On the Art of the Day Trip | The Sunday Journals No. 16
On Monday morning, we set off from Edinburgh with our friend and colleague Gaynor, bound for Pittenweem Arts Festival. Gaynor was to be our guide, having been before, and we were excited both to see some of our artists and to discover a few new ones along the way.
We took the coastal route, admiring the villages and sea views as we went and recognising more than a few of the subjects our artists have chosen to paint over the years.
Pittenweem has held its arts festival since the early 1980s, when artists first began turning the village’s cottages and other unlikely spaces into temporary galleries. What started as a relatively simple local idea has grown into one of Scotland’s best-loved visual arts festivals, but it has retained the thing that makes it distinctive: for one week, the whole village seems to become part of the exhibition.
As soon as we arrived — under suitably grey skies — it was clear just how much there was to discover. Signs pointed in every direction. Private homes had emptied their living rooms of furniture and turned them into miniature galleries; churches, village halls, barns and garages had all been repurposed to display and sell art.
We had five particular stops on our list: Tim Cockburn, Tony Griffin, Al Bell, Sandra Vick and Susie Collingbourne, all of whom show with us at The Torrance. Map and catalogue in hand, we set off to find Tim.
Tim was showing in a small but elegant fisherman’s cottage. His work glowed on the walls with the sense of nostalgia he captures so brilliantly. The scenes were recognisably familiar: a party culminating in a singalong around the piano, someone half-undressed and dancing in front of the fire after a night out, a trendy barbershop with a haircut in progress. It was lovely finally to meet Tim and to see such a breadth of his work together on the walls.
'The Settle', Tim Cockburn, 2024. Available at The Torrance Gallery.
Tony Griffin was next, and it was a joy to see both him and his paintings. It has been about eighteen months since we last showed Tony’s work, in one of Antonio’s first exhibitions while working at The Torrance Gallery. His paintings looked wonderful in the expansive space, showing off his mastery of colour, tone, light and shade. The works inspired by his travels around the Mediterranean particularly stood out, briefly transporting us somewhere considerably hotter and drier while the drizzle continued outside.
Two of Tony Griffin's Mediterranean works, Pittenweem, 2026.
After Tony, we allowed ourselves to wander a little and stopped for lunch at the fabulous Chip Ahoy! fish bar at The Larachmhor. We discovered a beautiful cottage garden whose owners had opened it up to provide access to some extraordinary garden rooms, and somewhere along the way we came across the work of Allan Black.
We were mesmerised by the detail in his expansive view of Edinburgh from Calton Hill, as well as a wonderful Melbourne tram beneath a pink sky. We very much hope to work with Allan in the future — one of those happy discoveries that makes abandoning the carefully planned route worthwhile.
Next we headed to see our friend and recent collaborator Al Bell and the wonderful Sandra Vick, who were sharing a portacabin in a village hall car park. Only at Pittenweem could such an unassuming space turn out to contain such a treasure trove.
A selection of Al Bell and Sandra Vick's work, Pittenweem, 2026.
Having only recently taken down Al’s exhibition at The Torrance, it was strange — but oddly appealing — to encounter familiar paintings somewhere completely different. The works spoke to one another in new ways, and the compact space demanded a closer kind of looking.
Sandra’s work is firmly rooted in landscape, though never simply in recording a view. After years spent walking and running through the Scottish hills — and even training as a mountain leader — she has developed a particular sensitivity to the forms, textures and geology that shape them. Her work ranges from large, immersive triptychs to tiny multi-panel artist books (my favourites, among many), often built through fluid washes that settle into layers almost like geological sediment.
One of the pleasures of representing artists is that you inevitably only ever have part of their work with you at any one time. A festival like this gives you the chance to see a much broader slice of what they have been making.
We then popped next door to the village hall to see the charming Susie Collingbourne, who had two large canvases on display that made an immediate impact. There is such vibrancy and joy in Susie’s landscapes, often heightened by the use of gold leaf to capture those fleeting, shimmering elements that catch the eye when walking through the Scottish Highlands and islands.
Two new works by Susie Collingbourne, 2026.
Susie introduced us to her exhibition neighbour, David Short, whose paintings seemed to contain all the pleasures of afternoon tea and cake. With bold, uplifting colour, his still lifes felt fresh and cheerful, full of the happiness of family gatherings and afternoons spent in the greenhouse.
Details of David Short's bold still lifes, Pittenweem, 2026.
By the time we made it back to the car, the map and catalogue were looking considerably less pristine than they had that morning.
And, oddly enough, it wasn’t one particular painting that stayed with me most on the drive home. It was the people behind them: the conversations, the years of looking and learning, the detours through other careers and interests, and the way an artist’s practice continues to evolve long after a recognisable style has emerged.
Pittenweem was a lovely reminder that the work we eventually see hanging on a gallery wall is only one point in a much longer journey — and that sometimes the best way to understand it is simply to go and meet the person who made it.