Back to basics- mud painting

You know the problem: you have two photos but you can only use one.

That was my dilemma today: which photo to choose? The girl who walked with pumas in Bolivia or a smiley pic of Maggie O’Toole and Laura Fyfe from our Figment writing class?
All three were doing mud paintings outside my studio.

( We are in the middle of Forth Valley Open Studios)

In the end I tossed a coin.
The smiley photo won.


But what’s this about walking with pumas?
Well, artist Eloise Kerr (venue 33) listened to my sound installation,Duet, of birds singing and cat purring (I had to remove it from the church this morning following complaints) .
She said:
“It reminds me of the pumas I used to walk in the jungle in Bolivia.”

It stopped me in my tracks,
“Tell me more.”

“I was on a gap year and spent it in South America. I worked in an animal rescue shelter and some of the animals like pumas could not be released again into the wild because they were either too injured or too tame. It was my job to exercise them. I used to walk them in the jungle. And that’s just how they sound.”

View the girl who walked with pumas in Blipfolio-puma.