This painting has a theme of economics, and the similarities of economic change in both of our countries, particularly in the northeast of Scotland and the southwestern area of Virginia.
In the top of the painting can be seen the silhouetted shapes of the medieval-style buildings of the Aberdeen skyline. Aberdeen's past, before the city was born, depended upon the economics of medieval serfdom and the laird/tenant relationship by which the land was worked.
The buildings toward the middle represent that same fishing community of Fittie, mentioned earlier in relation to another painting, where the fishing industry provided economic solvency during the early 1900's. But today, immediately behind the granite dwellings of Fittie, can be seen the oil tanks, looming large on the horizon. For today, Aberdeen is a city known for its successful oil industry, and people come from all different countries to live and work there because of the opportunities available in oil.
So of course, I thought about home, and the ups and downs of our economic situation that has so depended upon mining.
The whittling hands, therefore, are the hands of a miner on strike, whittling while he waits to see what will happen next. The clouds that emerge as a subtle image behind everything, are representing how life moves on, in spite of our daily trials that sometimes seem like the end of the world...a job is lost, a worker is laid-off...and yet the sun comes up and the clouds move on. This painting is owned by Mary Lawson.
Ellen Elmes
PO Box SVCC
Richlands, VA 24641-1101
email: ellen.elmes@sw.edu
phone: 276.964.7205
fax: 276.964.7720