The Arts Diary: Finding inspiration on the farm (and in abstract expressionism)

So among the 16 pieces on show at the Open Eye from next week – in his first solo show in a mainstream Edinburgh gallery – are works called Trailer, Shearing Pen, Barrow, Straw Barn III and Ratrun 3.

Fraser’s pieces are flat wood constructions that meld the rubbed and worn textures, paints and grains of salvaged timber. He will draw on roof beams or wall boards from old barns, as well as reclaimed fence posts or doors that have been well-used by animals or people, sometimes for centuries.

Ratrun 3 features in the invitation for the exhibition, which opens on Monday. The piece includes parts of an old door, from the farm on the outskirts of Edinburgh where he works, along with three ratholes burrowed through it. Like the other works, it has tracings of pale paint colours, working time-worn woods into new objects. It’s also got a sense of humour.

“The farm has been a source of material, but also a source of inspiration,” he says “I like these functionalist colours that you get in farms, the grays and the pinky reds, and the whole dourness you get. They come from something real, you are taking fragments of something that’s had a life doing something, it’s impregnated with the time, and people’s hands and, in the case of the rodent holes, with animal activity as well.”

Fraser is a former St Andrews University art history graduate who went on to specialise first in furniture, and then furniture making, but has recently forcused on his “semi-sculptural” artworks. They’re partly inspired by medieval wall fragments, but American abstract expressionism is “all in the melting point as well”.

A really terrible gig

The Really Terrible Orchestra, with its founder and first contrabassoonist Alexander McCall Smith, has played to full houses in New York, Utrecht, and Pittenweem. But like many an Edinburgh institution, it’s the journey west that’s the longest stretch.

This October, we can exclusively reveal, the RTO will boldly go where no truly terrible orchestra has gone before – making its Glasgow debut at the City Halls. Alongside woefully misplayed Tchaikovsky and Brahms, there will be a newly commissioned “Homage to Glasgow” by musician Eddie McGuire.

“Under the encouraging baton of Sir Richard Neville-Towle, these really terrible musicians, some of whom can read music, continue to be challenged,” a spokeswoman says. “No composer is out of bounds and no repertoire beyond their imagined talents.”

Censorship at the F***ge

It’s still three months till Edinburgh Fringe time but John Fleming, organiser of the Malcolm Hardee awards for comic originality, is already turning the event into a laughing stock.

It was not so long ago that the Fringe introduced age ratings for shows, particularly comedy. Now it is alleged that programme bosses are tastefully toning down the more racy titles. And Fleming and the Chortle comedy website are stirring the issue of censorship in the Fringe programme, well ahead of its official launch on 31 May.

Stuart Goldsmith’s show, Prick, has apparently been changed to Pr!ck. Richard Herring’s 2002 show Talking Cock is being reprised but in the programme it’s become Talking C*ck: The Second Coming. Herring says he was also told he couldn’t use Dick – his own name. “Hopefully,” he says, “Dick Van Dyke won’t come to the Fringe – they’ll have to call him D*ck Van D*ke.”

McFall’s Chamber captain the Kirk

On a more serious note, the Concerts in the Kirk series at South Queensferry has already drawn an impressive roster of talent, notably Phil Cunningham and Aly Bain. The latest candlelit concert in the 800-year-old Norman parish kirk is on 20 May, featuring Mr McFall’s Chamber. They will present a new work by 23-year-old Joel Rust, a former BBC Proms Young Composer of the Year, titled From Elm-Tops. www.dundasfoundation.co.uk.