The Great Tapestry of Scotland - Hardcover

Moffat, Alistair

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1780271603 ISBN 13: 9781780271606

Publisher: Birlinn, 2014

Synopsis

The brainchild of bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith, historian Alistair Moffat and artist Andrew Crummy, the Great Tapestry of Scotland is an outstanding celebration of thousands of years of Scottish history and achievement, from the end of the last Ice Age to Dolly the Sheep. Like the Bayeux tapestry, the Great Tapestry of Scotland has been created on embroidered cloth, and is annotated in English, Gaelic, Scots and Latin. This book, with a foreword by Alexander McCall Smith, tells the story of this unique undertaking - one of the biggest community arts projects ever to take place in Scotland - and reproduces in full colour a selection of the panels from the completed tapestry, together with descriptive and explanatory material. It is published to coincide with the completion of the tapestry in August 2013. See www.scotlandstapestry.com for further details.

About this title

About the Author

Andrew Crummy has worked for New Musical Express, The Observer magazine, Design Week, Creative Review and Time Out magazine. He has developed multiple large-scale, collaborative artworks in public and community settings across the world, and has been involved in a huge range of book publications, multimedia events, festivals and educational programmes. Alistair Moffat is a former Director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Director of Programmes at Scottish Television. He now runs the Borders and Lennoxlove book festivals and is currently Rector of St Andrews University. He has written numerous books, including Tuscany, The Faded Map, The Sea Kingdoms, The Borders and The Scots: A Genetic Journey, all of which are published by Birlinn. Susan Mansfield is a journalist and writer. She grew up in Aberdeenshire and is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh and the Graduate Centre for Journalism, City University, London. She has written about the Arts in Scotland for more than 20 years. In 2001, she joined the staff of The Scotsman and has written for the paper across the Arts, with a particular interest in art, literature and theatre. She now lives in the west of Scotland, and has been known to pick up an embroidery needle occasionally.

Alistair Moffat was born and bred in the Scottish Borders. A former Director of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Director of Programmes at Scottish Television, he now runs the burgeoning Borders Book Festival as well as a production company based near Selkirk. He has written twelve books, including Kelsae, The Reivers, The Sea Kingdoms, The Borders and The Wall, all of which are published by Birlinn.

Review

[T]he most ambitious attempt to capture the past in needle and thread since the Bayeux Tapestry ... The result is not just visually stunning but intensely moving and occasionally very funny' (The Times)

[T]his beautiful book follows the journey taken during the creation of this fascinating project' (The Lady)

If you are unable to see the Tapestry in all its glory, this wonderful book will take you through the country’s history from the Ice Age to the present day as told in the stitches of 160 panels'  (New Stitches)

The beauty of this book lies in the ample space devoted to illustrating each panel of the tapestry, allowing the reader to study the detail in the crafting of each story at their leisure'  (Scottish Field)

This remarkable teamwork has made Andrew Crummy's artistic vision a reality, and The Great Tapestry of Scotland is now a gift to the nation'  (Edinburgh Life)

This sumptuous book details every single panel in rich detail, giving a real sense of the scale of the project [. . .] perfect as an introduction to this wonderful work of art, or as a reminder for anyone who has seen the exhibition' (National Association of Decorative & Fine Arts Societies)

About this edition

• Publisher: Birlinn
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1780271603
• ISBN 13: 9781780271606
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288