Whilst working on the Highway woodcut I was also working on the panel for ‘The Fertile Island’ this was in part inspired by the river of life as described in the biblical book of Ezekiel in chapter 47 v 1-12 . Here the water flows from the temple and wherever the water flows the land is made fertile again. The imagery is inspired by the islands in Clousta loch on the west side of Shetland that I visited in my float tube, a land where the rhythmical drumming of the snipe is echoed in the patterning of the plants. The Fertile Islands of the lochs are symbols of abundant life, beacons of hope where the flowers and trees are safe to grow. The sprawling vegetation bursts into life in a display of song and the leaves of the trees clap their hands to rhythm of the drumming snipe .All around the fish rise in acknowledgement of this special place.
For years these two prints argued with each other from opposite sides of the studio. On the one side is the hell that humans are capable of inflicting on each other and on the earth, and on the other side is the peace and harmony of the complex beautiful interconnected natural world. I could not reconcile these opposing but equally true visions of the world in my mind until I saw the large crucifixion in the context of the other two blocks. I realised it was a tryptic with the central block acting as a bridge between the other blocks, and I slowly began to see the three pieces as part of a coherent whole.