Voyaging beyond the bath-tub...

Today, we're working on the website for the schools. It gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger by the day, and still it will only have images and information from a fraction of George Wyllie's work.

There is just so much to sift through, to sort, to assimilate.

George wrote poetry and prose, as well as the art, the music, the drama.

By 1997, he had been writing a monthly column for ArtWork magazine and the columns were later published in a small book, My Words.

Enjoying the discipline of having to write every month, he produced some thought-provoking pieces, questioning the whole idea of art, who it was for, where it could be, what it did.

The articles are going to stimulate a lot of discussion in classes, and working through them today to select examples for pupils has certainly given a clear impression of what he thought, and pupils will see it too. One article which we'll definitely be including for them, written more than 15 years ago now, argues that art has to get out from the confines of the gallery, has to 'voyage beyond the bath-tub'.

Today's blip is a photo of his illustration for that article. It opens...

"... And so, an adventurous voyage is most unlikely in the confined waters of a bathtub, but the illusion of that possibility persists, and is comparable to art that never ventures beyond the gallery."

As well as selecting the words, we've been creating illustrations for this section of the school website, from George Wyllie's own illustrations of his articles.

It's that mix of words, images, music, drama, history, geography in his output which is making it so relevant for a Curriculum for Excellence.

It's also why the site - in development - gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger by the day, and why making it has required a 'voyage beyond the bath-tub'.

For pupils, it will be the same, as they 'raise their vision above the rim'.

Exciting times.