Speaker Gordon McCulloch

Stirling Rotary meeting 16th  October  2015

President Peter Mehta welcomed members, together with visitor Jane Wilson from Kippen.  The Fellowship Golf Cup competition has been cancelled.  The Gavel (pub games) match at Kikcaldy took place on the 15th. and resulted in a very narrow win for Stirling.  Further to our recent successful Jazz Cruise on Loch Katrine, another music cruise of some kind is proposed for May 2016. There will be a “scatter week” during the period 23rd. to 27th. November, whereby our members will try to visit nearby clubs, whilst their members do the same.

Gordon McCulloch then delivered an illustrated talk on “art in the Landscape”.  Examples given were geoglyphs such as Wiltshire Man, the Uffington Horse and the Nazca lines of Peru, the latter thought to have been carved by local people in around  500 – 600 AD.  The 20th. century saw a revival of “art in the landscape”, with a series of structures being designed and erected throughout the world.  Prominent among the artists involved was Noguchi, the display of whose art was delayed till the 1960s and ‘70s due to anti-Japanese, post-war sentiment.

Other works/artists of note are the spiral jetty in a Utah lake,  Andy Goldsworthy, Christo and Jeanne Claude, Sonsbeek in the Netherlands, a massive trowel at the same site, Chaumont sur Loire, Chateau Riveau,  Jupiter Artland at Bonnington House in West Lothian, various grass shapes and structures and many more.  The Angel of the North and the Kelpies fall into the same general category.

The Vote of Thanks was given by Stewart Wilson and well supported.  This week’s meeting will be a Business Meeting, with Visitors Host Malcolm Cordwell-Smith.  Members are requested to come early, in order to celebrate the club’s birthday.  More info. on Stirling Rotary can be found on the club’s site www.stirling.rotary.1010.org.

Ranald Ross-Watt
Communications Convener