Fauldhouse (Fallahill) Art Project
Our remit for this initial part of the project was to engage with groups within the community of Fauldhouse.
We began by visiting various established groups within Fauldhouse to raise the awareness to the project and assess interest and gather information.
Groups visited:
Young At Heart (Beild Residential Housing) - around 60 ladies were in
attendance at this meeting
Monday Club (Miners’ Welfare) - around 25 ladies in attendance
Over 50s Club (St Andrews Church Hall) - approximately 50 people in attendance
Masonic Hall - spoke with barmaid and a small number of men in the bar
Miners’ Welfare - spoke with Peter Calson (President) and Sandy Bell
(Treasurer)
Art Group (FCDT)- 8-10 ladies in attendance
Take A Break Craft Group (FCDT) - 8-10 ladies in attendance
Sewing With Sandra (FCDT) - 8-10 ladies in attendance
St John the Baptist RC Primanry School - spoke with Deputy Headteacher, Matthew Culson
Falla Hill Primary School - spoke with Headteacher, Martin McCusker
We visited the local library who were generous enough to lend us reading material to assist with our research
We also spent some time meeting with individuals to gather information:
Robert Lee, local historian and former councillor
Peter Neilson, ex-miner
Hughie McCanna, ex-miner
Geordie Woods, ex-miner
The above have all taken part in personal interviews which we plan to make into a short archive film, this is still ongoing
We visited the Scottish Parliament to meet with Neil Findley MSP
Spent time in the local Cafe (Betty Boop) speaking to ex- miners and local business people
Workshops commenced in July 2019.
Working with the Art Group who meet in The Hub on a Monday, Billy introduced the ladies to portraiture in the medium of charcoal.
We spent some time gathering images of Fauldhouse folk past and present. A Facebook Page, “Old Fauldhouse”
provided a wealth of great images that we felt might be appropriate for the workshop.
To begin with Billy talked to the group about his own personal practice as an artist, showing a selection of his own work.
Participants were invited to choose a subject to work from. Billy then demonstrated how to square up and transfer the image from an A4 photograph to an A3 drawing.
During the workshop we chatted about the people in the photographs, remembering some of the characters from Fauldhouse past and present.
Nine portraits were created during the 2 session workshop. It is hoped that these can be exhibited alongside other works at a future date in the village.
Rag Rug Workshop
Rag rugs would at onetime have been commonplace in the homes around Fauldhouse. Floor coverings were expensive and people made their own hearth rugs and runners from sacking and old clothes. Mrs. Margaret Findlay recounted her mother making many rugs to support her family after her husband, Margaret’s father, was injured in the pit and unable to work. Mrs. Findlay tells this story in one of our short videos and shows the tool her mother used to make her rugs.
Ailsa has created a number of decorative rag rugs with community groups over the years and it was decided this would be a nice way to record some mining imagery relating to Fauldhouse.
Images taken from conversations: a fossil (fossil fuels), miners, a coal scuttle, a canary, a lamp, badges from the Miners’ Strike, a jam piece (the miners took jam pieces for their break as it was one sandwich that would not go off in the heat of the mine) and a mouse (one lady had recounted a story of her father talking about mice in the pit and how she always wished he would bring her one home as a pet - he never did.
Using a light-box the images were transferred onto a piece of hessian. The ladies then worked with strips of coloured fabric to create their pieces.
Cast Fossil Workshop
The energy we get from coal comes from the energy that plants absorbed from the sun millions of years ago.
The sun warms the leaf… fossil fuels reheat
Project - To work with 1 class over the period of one day.
The aim of the session is to create low relief tiles on the theme of fossils relating to the area's fossil fuel history.
Working with primary 6 classes at St John’s and Falla Hill Primary Schools the children used leaves from trees found around the local area to create impressions in clay from which they took plaster casts.
We worked with 50 children over 2 days
Annual Fair Day, September 7th
We felt the Annual Fair Day would be a good opportunity to engage with a large number of local people and were keen to attend.
We offered a printing workshop relating to leaf forms and Fossil Fuels.
The fair was really well attended and we were kept busy with people wanting to have a go at
our unusual printing technique. Both children and adults participated and some fantastic prints resulted from their efforts.
The workshop provided us with the opportunity to chat with people and discuss the possibilities for the Mining Tribute. Some residents brought along photographs for our research purposes.
Others recounted their memories of growing up in Fauldhouse.
We felt the day was a great success and were pleased to have taken part.
Having completed the workshops and undertaken our period of research it was time to get down to the business of designing our Mining Tribute. During the public engagement sessions people had been keen to find out our ideas for the tribute. We kept our ideas under wraps as we wanted to be fully confident in our designs. Our ideas also changed over time. Ones first idea is not always the best one, initial ideas that we had discussed together were soon put to one side as other ideas evolved. Working as a team we brainstormed and sketched, not always agreeing. We looked at Mining Tributes across the country and wanted our design to stand out as different. Many pieces have a distinct similarity, we wanted ours to be “unique” (if indeed such a thing is possible)
We presented our three designs to the steering group on November 7th. The following pages show our preliminary maquettes/design concepts.
The group chose Concept 1, a decision we are delighted with. We will now work up this design for planning.
Design Concept 1 Fauldhouse Folk
Plasma-cut from Corten Steel. A group of miners walking from the pit.
Women with a banner - this will feature text to be decided.
Tools of the trade to be added and a child figure also to be added as design is developed.
Design Concept 2
Shedding Light in Dark Places - the story of the miner’s lamp
Constructed from sheet corten steel a low relief miner inset on one side,
raised on the other highlighted by his shadow.
Design Concept 3
Strength - Power - Teamwork
Constructed from a combination of Corten and galvanised mild steel.
The piece depicts the power of the worker in action.
A variation on the previous images
