In an extract from her new book, Still Waters & Wild Waves, the artist and illustrator Angela Harding documents the wildlife and landscapes of the Scottish islands Fair Isle and Shetland
Still Waters & Wild Waves includes linocuts and illustrations of island wildlife and landscapes by the author. Composite: Angela Harding
In an extract from her new book, Still Waters & Wild Waves, the artist and illustrator Angela Harding documents the wildlife and landscapes of the Scottish islands Fair Isle and ShetlandToday the UK woke up to a day of excitement. A day of street parties, a national holiday, and celebrations for a new king. It was also day three of gale-force winds on Fair Isle, and it was the day my mother died. A brief phone call from her care home, then the aloneness.
But illogically your own mother’s death is never expected. We were not close, but at that moment that seemed irrelevant. My father had died four years ago so a door had now closed on a past that was gone for ever. It seemed very fitting to stand by this wild sea to take in the news, the wind bending back the curling waves, an aqua-turquoise light topping each wave.Each wave was held suspended by the wind before cascading into white foam and crashing noise.
I had cycled from Westshore to the voe where I hoped to see her and I did not have to wait long. On to the stony shore she came, her colours of greys and browns blending into the background.She moved effortlessly from land to water, her elegant leaps tracking through the circles of ripples, a shadow in the water where the otter had been. On land she moved hunched-backed, with a balancing tail.
This otter was wild but had come so close to me as it had been “rescued” by a man called Billy, three years ago. He had found the otter slumped and starving on the same jetty that I was standing on. Billy and his wife, Susan, nursed the otter, now known as Molly, back to health. I feel very privileged to have met Molly and the lovely family who rescued her.
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