Glaze 2014

Glaze

Capturing beauty, in its rawest form

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Still Life The Invitation Revive and Repair Compilation

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apture the essence of a moment in time with a photograph, a memory or object. Texture, scent, and lustre. See the sights presented before you in a new light.

Appreciate the story held within each moment as it arrives and passes, never to be seen or experienced again.

B ‘Beachcomber You are your journeys own, personal archivist’

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Still Life

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leutheromania is the ancient Greek word that describes the intense and irresistible desire for freedom and adventure. A feeling that at some point in our lives, we all crave and yearn for.

Joy can be found in all aspects of exploration and travel.

The physical presence, character and appearance of the vehicle that you travel upon are each in their own way, a source of inspiration and more often than not, an emotional connection is forged, between man and machine.

The intention of a journey is a personal goal or mission; every objective is unique to each individual.

Journeys can be planned meticulously or spontaneous and instantaneous.

Memories, both physical and psychological are captured, collected and curated.

Their essence is diluted down and edited, a mental archive of senses and emotion.

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ou buckle the leather chinstrap, tightly securing it against your clenched jaw line. The smooth and cool caress of the fabric that lines the interior of your helmet brushes past your cheeks.

Pulling on your leather gloves. You feel the texture of their metallic studded grip against your palms. Wrinkled black sleeves are fastened and zipped down, tight on your forearms.

Dark, tinted riding goggles and a black open face helmet muffle your senses. You feel at home with the familiar scent and the sensation of impending escapism.

Pinned badges adorn the lapels of your worn leathers, which have been softened and tenderised with decades of use. Penetrated with the memories absorbed from the days and hours you have spent within them.

‘An Maraiche’

The Rider

Seeking the thrill of solitude you approach the bike, as it stands cold on the red concrete floor of the garage.

Its age, which shows itself in the physical form of spots of rust, scuffed, faded leather and the occasional scratch in the thick, glossy paintwork, means nothing.

These tarnishes only add character, each blemish holds within it a captured memory, the entirety of a single moment in time, frozen and preserved.

The countless hours that you have spent with grazed, oil covered hands, labouring, repairing and customising are all worth it in this moment, when the cool air around you both hangs dark heavy with anticipation.

Only the essentials are packed, folded and rolled with precision into the weighty, black panniers that are trussed and tied onto either side of the petrol tank.

Utilising every inch of available space.

Using self generated momentum; you propel the bike off and away from the security of its centre stand.

Key in the ignition, you hold the weight of you both on the balls of your heavy, booted feet.

With a slow rotation of the key, firm pressure applied to the starter button and a firm grasp and twist of the throttle, the engine emits a complex chorus of gulps and roars.

Equilibrium, the energy that rests within inches of your knees is perfectly tuned for its intended function, movement.

With a flick of a switch, you illuminate the headlamp, the chrome details of the bike glow in the damp darkness that surrounds you, soaked with a bright, white, guiding light.

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eather, mirrors, grips, stitching, brakes, the intricate twists and intertwined turns of chrome pipes and passageways.

The components of a Motorcycle, the list goes on.

More than these physical attributes a bike is a sensation. It is how it makes you, the Rider feel. How it has the ability to evoke and summon each and every perceivable emotion.

A Motorcycle is the physical embodiment of glamour in the rawest sense.

It possesses the ability to create an illusion around itself, you and the surroundings you both share, making each moment lucid and inexplicably crisp and clear.

With every ride comes a fresh sensation, your vital signs heighten with every growling revolution and each individual thud emitted from the exhaust. Following in your wake is a continuous rain made up of super charged sonic electrons.

‘An Inneal’

The Machine

A single headlight. A solitary guide through the night. The responsibility hangs heavy, carving out the damp darkness, which masks the route ahead. It swiftly catches a glimpse of the sleek sheen of soaked foliage at the road side.

What is beyond its warm white glow awaits and then in an instant of speed and sound is cast back ceaselessly into the past.

Solitary roads allow the bike to fulfil its true destiny. Away from the gridlock and traffic control of the congested city air, a rural road is instead only controlled by geographical formations, running against the grain of urban practicality.

These features are a help, not a hindrance, creating anticipation for the journey ahead. Bringing bursts of adrenalin and the addictive consciousness of momentary enlightenment, the stone cut gullies; tunnels and drastic bends follow the curvature of great Highland mountains and the earth itself.

The rough texture of the roads oil-slick black surface is drenched with the rainfall that fell an hour earlier, that which you narrowly avoided.

