999,999 trees
Acrylic and oil on canvas
Laura and I met years ago at Bingham Community Renewal support group and we became really good friends. She was actually really hard to paint her because I know her so well. Laura is quite important to this whole exhibition, as if I didn’t know her I wouldn’t know all this amazing stuff about Craigmillar and the Craigmillar Festival Society. She taught me a lot of what I know and inspired me with such an amazing drive for the community and knows more than anybody I’ve ever met about it. She’s involved with so many grassroots organisations and has so many amazing, inspirational stories.
She talked to me at Craigmillar Literacy Trust, where she is a volunteer, about how much she loves the area and it was really inspirational. I just caught Laura sitting on the steps, staring out and listening to the bird song, and it just looked so reflective. At the end of the interview we went into garden and picked up a twig with a tag on it. I was aware of a project that Edinburgh Council had celebrating 900 years of Edinburgh and they decided to gift out a million trees to be planted. I feel like it was really green washing and why not do more for the trees that we already have? One of these trees was planted at Craigmillar Literacy Trust and within weeks the council gardeners came around and ripped out these trees. Which could indicate what may have happened with many of these trees. This represents what I was trying to say, that not everything is really great- it’s a lie- and not just the trees - but there is a reality to the challenges of living here and there are problems that you can’t get away from. Yet there are still these wonderful people and wonderful stories and they’re not being shared.