Diary of a Shopkeeper, 28th January 2024

I don’t know about you, but late January and early February is definitely my least favourite time of the year. The weather is stubbornly cold and dreich. Worst of all are the gloomy days and long dark nights. I know it’s no darker than December, but at least back then we had Christmas lights sparking up everywhere to bring a warm glow to homes and businesses. Now the festive lights have come down, and it’s a month or more before nature starts to bless us with glisks of spring sunshine. Thank goodness, then, for Kirkwall BID and its sparkling new event, the Festival of Light.

The festival kicks off this Thursday teatime and continues every evening until Sunday 4th. During those hours, spectacular light and fire effects will fill the Kirk Green and Broad Street, and even the cathedral itself. Last September we were all awestruck by the six-metre model of the sun, complete with streaming solar storms, that was hung from the cathedral crossing as part of the Science Festival. It was a breathtaking experience.

On a slightly smaller scale, but if anything even more magical, local artist Evie Donaldson’s glowing circular installation ‘Annular’ was one of the highlights (pun intended!) of last years St Magnus Festival, and has graced the cathedral intermittently ever since. I remember thinking last June that ‘Annular’ was a perfectly conceived artwork for the cathedral. What art could possibly improve the genius of the medieval builders, or enrich the centuries of history resonating from the stones? A giant portrait of St Magnus, for instance, would look feeble in the context of the huge building dedicated to him. And a fresco of events from his life would make too literal a story that is of its essence magical: it works more powerfully in our imagination than it ever could on canvas.

But ‘Annular’ transcended the limitations of representative art. Its perfect circle of light, hanging high in an arch on the south aisle, drew attention to the perfection of the building around it as much as to itself. The simple elegance of the circle of light might evoke a saintly halo to some, or even just an ideal of spiritual perfection. However you see it, ‘Annular’ is that rare thing, a work of art that is so perfect in its place, it becomes hard to imagine the place without it. It’s great to hear that the OIC have acquired it on a long-term basis.

Kirkwall BID’s Festival of Light is aiming for a quite different impact. It’ll bring the community together with its dazzling extravaganza of light and fire. We’re promised three big exhibits within the cathedral: a Light Pyramid, a Hyper Cube and a gigantic Newton’s Cradle. Outside on the Kirk Green we’ll marvel at a Spiral of Light, while fire dancers twirl flaming batons. A Broad Street parade featuring Kirkwall City Pipe Band on Sunday evening will round the whole thing off.

I haven’t been on the board of Kirkwall BID for a year now, so I only have the vaguest idea of how it’s all going to look. But I know for sure it’ll be a unique attraction for the town centre, one to entertain and amaze the whole family. Individual shops will be doing special light-themed window displays, including some exciting willow-based sculptures made by UHI students. And no doubt restaurants, cafes and pubs will tempt us in with fired-up menus and drinks. All in all, it sounds like it’s going to be a spectacle to remember, to add to the long list of BID triumphs from the Victorian carousel, to the ice rink, to Broad Street Sands.

St Magnus Cathedral is rightly called The Light in the North. This weekend, Kirkwall BID is shining new light on the cathedral and the beautiful town around it.

The diary was written in advance of the start of the Festival. Gales and rain thwarted some fire dancing sessions, but apart from that the festival went ahead as planned and was even more impressive than I imagined it would be. Thanks to the artists, the performers, and Kirkwall BID, and special appreciation to St Magnus Cathedral for allowing the light installations to take over our beautiful old cathedral for four days.

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 1st February 2024. A new diary appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions.