Angus McPhee

• Illustration — The ruined crofthouse at Iochdar, South Uist, where Angus McPhee was brought up Whilst an inmate of Craig Dunain he met Joyce Laing, an art therapist. Under the influence of Jean Dubuffet and others, she was searching, with the playwright Tom McGrath, for 'Art Brut' artists. Laing was able to rescue a number of pieces of work by MacPhee which are now in the collection of the Pittenweem 'Art Extraordinary Gallery'. She wrote the book Angus McPhee: Weaver of Grass for an April 2000 exhibition for the Taigh Chearsabhagh Art Trust in Lochmaddy, and she continued to visit MacPhee until his death. He was said to have silently seen his works simply swept up with the autumn leaves whilst a resident in the hospital. In Roger Hutchinson's The Silent Weaver ' he develops a case for seeing MacPhee's weaving as a way of Angus finding his way back to a kind of health or mental equilibrium by creatively using traditional craft skills and developing them into a unique form of expression. • Illustration — Close up of a woven grass tunic made by Angus McPhee at Craig Dunain Hospital In 1997 the Mackenzie Sisters included a self-written song ' A'fighe le feur' (Weaver of Grass) on their first album Camhanach, inspired by the unusual story of Angus MacPhee. Sung in Gaelic the English translation of the opening is "Have you ever heard a stranger sound than Angus MacPhee knitting with grass?". In 2004 Donnie Munro (ex-Runrig) included his song ' Weaver of Grass ' inspired by the story of Angus MacPhee in his album Fields of the Young '. In 2004, a documentary was made of his life by Nick Higgins: Hidden Gifts: The Mystery of Angus MacPhee (IMDb), which won the 2005 Britspotting award. This includes some home-movie footage of Angus back in Uist, towards the end of his life. The Silent Weaver by Roger Hutchinson was published in 2011, the fullest and best researched account yet of MacPhee's life and his place as an artist. His story has also been developed as a theatre production, called Angus – Weaver of Grass ', by Horse and Bamboo Theatre which has toured extensively in the Highlands and Islands during the summers of 2012 and 2013, also appearing in London, Oxford and Lancashire. The Caithness fibre artist, Joanne B Kaar, has worked alongside Horse + Bamboo Theatre on their production, and directly with Joyce Laing. In the process she has rediscovered the techniques used by Angus McPhee and has recreated some of his garments both for the theatre production, for the collection in Pittenweem, and for Scottish Museums. In 2011/2012 artist Mike Inglis incorporated textures and outfits directly influenced by the stories and artefacts of Angus into his 65-metre permanent Public Art wall installation in Inverness. He is developing a new work entitled "Chasing the Ghost of Angus McPhee" supported by Creative Scotland and University of Edinburgh research grants which further develops themes surrounding Scottish identity and culture as well as his own obsession with Angus, and explains Joyce Laing's involvement, was presented at the European Outsider Art Conference (2022).