A xylotheque is a library of wood samples, a form devised during the Enlightenment as part of the project to define nature in terms of categories and value. It allowed people to compare the grain, colour, and density of different woods.
I previously made a xylotheque in the form of wood books, each containing a sample of a tree species from the native woodland, for the hidden gardens (Glasgow).
This outdoor xylotheque is sheltered within a hut, built around an oak tree.
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In this new version of a xylotheque, the walking wood, rather than standard rectangular samples, the artwork consists of 12 walking sticks.
Each shaft, or shank, is made from a different native species by my long-term stick-maker collaborator Peter Redhead.
The xylotheque will consist of two permanent external displays, created with Bill Breckenridge, in which the sticks are secured vertically, in rows.
One xylotheque will represent a Lowland wood, the other a Highland wood, with species typical of those ecologies – in this version the only crossover species is oak.
The artwork is gently educative and experiential. Walking sticks remind us that trees cast seeds, so they do move, and the title recalls the scene in Macbeth when “Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane”.
The names of the trees will be added in English and Gaelic.
The final artwork will be installed at the Paths for All Demonstration centre, Oatridge College, near Broxburn, where accessible seat designs and path surfaces are tested. I want the xylotheque to be model the creation of innovative public works of art to communities, to encourage them to commission similar projects, aligned with biodiversity and participative approaches.
The wooded glen contains most of the dozen species in the xylotheque and we will plant saplings for any that we can't locate.
the wood walks
oak, beech, willow
hawthorn, elder, rowan
(lowland)
the wood walks
oak, Scots pine, holly
hazel, silver birch, alder
(highland)
I've come to love the walking stick as a perfect form of poem-object, one capable of holding a poem on it's shank while still being actively used, modestly sculptural, generously supportive, ambulatory, shyly performative, and rustically poetic.
My work as artist in residence with with Paths for All allows me to gift poem-sticks to a number of walking groups, whether as a playful talisman to share on an outing, or remembrance of a friend who has passed on. I like to think of them like a gentle revival of the Kibbo Kift movement.
For my work on limit, pain and chronic illness I've created a series of imaginary demo-sticks with placards added, which you can see here.
And this is an extract from an unpublished manifesto on the humble walking stick.
a walking stick has
the vulnerability of the sapling
and the strength of the full-
grown tree trunk
walks ramble
sticks are straight
and simple
a walking stick
is an extension of the arm
and an imitation of the leg
sticks should be cut in the dead season
when no leaves are to be seen
a walking stick should meet your body
just above the palm
a friendly reminder –
in some cultures
walking sticks were traditionally
decorated with the heads
of politicians
not all sticks swagger
knobbles add character to a stick
as wrinkles do to the walker
Before the sticks become static objects, in the public artwork, we thought we should took them for a walk in the woodlands they are dedicated to. They were walked by groups around Scotland, and Sam MacDiarmid took photos of two of the events, a walk up Barr Mor, at Taynish NNR (with Argyll Live and Tamara Colchester of plant listening), and a walk the Nethy Bridge Paths for All Health Walk, in Dell Wood, (also with Tamara).
Tamara noticed the subtle ways in which the sticks seemed to give people confidence and a more settled stance, as if attuning them to nature.
