GROWING up on a small croft, it wasn’t unusual for acclaimed musician Elsa McTaggart to see frogs and tadpoles in the family’s water supply.
One of 11 children in a house with no electricity and an outside toilet, there was little money to spare and just a horse and cart, as well as one 50cc motorbike for transport.
It sounds like a lifestyle from the 1940s but this was in the early 80s on a hillside high above the Perthshire town of Aberfeldy.
“I think we were about 30 or 40 years behind everyone else,” said Elsa, who now lives in Lewis.
The children wore hand-me-downs and walked miles to school, but for Elsa, it was a happy time, and she fondly remembers the beauty of her surroundings and the love of her family.
Her background is one of the reasons she feels such a profound connection to the paintings of her great-grandfather, the celebrated Scottish artist William McTaggart.
Like Elsa, he grew up on a small croft but set off for Edinburgh against his parents’ wishes when he was just 16 years old to make his living as an artist, succeeding despite his impoverished background.
From a young age, Elsa was aware that McTaggart was her great-grandfather, as he was the reason for many gatherings of the wider family, such as a special exhibition of his work at National Galleries of Scotland.
It is only now, however, that she has learned much more about his life, and she has distilled this knowledge into a new production which will debut in Lewis before a run at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival as part of the Made in Scotland showcase.
Elsa hopes it will encourage theatre-goers to seek out her great-grandfather’s art either for the first time or with a new perspective and understanding.
“His story is really uplifting,” she explained. “His life was so focused and wholesome, and his ethics were very strong.
“He stood up for people and against corruption, and it just fills my heart.
“The more I look into his life story, the more inspiring I find it. I think if people know more about his story, then they will see his paintings with a new perspective.”
Elsa can’t remember when she first decided she wanted to tell his story but always knew it had to be through music on a stage.
“It surprises me how long it’s been in my mind,” she said. “My dad and mum were at art college before taking on the croft and they would have put more slant on the painting but for me it’s always been music and storytelling.”
The third-born to Gaelic-speaking Kintyre crofters, through hard work and determination, William McTaggart became one of Scotland’s most popular and recognisable landscape artists.
“He was coming from the poorest of society and his family’s move to Campbeltown was a result of people being cleared off the land,” Elsa explained.
“It’s very unusual for someone from that background to bring art to the world stage but he never lost his roots. They were what made him and he was always harkening back to that.
“When I look at his paintings it’s so familiar – when I see the people working the land all those sounds are already in my head. I’ve come to realise that I probably connect with his paintings on a different level, having come from that kind of upbringing myself.”
Elsa added: “He was on this lifelong pursuit of learning and trying out new techniques that could bring this different form of art onto canvas and show the movement of air and light, capturing the atmosphere, so that by looking at the paintings, you can see the wind and the type of day it is and you can feel it – you can feel the mist and the damp or the light or the clouds.”
Elsa and her husband/long-time collaborator Gary Lister have been performing sold-out shows for 15 years at the Fringe but while she has also made an album with the same title as the play, Capturing The Light, the music will be more of a background to the story being told, rather than the main focus of the show as in past productions.
It has been made by an entirely Isle of Lewis-based creative team and is produced by Hebridean arts company sruth-mara in association with Isle of Lewis arts venue An Lanntair and with funding from The National Lottery through Creative Scotland and Made in Scotland.
Directed by Laura Cameron-Lewis, with production design by Robbie Thomson, it includes work by photographer Ralph Tonge and Elsa’s sister, Rachel McTaggart.
One of the greatest challenges for Elsa has been to distil McTaggart’s life into a production of 45 minutes, but it has the potential to be expanded.
“There is so much to say but what I really want to get across is how and why he achieved what he did and in such a beautiful way,” she said.
“I hope people will come out of the performance wanting to go and view his paintings, knowing the backstory and just really appreciate them because they’re so beautiful.
“It’s really random, the people I meet who love his paintings but I have found that not many know his story and I feel that everything I have done before has kind of been building towards this.”
Many of McTaggart’s major works are now held in public art collections across the UK, including the Tate in London, but while many of his fellow artists went south of the Border to earn a living, he refused, saying: “I would rather be first in my own country than second in any other.”
Several of his paintings can be seen in the National Galleries of Scotland including The Sailing Of The Emigrant Ship 1895, the last of three major paintings exploring the departure of Scottish emigrants to America, a subject that touched him deeply.
Elsa McTaggart: Capturing The Light will debut at An Lanntair this June before it transfers to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as part of Made in Scotland
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