Art and Port Glasgow

Starting to clear out the final dark scatterings in the attic of the auld house and what do I find? This amazing charcoal done by an old school friend who remains a close friend to this day. I put it up in my living room today, and it's really beginning to feel like my place.
I thought about what I said about Art and imagining. That sometimes we feel that Art only happens in rarefied circles of metropolitan media-machines, of the big noise fraternity. In that other piece about Stanley Spencer, I found it stunning that such a backwater wee place as the Port could find a niche among the artsy-smartsy's. Of course this was rubbish, we use imagination where we find ourselves , to transform our localities into universalities that can connect with another mind or heart no matter where they live on the planet.

And I give you exhibit A: this charcoal masterpiece done in Port Glasgow, about Port Glasgow by a Portonian. We see the Clyde, we see the broken sticks of the old timber ponds, we see a figure trying to reconnect to nature against an ominous sky and a hourglass where time is running away.
I am always moved by this drawing. The artist and myself often used to talk about growing up bordered by the river on one side and farmland behind, yet somehow being out of step with nature. As if the Port was this wee urban enclave detatched from its surroundings. It's all there when I look at it. Yet I bet it touches and moves others with completely different life experiences. Art, by the way.

We used to go for a lot of walks up the backroads of the Port talking nonsense, talking half-formed ideologies, talking the occasional sense. One night that I've always kept with me was when we were up at Pennies Arch, halfway between the Port and Kilmalcolm. It was pitch dark. My friend pointed to the starry sky.
"Look"' he said pointing upwards. I couldn't see anything until I finally caught this dot of light moving through the stars.
"Is that a shooting star?", I asked like a numpty.
"Nope, it's a satellite."
It seems fairly humdrum from this remove, but this completely blew my small town mind down there in the dark trying to get a grip on what I was seeing. I felt my world enlarged that night. And, truth be told, his company is always great fun, fascinating and never dull.