Atlantis Again

Atlantis Again1
Atlantis Again 2

Title: ATLANTIS AGAIN 1 and 2
Size: 90 cms w x 75 cms h
Date: 2008/9


ATLANTIS AGAIN 1 was a commission. I found I had more to say about the subject so I wove a second piece. I made four different drawings at the outset, with the sea in different moods and intend eventually to weave them all.

The original commission brief was for the design to be about northern coastlines, the liminal space between the tides and perhaps with Orkney landscapes in mind. The other strand was to address global warming in some way. I have worked with the megalithic landscapes of Orkney in contrast with current events before (Summerstones and the Orkney Stones series) so I was pleased to address the past with the future in these pieces.

Thinking about how rising sea levels might affect the Orkney Islands, I was reminded of the story of Atlantis, islands of legend, or were they? If the Orkneys were to disappear under the waves in the future how would it happen, by slow incremental drowning or by stormy inundation? And how long before the Orkneys too became lost, remembered only in legend?