Between 2019 and 2022 I made several drawings and paintings of the Weeping Ash Tree in the Glasgow Botanic Gardens. This tree was first planted in Glasgow in 1818 in the original Sandyford Gardens and then replanted in 1841 in the current Botanic Gardens. The tree sadly had to be felled in 2022 due to Ash Dieback disease and part of the cut-down trunk remains in the Botanic Gardens as a monument.
In the Spring of 2023 a cache of broken tobacco clay pipes became uncovered during excavations of the Forth and Clyde canal footpath in Maryhill. During the 18 months that followed I picked up pieces of clay pipe every time I walked along the canal, not knowing at the time what I would do with them in the future. The pipes originated from the old Caledonian Pipe Works on Garngad Hill in the East End of Glasgow between 1832 and 1861.
At the start of 2024 I made a proposal for a public mural in Glasgow City Centre to commemorate the Weeping Ash Tree from the Glasgow Botanic Gardens. I based the format and size of my design specifically to fit in one of the bricked-off former railway arches at 121 Bridgegate Street which dates from circa 1840 and is beside the Briggait. The mural concept did not go ahead, however it spawned the idea for an independent artwork half the size of the railway arch, using the same design and utilising the collected tobacco pipe pieces.
Throughout the slow meditative process of selecting, assembling and arranging the broken clay pieces to form the tree, I aimed to convey an atmosphere of weeping – a lament for our times. During this reflective process, multiple layers of meaning, associations and connections kept revealing themselves; from the dry bones of death, to the dark history of the tobacco trade, to the hopefulness of new life, to wholeness and to many layers in between.
In their brokenness the tree, the tobacco pipes and the railway arch all hold historic fragments from early nineteenth century urban Glasgow. By bringing aspects of these three features together, a new presence is formed in ‘Weeping Ash’.