As I conclude my exhibition for the month of May 2026, I would like to put a little background into the significance of the month of May. It is the month I was born, 65 years ago this year.
Then on the 5th of May 1993, thirty-two years later, my father died suddenly from a massive heart attack whilst at work. He was exactly sixty years and six months old...That was a devastating Measuring time in delineated units such days, weeks, months and years is actually a human contrivance. The passing of time follows its own pattern. Sometime time seems to pass more quickly or more slowly. My good friend, and near neighbour in Bank Street, Glasgow, David Donnison, often commented how time could be cruel as one got older, because it seemed to speed up. David, was a lot older and certainly wiser than me. He passed away in April 2018, he was 92 years old. He had been a professor emeritus at Glasgow University who became a mentor and confident of mine nearly thirty years ago. I met him at a Labour Party meeting and he asked if I could help him with his drawing and painting. This was certainly a most humbling request. I began to offer tutilage in my subject to one of the best social commentators and policy advisors in our country. He would call round to see me, and we would go out sketching together, sometimes I would accompany him to one of his lectures. Eventually he began to use a corner of my attic studio. Then when his wife passed away, I started to spend even more time with him, and we established a good friendship, both looking out for each other. He filled the paternal gap left by my own father. We continued to be close friends even after I left Glasgow. We spoke on the phone the day before he passed away, he was terminally ill with brain cancer and knew his life was drawing to its conclusion, very soon. I got a call the following day from one of his family to tell me of his passing... This was very much the end of an era for me, which I found quite overwhelming. But I was committed to caring for my Dear Mother, and at the time, I was getting on with the new found role, as a primary carer. Little did I realise how brief that endeavour would be...
So, time, as ever raced forward and here we are progressing through 2026, We do delineate the passing of time by remembering significant moments and events that lay markers and milestones in our lives. On 15th January 2024, some time around 4pm something catastrophic happened to me, it certainly shock me to my very core. I suffered a neurological seizure, which robbed me of about forty minutes of memory, and left me with a vexing question...What on earth happened there, and why? 2024 had found me in excellent spirit and very much looking forward to a creative time ahead. I was actually rather excited by a number of the things I had planned and felt my life in general was in a positive place where I might be able to help other friends and family. But I collapsed in a flaying heap on my dining room floor. Fortunately I was not on my own! A good friend was sitting at the table and we were talking about the icy conditions of that Monday afternoon... Next, I was aware of being asked odd questions, by a paramedical team in the ambulance, that had been called to get me swiftly to A&E. The crew had to establish what I understood of what had just happened and the extent of how conscious I was. It took several moments to reassert my mind and regain understanding of where I was. Then the hospital staff were exploring with questions what I knew about the events of the previous couple of hours. They all struck me as caring and patient people. I was reasured by their level of kindness. However we never managed to pinpoint exactly what had caused this frightening frenzy of neurologial activity in my brain that afternoon without the slightest warning.
... The medical observation of my condition required an overnight stay in the Western Isles Hospital on the 15th January 2024. The following morning, a vast and varied range of overwhelming emotions raced through my mind. I had so many questions to get answered, in order to make some sense of what had happened. But then the good counsel of one young doctor in A&E, the night before, recommended not to dwell on what had happened and think of the good things that I was planning and looking forward to doing in the months ahead. Only two weeks before we had ushered in this new year and I had been so full of positivity, about all my plans. The main focus of my ideas related to the work I still required to do for my exhibition the following May - like, three months away! Now, there was a day when I really thought nothing of creating a whole exhibition almost spontaneously! I called this way of working the double "i" process. An "idea" combined with an "inspiration". But right at that moment on the morning of Tuesday 16th January 2024, following a near-catastrophic episode the previous afternoon, I lay shattered. There was nothing of the energy that I required to be active, let alone spontaneous. I felt sad, worried, and very frightened of what the future might bring.
All that morning medical staff were attending to me, and I learnt I'd be going home that afternoon. In the early afternoon I had some lovely and kind visitors, to bring some good cheer. I got a lift home from a cousin. Generally I was told by everyone to take things easy and get plenty rest. Rest and taking easy don't really sit very well with me, I like to be doing things, making things, fixing things, though it was only the middle of January, I felt time was playing against me, and I was slowing down. What could I to do to get everything done that I wanted to do... Around this time I became aware that I was having little chats with God. It wasn't anything to do with feeling lonely, that has never happened to me, yet! I was asking for help and guidance to get me through everything and I began to gently get the ideas flowing again. I thought that it best to be calm, definately not to rush anything. More than ever I needed to be patient, and most of all not to panic.
