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On Tuesday 15th May 2012 the National Trust for Scotland Threave Garden became host to one of Ronald Rae’s latest granite sculptures – St. Francis.

Last summer Ronald Rae opened the first Threave Sculpture Garden Exhibition. He spoke passionately about the potential of displaying larger sculptures at Threave and offered the NTS one of his works on loan. The NTS jumped at this wonderful opportunity. It was agreed that St. Francis would be perfect in this garden setting because of the saint’s love of Nature – birds in particular. Birdsong is the first sound one hears on entering Threave Garden.

George Thomas, from NTS Threave Garden who organised this project said ” I am absolutely delighted to have been involved with Ronald Rae’s incredibly generous gesture of lending St. Francis to Threave Garden. He has chosen a stunning piece entirely in keeping with the site. It undoubtedly creates a unique feature in the garden which will give pleasure to visitors and act as a focus of widespread interest.”

The seven tonne stone for St. Francis is of great geological interest being an amalgam of two different granites – grey and pink – and dark grey basalt. These stones fused together when the Earth was formed. For this particular stone that was 470 million years ago!

More information about St. Francis
This emotive sculpture depicts St. Francis lying in retreat on “that rugged rock twixt Tiber and Arno” as Dante described La Verna. The sculpture shows the saint surrounded by the birds that he loved and preached to. Brother Wolf is carved on the other side of the stone. Legend has it that St. Francis saved the village of Gubbio from being ravished of its flocks by persuading the people to feed the fierce hungry wolf. In return for this kindness the wolf became a friend to everyone and a follower of St. Francis and thereafter called Brother Wolf. It is said that on this mountainside St. Francis took on the stigmata – the wounds of Christ. In the sculpture Rae has given Brother Wolf the stigmata. Legend also relates that when St. Francis died Brother Wolf was at his side.

THREAVE GARDEN SCULPTURE EXHIBITION 2012

On June 23rd 2012 the second Threave Garden Sculpture Exhibition will open in the formal garden at Threave.

In a country too hot to give birth
A young girl is doing just that giving birth
In temperatures where the only shade
Is the shadow cast by a pencil balanced on the warlord’s table
The girl in labour now she can shout out
The heart of the sun the heat of the sun
What does it know of midwifery
What do wars know of the breaking of waters
A birth into a war-torn and parched land
A birth looking down into the driest well known to man
Sand and blood just how brave are births to become that
We should go to the hottest place in the sun
And ask it for our own sakes to bless the birth of this child
We should make tracks for tomorrow’s dawn
And with the girl’s afterbirth keep it and treasure it
Treasure it like it was the enabler and the birth of a nation

Ronald Rae

There’s something about us that endures fires
A blaze out of control is a blaze out of control
But not the death of a firstborn
The death of a child is not a par for the course life goes on event
There’s no doubt about it we human beings
Will never be released from tragedy or religion talking about it
Only a bird circling high in the sky is free of religion
A nature without words of religion to explain it
Is a nature somewhere else and not understood
Always with the mystery is the greater mystery of its source
Quiet as a newly laid egg it can be said of the source
It takes a greater patience to warm it and watch it hatch
Inside our loss we should take more care
Too much of the candle and you blot out what you hope to light up
The bird circling high its birdbones
Are a knowledge but not of any grave
When Spring blossoms appear what do they know of our cancers
When life is and exists and passes through the moment
How else speak for certainty but not overlong
That it becomes uncertainty leased into the hands of prayer
Prayer as nature would have it – beyond belief unreachable
The source and how it lives with the death of a child

Ronald Rae

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Pen on newspaper – March 2012.
23″ x 29″

Ronald Rae’s cartoons comprise surreal images and poetical comments that happen spontaneously in reaction to the graphics or text on the printed page.

Granite: 8x17x7 ft 20.00 tons. Location: Photo in Holyrood Park, currently in St Andrew Square Garden, Edinburgh. For Sale.

Pen on newspaper – March 2012.
23″ x 29″

Ronald Rae’s cartoons comprise surreal images and poetical comments that happen spontaneously in reaction to the graphics or text on the printed page.

Pen on newspaper – March 2012.
23″ x 29″

Ronald Rae’s cartoons comprise surreal images and poetical comments that happen spontaneously in reaction to the graphics or text on the printed page.

Pen on newspaper – February 2012.
23″ x 29″

Ronald Rae’s cartoons comprise surreal images and poetical comments that happen spontaneously in reaction to the graphics or text on the printed page.

Pen on newspaper – February 2012.
23″ x 29″

Ronald Rae’s cartoons comprise surreal images and poetical comments that happen spontaneously in reaction to the graphics or text on the printed page.