there with The Nolan Sisters as my 1st track. It marks a time of 3 daughters dancing with me in the kitchen. We would often have happy nights dancing to a play list of songs from our youth. Ian as the DJ. As a full circle my girls took me last year to see ABBA Voyage. And we danced.

I started to look for galleries to show my work and found a few, this was all I needed as time was a premium, and my work sold, not always quickly but it did sell.

Track 11 - Pencil Full of Lead by Paulo Nutini

As I get older I go back to that up beat song choice again. Paulo Nutini, Mika, Paloma Faith, Kate Melua amonsgst others are the car music that accompanied me and my girls on out regular granny trips south. I could have chosen any but as I still listen to Paulo Nutini it seemed the best choice. Caithness is it seems 5 hours to everywhere, so we did a lot of singing to music on route. Journeys became an important part of my life, travelling through the landscape of Scotland.

In 2016 I took the plunge and had my first big exhibition at what was then called Caithness Horizons in Thurso. This was 36 pieces of work and it depicted the journey from John O Groats to Ullapool - as I made the work it was called the North Coast Alternative Tourist Route, as my exhibition started the route became part of the North Coast 500. I sold 28 pieces and was blown away by the reception to my work.

Track 12 - Stay Alive by Jose Gonzalez

For now I’ll finish here. This ones for my youngest daughter, my quiet one, with an inner strength and wit, Cara. We have a favourite film together - The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Yes, its weird and wonderful and says loads about me. A dreamer and creator and a never giving upper. From this film I discovered this song, beautiful just like Cara.

At the beginning of 2021 I was offered the opportunity to have the Thurso art Gallery space at the library. We were in lockdown but could walk. So I chose to make work for the first time about the walks that I went on. All were in Caithness close to home home due to the restrictions during this time. Many of the walks were with my family, I felt them in the work. Whilst making the work for this exhibition my middle daughter became seriously ill, an autoimmune disease and not a good one. It affected her air ways, it was/is scary, I say is because it will always be with her. I worked through her many times in hospital, my art became super important to me. I took walks with her when she could manage, these moments were fed into my work, it became important to have place and person present. Again this exhibition was received brilliantly.

So this song is also for Shona, my middle daughter, she’s doing ok right now but the message is clear. xx

And if you want to listen here’s the link to a playlist I made in Spotify - Debbie’s Life by Song

Finally, I have also had 2 further solo exhibitions, one in The Loft Gallery in St Margaret’s Hope Orkney in the summer of 2022 and one in the Alchemist Gallery in Dingwall in November 2022 through to the beginning of 2023.