The exhibition, that was to follow in May that year, (2024), was my part of a series of summer exhitions by four of us artists/painters. At the Comunn Eachdraidh Nis, in the former Cross School, a place which I was soon to learn was a beautiful venue in so many ways. Though the exhibitions had been booked there nearly two years before, here we were almost into February and still nothing had been created, not even a title. But not to panic. I could only take things easy. I did not have enough energy except to go very slowly. It was frustrating but necessary. It was very cold and wintery when I resolved to actually visit the Comunn Eachdraidh Nis, my first since it had been so beautifully refurbished. I was unable to drive myself but a very good friend suggested I use my entitlement card, and travel there and back by bus. I went off on the bus on my own, on Friday 9th February, not knowing what to expect. The Barvas moor seemed aneamic and colourless, then even the Mighty Atlantic Ocean was struggling to give cheer, this cold winter's afternoon. Sadly I was struggling to find any colour to inspire anything at all. Then my stop at Cross, I stood up and stepped off the bus. Well, I thought let me get and see what they have to offer! As I entered the old school, it was as if everything was switched back on. I found as bright a community facility as ever I knew possible, the staff were happy and welcoming, at last I had the inspiration I was waiting for. I was shown the exhibition space. I did a sketchy floor plan, and started to envisage my exhibition hanging there. I felt an overwhelming sense of joy. I thought to myself, "this could work, it will happen. it is going to happen now". I went into the lovely cafe, and had a lunch, then got the return bus to Stornoway. I no longer cared about the dullness of the scenary out the window, there were bright ideas now in my mind.
As soon as I could I was ordering art materials at the local hobby shop (sadly since closed). These fresh painting materials arrived very quickly, and I was painting towards my show in record time. The whole concept came in a wave of inspiration I even had an exhibition title, and devised a modus operandum for the creation of a whole exhibition. Keeping calm and disciplined, treating the drawing and painting as a normal contracted employment, spending a dedicated time on the exhibition each day. I managed to build a body of work for the exhibition. I knew that day in the Comunn Eachdraidh Nis, that I wanted to base the work in the exhibition on the significant places and locations in my island homeland. It was a special and private them, the first two completed painting were of North Shawbost and South Shawbost, where each of my maternal grandparents were born. My grandfather from North Shawbost, my grandmother from South Shawbost. The exhibition Aitichean was born. I was still having my little chats with God, and they were clearly becoming prayers. I was attending the Stornoway, High Church, more and more, feeling a protection and kindness, in the fellowship there. During the Stornoway Communions, I suddenly became aware that I was indeed ready to go forward in the church and declare my faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I was thus converted and became a Christian, on Sunday 18th February 2024. My initial steps on my journey in faith had begun and I felt wonderful.
I continued working towards my exhibition, with only one important interruption, a trip to Glasgow for an MRI scan, at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. But the results were inconclusive about the cause of that Neurological Seizure.
On Tuesday, 9th April 2024, I flew to Glasgow and stayed with my sister-in-law, Susan Galloway, she was so kind to me, even took the morning off her work to accompany me to the appointment. it was so good to have a familiar face with me to find where I was to be going and then to greet me when it was all over.Now the little sojourn to Glasgow was actually most pleasant. Susan had moved from the top tenement flat in Kelvingrove Street, that she had shared with my older brother, my niece and nephew, She now lived in a lovely ground floor flat, with a back and front garden. Just off Paisley Road West, on the South-side, a five minute walk from Bellahouston Park, with its sports centre and swimming pool. This is a brilliant park, spread out over a high hill, the location of the 1937 Empire Exhibition, and the Deco Pavilions, and the famed Tate's Tower at the summit. Susan's flat was built in the 1930s, part of Glasgow Corporation's housing expansion of what came to be referred to as "the inter-war years". These are solid, red sandstone and brick dwellings, that continue to provide pleasant homes, in leafy streets, with grass verges, hedges, trees and well-kept gardens. Suburban Glasgow at it's very best. In the evening I went off into the city centre to meet some of the rest of my family. My nephews and nieces were all very worried by what had happened to me earlier in the year, so we had a memorable night out, very much in line with how I like to enjoy my time in my adopted home city, when I visit.
When I got up the following day, (Thursday 11th April 2024), I resolved that I was going to dedicate whatever time I had from then on to being positive about my life, the great gift from God. This would mean not wasting one moment, but litaraly being all that I can be, and enjoying every aspect of being alive.
I returned home from Glasgow and concluded the work on the paintings for my exhibition. I
had sixteen paintings hanging on the walls. The exhibition opened on
the afternoon of the 3rd May 2024, it was bright and sunny. Many of my
good friends were there to support me, it was a beautiful event in every
way, and I really felt so wonderful, it was overwhelming, in the best
and happiest sense. I also sold eleven paintings at that opening, and a
couple more later in May.
Some memories of and reflections on 2024.
Kenneth Andrew Burns
31 May 2026