Gartnavel 

Curator: Let's spend a moment contemplating this ink and pen drawing by Muirhead Bone. It’s titled "Gartnavel." Editor: Instantly, it feels like a quiet, reflective scene. There's such a sense of stillness about the water, punctuated only by those sparse boats… It almost feels as though time is standing still on the river. Curator: It's interesting you pick up on that stillness. I see, instead, a portrait of industry captured through Bone's deft hand. Notice how he’s rendered reflections, capturing the light on water. And consider the way he’s described what appear to be discarded vessels or perhaps moorings. It speaks volumes of process and manual labour. Editor: It’s as if we can hear the quiet lapping of the water against the aged wood. And yet the drawing feels incredibly immediate. What do you make of his stylistic choice to primarily use ink and pen? It seems almost like he’s restricting himself... but also maybe making a very deliberate choice about craft. Curator: I wonder if that apparent restraint heightens its power! This cityscape seems so raw and immediate as the city slowly shifts around it, becoming industrialized, losing the magic of the waterway, I presume the pen was also a matter of accessibility—or it might also have aligned to his need to draw the working class that fueled the city… which goes back to the original question about intention, which is elusive, like most great artworks. Editor: Absolutely! And maybe there is beauty and intention in what we consider the cast-off elements as a form of commentary about the human costs. Curator: "Gartnavel", then, invites us to observe the interplay between artistic expression, environmental awareness, and socio-economic factors that impact how we all relate to resources around us. It is almost as though he makes you stop and appreciate it a little deeper, like a shared glance, or a whispered secret that suddenly comes out and feels all the more intimate and poignant. Editor: A lasting observation, I think, about labour, leisure, and that in-between space...