Willowbrae

As part of “OUTSIDE”, a site specific installation project at this year’s Maude’s Mud Muster, I was inspires by an old weeping willow, on the banks of the Clyde River at Ratho Farm.

After doing some research via the Ratho Farm website, and the Clyde Company papers, I made a series of thin porcelain panels, strung between 2 branches of the tree, representing the tears of Jane Reid. With her family she emigrated from Scotland at the age of 7. At 14 she married and moved to India with her new husband. At 19 she returned to Ratho, having lost her husband and at different times 2 newborn babies.

My artist statement is a poem that I have titled “Willowbrae”.

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Willowbrae

I am Willowbrae

the roots, the branches,

The embodiment of the memories of the time in the life

of a Scottish lass,

Transplanted at 7 to a foreign land, Van Dieman’s Land. (1822)

They warned Jane’s mother not to go, but they did.

“Terra incognita” no more.

Her father and his workers toil.

They build a fine home, Ratho.

Tea on the lawn, friends.

Fine clothes, green velvet and lace.

On days her heart sings.

Seven years pass.

She leaves for India with a husband, William. (1829)

She writes many, many letters home

Of the regimental life,

Of Belgaum, Poona, Bombay.

Of balls, quadrille parties, formal dinners

Of jasmine, oleander, pomegranate,

Silk, satin and chintz.

But of the heat, the sicknesses, and of loss.

First a baby, living a mere few minutes

And of the yearning for her own dear mother. (1831)

It is after William and another newborn baby are dead,

She returns to her Ratho home, (1834)

She wraps her arms around me, this grief, this yearning,

Her tears fall on the branches

Her tears soak the soil.

Slowly she heals, this place seeps into her bones.

Her childhood gone, yet her memories remain

And they bring her to me.

She makes up stories for her sisters

Of fairies in the enchanted wood

Their voices in the trees a whisper in the wind.

And of the fairy queen on a bed of moss.

She stands still in the quiet

And listens for the sound of the pipes of Fife.