Angus McPhee

Angus MacPhee at the Art Extraordinary Gallery, Pittenweem, with a woven calf inspired by his work, made by Joanne B Kaar Angus McPhee or MacPhee (1916–1997) was a Scottish outsider artist, who lived as a young man in the community of Eochar on the island of South Uist, part of the Outer Hebrides. He made his art by weaving found vegetation, such as grasses, into extraordinary garments. He also used sheep's wool picked from barbed wire fences, and leaves. MacPhee created most of his work whilst in the Craig Dunain Hospital near Inverness. He chose not to speak for 50 years.

Biography MacPhee was born into a crofting family from Eochar/Iochdar, South Uist (Outer Hebrides), although he was actually born in Nettlehole, west of Glasgow, whilst his father worked as a hired hand before returning to Uist to settle when Angus was 7. As a young boy on the croft, he learnt how to make ropes and horse-harness from the abundant marram grass or muirineach on the island. He showed some skills playing music and singing, loved horses, but otherwise appeared to be a normal child of a poor crofting family. Although as a young child he was brought up in a Scots English-speaking community, on the island he soon became a fluent speaker of Gaelic.

MacPhee served with the Lovat Scouts, and rode on horseback to join them at Beaufort Castle, where the horse was sold for £70. He fell largely silent and according to Joyce Laing, an art therapist who met MacPhee in the 1970s, he didn't speak for more than 50 years. There is some uncertainty about how totally mute MacPhee actually was, and the first full biography of MacPhee, by Roger Hutchinson In Roger Hutchinson's The Silent Weaver ' he develops a case for seeing MacPhee's weaving as a way of Angus finding his way back to a kind of health or mental equilibrium by creatively using traditional craft skills and developing them into a unique form of expression. In 2004 Donnie Munro (ex-Runrig) included his song ' Weaver of Grass ' inspired by the story of Angus MacPhee in his album '''Fields of the Young '.

In 2004, a documentary was made of his life by Nick Higgins: Hidden Gifts: The Mystery of Angus MacPhee (IMDb), which won the 2005 Britspotting award. This includes some home-movie footage of Angus back in Uist, towards the end of his life.

The Silent Weaver by Roger Hutchinson was published in 2011, the fullest and best researched account yet of MacPhee's life and his place as an artist. His story has also been developed as a theatre production, called Angus – Weaver of Grass'' ', by Horse and Bamboo Theatre which has toured extensively in the Highlands and Islands during the summers of 2012 and 2013, also appearing in London, Oxford and Lancashire. The Caithness fibre artist, Joanne B Kaar, has worked alongside Horse + Bamboo Theatre on their production, and directly with Joyce Laing. In the process she has rediscovered the techniques used by Angus McPhee and has recreated some of his garments both for the theatre production, for the collection in Pittenweem, and for Scottish Museums.

In 2011/2012 artist Mike Inglis incorporated textures and outfits directly influenced by the stories and artefacts of Angus into his 65-metre permanent Public Art wall installation in Inverness.