Seeing The Big Picture

“At the beginning of March 2006 the big painting, An Dealbh Mòr, will be placed on the floor of the cafeteria area of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic College in Skye, next door to our school. We will perform on the painting with the audience looking from the balconies above. The performance will explore the geological evolution of Skye. This gives us an exciting excuse to re-enact the volcanic explosions that formed the Cuillin.”
An extract from a press release issued by school children involved in Lasair Ealain (Blaze of Light) details the group’s first major undertaking, An Dealbh Mòr (the big picture).  This event is an ambitious visual arts and performance project and is run by a group of school pupils from Sleat in the Isle of Skye. Children are from both the Gaelic and English streams of the school and they have, with the help of parents and teachers, constituted themselves as Lasair Ealain with the intention of establishing different arts projects such as An Dealbh Mor.  In doing so they also get hands-on experience of dealing with invoices, fund-raising, balance sheets and so forth in addition to benefiting from their involvement in creative arts projects.

During the first phase of the Dealbh Mor project from April to October 2005, school children explored the landscape and environment with artists based in south Skye. Back in school their observations and sketches were worked up into charcoal drawings and watercolour paintings.  This work in turn formed the basis of a successful interim exhibition at an arts centre in Portree.
Following on from this initial phase the pupils produced a larger charcoal drawing(3m x 4.8m) and from this the 9m x 14m Dealbh Mòr (the big picture) was completed in richly pigmented acrylic paints. The Dealbh Mòr doubles as the floor cloth on which the final aspect of the project involving music and dance takes place. The children have collaborated with a composer to create the music and sounds and in addition have been working with a choreographer to explore, through dance, Skye’s geological past.

Because Lasair Ealain chimes so well with the LEADER + theme of innovation in teaching skills to young people and since it also contributes to the sense of community and economy in a peripheral area, it received funding just over £36,000. This contribution from LEADER + represents nearly half the total budget, the other percentage being funded by a combination of bodies including the Scottish Arts Council and Highland Council topped up with local inputs and substantial ‘in kind’ contributions. Performances on An Dealbh Mor take place in March 2006 and these will be complemented by exhibitions of working drawings and paintings, the big charcoal drawing, together with a photographic and film record of the whole project in progress.