Epic rockery

Today Hisae, Neill and I will make a pilgrimage to Little Sparta, the Pentlands home and garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay, poet and artist. Finlay is, I would submit, a minimalist-classicist genius. The serene shadow of the poet-sculptor, 80 this year, falls across the Edinburgh Art Festival in the form of three exhibitions, and will certainly fall across my next album in the form of influence.



To give you a flavour of the man's wise and revolutionary playfulness, here are some extracts from "Domestic Pensees (1964-1972)" a book of jottings, aphorisms and zuihitsu, published by Aggie Weston's Editions.

( Domestic Pensees )