A bird is not a stone

No two days the same.

Today it's the Advanced Higher Art & Design class at Strathaven Academy, South Lanarkshire which has investigating George Wyllie's work and working on designs for a paper boat to go into the exhibition at The Mitchell.

I thought about putting up a photo of all the students working intently on their designs but in the end decided on a shot of one of the draft designs for decorating that boat.

They have been investigating different aspects of George Wyllie's work and this design is inspired by a poem which he wrote...

A Bird is Not a Stone

a bird
is
not
a stone

GW

The poem itself was inspired by an incident when Wyllie created a 30ft bird scul?ture and placed so that it keeked over the Berlin Wall, his Berlin Burd.

When the authorities objected, saying that it would cause unrest, Wyllie's answer to them was that, 'A bird is not a stone.'

And now, so many years later, the wall is down and a design inspired by the Berlin Burd and the poem he wrote about it, is one of the ones emerging to decorate a paper boat from Strathaven Academy's S6 class.

Circles and layers.