Beyond shortbread: a new craft gallery focuses on Scottish heritage

“It’s time we Scots moved beyond tartan and shortbread as defining our cultural identity,” says the design critic and curator Hugo Macdonald. His new Edinburgh gallery and store Bard seeks to deepen our understanding of the country’s material heritage.

Scotland’s rich culture is born, in part, “from living in tight-knit communities in difficult environments, from which very specific craft traditions have emerged,” he says. “And yet, when people visit the country, they often leave with a vision of Scotland through a romanticised Victorian lens.”

This vision was dubbed “balmorality” by the novelist George Scott-Moncrieff in the 1930s. It described the idealisation of Scottish culture perpetuated by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, after the latter bought Balmoral Castle in 1852, rebuilt it and bedecked it in a pastiche of Scottish baronial style, including tartan and game trophies. It helped put the textile at the forefront of how the wider world saw the country — and Scots too, to a degree.

Bard, a new craft and design destination in an old customs house in the port area of Leith, aims to offer a wider picture. “It’s about looking at who we are through what we make,” says Macdonald. He will launch the business on November 10 with his husband, the architect James Stevens. “It’s called Bard because we’re interested in how objects tell stories.”

These narratives are about people and places, past and present. From the Orkney Islands, for example, Bard offers seating by Kevin Gauld, one of the last people continuing the centuries-old tradition of making Orkney chairs — wooden designs with backs made from handwoven oat straw — and a rug made from plastic fishing rope washed up on beaches, created by tour guide-turned-artisan Mark Cook using historic knotting techniques.

“It’s a fascinating cultural object in itself and a sad indictment of the state of our shores,” says Macdonald.

Elsewhere in the two-floor building, styled as the home of a collector, are leather accessories by Colin Campbell of McRostie, which makes sporrans for the Scottish rugby team, and vernacular island creepie stools — milking stools, with two solid sides and finger holes to enable farmers to move them across the byre with ease — by Cecil Tait of Paparwark.

Alongside these are pieces by artist craftspeople, such as a rippling wall hanging made with seaweed fibres by Jasmine Linington, and a bentwood installation by Naomi Mcintosh, evoking sastrugi — the patterns that wind creates on snow.

It’s an apt time to be looking at “Scottishness”, with momentum for another independence referendum growing. But Bard is not about nationalism, says Stevens, it’s about “the people and skills that make up Scottish cultural identity”. Adds Macdonald: “There’s no political undercurrent.”

Macdonald grew up on the Isle of Skye and will inherit the title of chief of Clan Macdonald — a position extending back to the 12th century — from his father. It carries a weight of history despite no longer wielding power. “Bard is part of the journey to work out what it means to me,” he says. He moved to Edinburgh with Stevens this year, having spent his career to date in London and Hastings as a design journalist, creative consultant and curator of exhibitions such as the Harewood craft biennial in Yorkshire.

It’s an apt time to be looking at ‘Scottishness’, with momentum for another independence referendum growing

Stevens grew up in Dorset, but has developed a deep love for Scotland, spending every opportunity in recent years on road trips with Macdonald. Over the summer, they met more than 60 makers across the Scottish isles, 30 of whom will have work at Bard initially.

In Stevens’s case, a degree of separation has heightened his appreciation of the country’s heritage, sharpening his eyes to aspects others might take for granted. It’s a sensitivity he has noticed among some of the makers who grew up elsewhere too.

Costa Rica-born Juli Bolaños-Durman, for example, creates luminous sculptures out of recycled crystal tumblers and stemware — unloved vestiges of Scotland’s glass production history. She hand-cuts them using lathes donated to Edinburgh College of Art by the Edinburgh Crystal factory when it closed in 2006, collaging them into tropical forms.

“We didn’t have access to such equipment in Costa Rica,” says the artist, who moved to Scotland to study in 2011. “My work is about shifting perspectives, so we can appreciate the value of things anew.”

Bard joins an ever-growing array of retail ventures in the UK dedicated to craft, such as online platform Curio (curio.space) and London store The New Craftsmen. North of the border is development agency Craft Scotland, which offers opportunities for artisans to sell their work in the country and beyond but lacks a permanent gallery. “We felt there was a huge absence of space that brings together a broad spectrum of Scottish craftsmanship and design under one roof,” says Macdonald.

Bard sits beside Custom Lane, a workspace where Bolaños-Durman is based. “It’s the first store to really elevate craft in Scotland and communicate its value,” she says. “Hugo and James have a high standard of execution.”

Collaborations with makers are evolving in a spontaneous way. “We don’t take a top-down approach — we listen to what they are interested in making,” says Stevens. Part of their flair as curators is their outward-thinking attitude, says Catherine Davies, co-founder of basketry company All About Willow on the Isle of Eigg. “They can look at an object and see opportunities.”

In All About Willow’s case, the duo spotted an abandoned experiment to revive the tradition of making lobster pots from willow (rather than plastic). “We thought the pots would make beautiful side tables, with a bit of tweaking to give them stability,” says Stevens.

Next spring Bard will launch its debut exhibition: a portrait of Scottish culture made up of 100 objects chosen by 100 Scots, including politicians and keyworkers. “It’s not for the two of us to define what Scottishness is,” says Macdonald. “It’s born from within.”

Bard-scotland.com

Find out about our latest stories first — follow @FTProperty on Twitter or @ft_houseandhome on Instagram