Friday, December 07, 2007

watch as I get the horn

I beg your indulgence for another strange transgeneric synaptic brainflash; don't worry, I'll keep it brief. There's an article in the Arts supplement in today's Independent about Mark Wallinger, recent winner of the 2007 Turner Prize, and it comes with a large picture of his 2001 work Ghost, which is essentially a photograph of a dark-coloured horse with a narwhal tusk pasted onto its head and then the whole thing flipped into negative, so that it appears to be a white unicorn. Just some fairly low-grade Photoshopping, you might argue, and you might be right, but the final image is quite arresting, I think.

Anyway, probably because of my ramblings about Alan Garner's books in my earlier post, I was instantly reminded of Findhorn, the unicorn that appears fleetingly in Garner's Elidor - the first of his books I ever read, and, as always, heavily influenced by myth and folk-tales, mainly English and Irish in this case. And, I suppose, Scottish, as that's where Findhorn (the place) is. I suppose the "horn" bit was a bit of a temptation when picking a name for a unicorn.

1 comment:

The Black Rabbit said...

Findhorn Bay is one of my most favouritest place sin the UK (or was).
I've seen 7 Ospreys fish the bay simultaneously, over the bay - incredible stuff.

It somes up a lot of Scotland in my view.
Unbeatable in sunny weather, but a completely different kettle of fish most of the time.

By the way, I hear Findhorn bay is now some sort of hippy refuge. I reckons you'd lavv it there bate...