We both enjoy making things by hand, whether for everyday use, furnishing the cabins, or for exhibiting and selling. Our creative work is rooted in sustainability, using natural and reclaimed materials wherever possible.
Clive Brandon Visual Artist
I’m a visual artist based on the Black Isle in the Scottish Highlands. My work spans painting, collage, photography, book-making, and site-specific interventions. It explores the landscapes, architecture, and places I move through, drawing on a strong connection to the natural environment.
Lately, my work has focused on constructed landscapes—how human activity shapes and reshapes natural space. I use found materials like cardboard, scrap wood, and paper, combined with watercolour and charcoal to create layered, often improvised pieces.
About Clive’s Creative Practice
These works reflect influences from wabi-sabi aesthetics and Casualist art, celebrating imperfection and impermanence. I’m especially interested in how light and space shape the viewer’s experience, inviting slow observation, much like walking through a landscape or reading a map.
Since relocating to the Highlands in 2015, my practice has become more seasonal and site-specific. I now work in rhythm with the changing landscape, drawing on natural cycles and environmental themes—particularly in response to the climate and ecological crisis.
As a regenerative gardener, I explore connections between permaculture, site-specificity, and constructed landscapes. Both my gardening and artistic practices are rooted in observation, pattern recognition, and the mapping of natural cycles such as seasonal changes and landscape transformations. My work reflects these interconnected processes, with an emphasis on closed loops, circular systems, and sustainable practices.
Inspirations
My work draws inspiration from contemporary and historical artists and movements. This includes the Land Art and Minimalism of Robert Smithson and Ian Hamilton-Finlay and the Anarchitecture of Gordon Matta-Clark. I admire the surreal pastoral landscapes of Paul Nash, and the 1950s works of Joan Eardley and Francis Davison. I also find resonance in the practices of contemporaries such as David Lemm, Tony Swain, Helen O’Leary, and Louise Barrington.
Through my art, I invite viewers to consider the landscapes we inhabit, not only as physical spaces but as constructs shaped by human hands
You can view my work here
Axisweb axisweb.org/artist/clivebrandon
SSA www.s-s-a.org/our-members/clive-brandon/
VAS www.visualartsscotland.org/artist-biography/clive-brandon
About Julie’s Crafts and Making
Julie studied Environmental Science and brings a practical, hands-on approach to sustainable living. Her wide-ranging skills include organic gardening, baking, brewing, cooking, food preserving, IT, and administration.
She’s especially focused on crafts like knitting, crochet, and sewing. Using upcycled fabrics, she makes curtains, cushions, clothes, and bags—thoughtful, useful pieces that give new life to old materials. Her work blends comfort, creativity, and low-impact living. Each item brings new life to old materials and reflects her love of resourcefulness, comfort, and thoughtful design.
Making
Over the past few years, we’ve worked together on a wide range of DIY and craft projects, from building and upcycling furniture to designing handmade features for our cabins. We especially enjoy using timber and materials sourced from our own woodland. Naturally, we put all these skills into building the eco cabins themselves!
