A Castle Full of Art and Memories

For our Scottish Culture Colloquium class we have to submit a journal entry every week. This week's topic was art. I already had written a blog about my Stirling experience, but I thought I would include this entry as well. I hope you enjoy.

Hillary Walker

Journal #9

A Castle Full of Art and Memories

I am a visual person and love to see new things. My camera will almost never leave my side because of the desires to capture the beauty I see in the world. I like to take a photo that will come alive, a photo that makes something that normally is a small thing into something that catches people's eyes, and makes them think more about the world around them.

I often wonder about the need us humans have to capture the beauty of the world. Why make art? What is it about the recreation of what was created that really satisfies something within us. I think it is because we were created in the image of God, Who is the ultimate creator. So there is a need to create and make beauty that was instilled in us by Him. This desire, to create and make beauty, crosses every culture and goes back thousands of years. It is what sets us apart from the animals of the world. We create environments; they seem to just create dwelling places.

Ali, Meredith and I went to Stirling Castle this weekend. It was a beautiful day and the buildings came alive with the shadows that were created because of the sun's presence. The first place we went to was the Great Hall. The building contrasted to the others around it, because it had a smooth white texture, while the others were the traditional gray stonework.

Inside was a large open room with beautiful woodwork. At the front of the hall were two ordinate wooden chairs set in front of a long wooden table. The table was thick and seemed as though nothing could easily move, or break it. I realized that they were replicas of past furniture, but it did not take away my pleasure in the entire place as a whole.

The hall didn't appear to be as old as it was. What really kept the historic feel were the large stained glass windows that had several Scottish crests designed into them. They were large windows that went from floor to ceiling. Because all the little frames of glass were not completely filled in with color, the windows actually let in quite a bit of light that lit up the Great Hall and made the colors therein more vibrant.

We went to look in the chapel and again I was greeted with a room full of color. I read a couple of the information boards and learned how they built the chapel in order to hold a baptism celebration of Prince Henry in 1594. It said that the king assembled all the best workmen in the land to build it and paid them very generously because of it.

I thought back to those times and realized that that probably was the highest job possible for an artist. To work for the king had to be the highest honor. To be paid well, work for the king, and have your art be a part of history forever had to be a high honor.

The chapel had a beautiful freeze that was painted around the top of it. The painting was a mass of lines and borders. It also had great detail with symbols and icons that I don't think I could begin to interpret. What I thought was interesting was at the back of the chapel there was a window painted onto the wall. It said that they painted it to match the real window directly across from it. I laughed when I saw that. It was as though they ran out of money or time for the real thing so they went a different route.

Also in the chapel were replicas of the unicorn tapestries that are found in the Museum of Scotland. I had not seen the originals, but I would enjoy seeing them based on the replicas. I liked how each piece of work was like a story. I later found the weaver's workshop and was able to stand and watch an actual weaver create one of the tapestries. She had a large loom that sat upright in front of her, and she was using many colors of string (or yarn, not sure what it is called) to make the tapestry.

I imagined, as I watched her, that she was the original weaver of the unicorn tapestries. Perhaps she had lived in a small village far away from the castle, then her work won such acclaim that the king heard of it and sent for her to come and work at the castle. I took a picture of her and afterwards found out I was not suppose to have my camera out. Oops! I tend to do that a lot.

I enjoyed my time thoroughly while at the castle. After a couple hours, the girls wanted to go eat. I asked to stay behind and said I would meet up with them later. I still had one place I wanted to find.

Six years earlier I had come to Stirling Castle with my brother Colin. We were touring Scotland and the U.K. together. I was sixteen at the time. We had come to Stirling on a day tour. Because of lack of funds, we did not go inside of the castle. Instead we walked around the paths that surrounded the castle, and through the cemetery of the church near by.

What I was searching for was a small hill. I could not remember where it was around the castle, I only knew I had to find it. It was at that place that my brother and I sat down and ate our lunch together. It had a lovely view of the castle and countryside surrounding it. It was on that hill that we took a photo that will always be my favorite picture of our time in Scotland. We used a film camera back then, so our pictures were more selective than those of today, I remember the time Colin took to set up his camera and set the timer.

The picture had us sitting a few feet away from each other. We weren't looking at the camera smiling, but instead we sat there with contemplative looks, our faces were turned towards the horizon. That photo is forever imprinted in my memory. It is a piece of art to me, even though it would never be seen as such to others. I remember in a way the beauty of Scotland and how it affected me then, and how it affects me now.

As I sat there on that hill by myself, overlooking a beautiful countryside that hadn't seemed to change since the last time I was sitting there, I remembered the past and realized that my time now will soon be the past. It will soon be just another memory. It made me sad, but I also looked forward to the future and I realized that I had more adventures to come, and more things to see.

In order to capture the beauty of the moment- I took a picture.