Made from Girders sampler

Artist: Gordon Muir
which would lead to the book The Briggers. ‘We approached the
National Library of Scotland at the time. They were in the process
of digitalising many images, and somehow, someone saw fit to give
me access to the Evelyn Carey collection of glass-plated images.
The digital scans were huge in format, so I was able to see every
plook on people’s faces. These Forth Bridge pictures hang in all
the pubs around Queensferry, but until you zoom in you don’t see
that there are men in them, all suddenly visible. Once you look
closely, it’s like a scene from Paint Your Wagon – the ridiculous
clothes they used to wear, you know, considering where they were
working, with their tweed suits and their deerstalker hats and their
handlebar moustaches. And I realised: I am looking at men and
boys who have never been seen by their own family. I’m the first one
to see these men in over a hundred years.’ He laughs apologetically.
‘Even as I’m talking about that, the hairs on my neck are standing
up. It was astounding!’
On a lighter note, Gordon created his own version of the Forth
Bridge after his son’s band’s request to film a pop video on the actual
Forth Bridge was declined by officials. ‘We filmed the whole thing
in an engineering yard, pretending they were on the bridge, with
the shots of the girders made out of balsa wood and polystyrene.
We even managed to borrow a train and mocked up emergency
stop handles to recreate the scene of a train stopping on the bridge.
It was pretty convincing, I think.’
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