Hypnotic, identical painted white lines, a never-ending vanishing point in reverse.

They follow you endlessly, leading from, to and beyond any destination.

Swallowed and consumed beneath two tyres. With each and every chevron crossed, the sense of escapism grows.

You feel a combined urgency to reach the journeys end and the security of its destination but also find the thrill of enjoyment in its breath taking, familiar duration.

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t ease. The bike rests on its side stand; loyalty and determination have brought you both here, following the magnetic pull of the Isle of Skye.

Here you will find the simple solidarity that you have so longed for.

There is no room for vanity here.

You can find beauty in its purest, most unadulterated form, tinted with an element of subtle melancholy.

Fishing boats, ropes, rock faces and trees, sculpted into a beautiful state of decay by the fierce winds that wash over the island from the Atlantic.

‘An Sonrachadh’

The Destination

Beachcomber, you are your journeys own personal archivist, as you gather and collect treasures and aesthetics.

The textures, colours and emotions of shoreline souvenirs.

These are memories to be displayed in tins and glass Kilner jars, placed on sun-drenched windowsills.

You are the curator of your experiences, collecting flotsam and jetsam. Creating a treasure trove of memorabilia, encapsulating a lifetimes worth of emotions.

Mountain streams stem from the gullies on the black Cullin Ridge, eventually meeting the great Atlantic Ocean.

You see jagged outlines of igneous rock, which direct your attention and focus it on the vast, expansive horizon that stretches out before you.

The roads here are single lane tracks; sign posted in Gaelic, simple but none the less effective.

Human settlements on this Isle can be traced back to 6000BC, a time of storytelling, myth and ancient clans.

Arriving in Glen Brittle, you pitch your tent. An undulating stream of steam rises from a metallic tin bowl of warming broth.

The amber glow of a paraffin lamp attracts what seems like thousands of insects, which ambush you as the sun begins its ambient decent.

Whilst lighting a cigarette to repel their itching bites, in your mind’s eye you begin to visualise tomorrow’s venture, the Fairie Pools, in the South West of the Isle.

You eventually succumb to sleep. As your eyes grow heavy the tide plays and whispers on an intricate lace-work coastline, consisting of caves, coves and ancient crofts from centuries ago, abandoned by civilisations of the past.

The Gaelic name for Skye is ‘An t-Eileen Sgitheanach’, The Winged Isle.

Morning dawns, droplets of dew collect and rest on the exterior fabric of the tent, magnifying and mirroring the fresh light of a new day.

Riding from Glen Brittle, you arrive at the end of the defined road.

You dismount and tread your heavy boots down the narrow, stone lined path.

Stepping-stones allow for an easy crossing over a small boggy burn that gradually evolves into the sharp crystal like falls of ‘Allt Coir a’Mhadaidh’, where water carved pools; arches and deep bowls allow you to dip and revive your feet, from the heated confinement of leather riding boots.

You pause to give your eyes the ability to absorb the panoramic view of the vista that surrounds you.

Enveloping your imagination is a view of the icy, clear pools, lined with fresh water algae, the colour of British Racing Green.

You watch as the water cascades from one to the next and imagine intrepid fairies bathing alongside you.

You observe the way that over tens of thousands of years, the rock face has been dictated and commanded by the water’s powerful, never-ending flow.

Much like your lifetime of mutual experiences that you and your bike have shared and the catalogue of destinations at which you have both arrived at over the years.

This partnership is all or nothing.

Each commands the other with an enduring and invisible magnetic pull.

Collage and Words by Rachael Moore

I ‘I want to know if you can be alone with yourself If you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments’

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful to be realistic to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day.

And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.” It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know

or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Poetry by Oriah

A ‘A Motorcycle is the physical embodiment of glamour in the rawest sense It possesses the ability to create an illusion, making each moment lucid and inexplicably crisp and clear’

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Revive and Repair

Howie B - ‘Folk’ The War On Drugs - ‘Lost In A Dream’ Laura Marling - ‘A Creature I Don’t Know’ Joni Mitchell - ‘Blue’ Ben Howard - ‘I Forget Where We Were’ Patti Smith - ‘Land’ Robert Plant - ‘Lullaby and The Ceaseless Roar’ Neil Young - ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere’ The National- ‘High Violet’ Peatbog Faeries - ‘Croftwork’ Banks - ‘Goddess’ Lana Del Rey - ‘Ultraviolence’

‘Put an ocean and a river between everybody else Between everything, yourself, and home’

Compilation