Tessie is from the Scottish borders and her creative connection is through the lore and spirits of the Lothians and the Borders. She reaches into this through walking the land and sleeping in it; learning about the myths and tales; and seeing what emerges when she goes out into the hills . Tessie’s art looks to weave back intimacy and belonging with where we are from. Tessie works in climate change and social justice and sees this work as entangled to our stories of where we are from and our intimate relationship with the land and everything that comes before and after us.

See Tessie’s work as part of our annual autumn open call, We Fear Nae Evil. featuring thirty three artists exploring the strange and magical stories of Scottish Folklore, plus our Sextet listening station is back with twenty-four new pieces for you to spend some quality time with.

Thanks for being with us Tessie. Can you tell us how your artistic journey started?
I have always doodled and drawn but my artistic journey started when I did an earth lodge, where I lay in darkness in the earth for twenty four hours. It was in a coffin sized willow living structure half sunken into the earth, so I lay on the moss ground, with all daylight blacked out with layers of black throws. For twenty four hours I lay with the sounds of the animals and birds coming and going and the wind and the trees, with no food or water, and just the sweet darkness. This was a deep commune with the dark t and everything this represents for me (death, spirits, the black night, the unknown). And it was also the first time a complete image came to me. Interestingly I started forming the image in my mind before I entered the earth lodge, like the spell of nature and the ceremony was already telling itself to me.

How did you arrive at the theme of your work?
My work is always around the themes of the wild, reclaiming what it is to be human: nature, messiness, beauty, age, death. I find it uncaptivating that I (and we) are often drawn to darker lore and mythologies like the Gyre Carlin, the Cailleach, in Scotland. Maybe even despite our age of distraction, of phones and Instagram and toxic positivity and infantile (in a way of no judgement) expressions of the darker experience of living (e.g. the often cheap world of shadow work), we are still consistently drawn to the dark. Maybe its because it feels edgy. Maybe because in Scotland we cannot escape the six months of winter, and sometimes nine months of grey and wind depending on where you are, and what that does to our psyche. Though I believe that like people are moulded from their soils, the spirits that stalk the land and our imagination too are moulded from all elements of nature that birthed them. I work in climate change and have historically worked in this area or with refugees. I think that if we fight for justice, there is an invitation to reconnect at a deeper level, which can help us understand where disconnect, violence and othering comes from. As well as to seek out a deeper and much older wisdom, that often only the hills or woods or fire can tell you.

How did you arrive at the theme of your work?
My work always comes from spending time in the wild. We have many stories of the land and sìth and goddess and other spirits, and I think we need to sit with the land to hear either new stories or different expressions based on our encounters. Stories and lore have always been living among the landscape and with our collective understanding. Understanding our lore and stories is about looking to the past as well as keeping sitting at the fire side and in the woodlands, to hear who comes to us and what they have to say. I hope my work reawakens a sense of belonging in people, to their land and sense of self. We cannot truly know ourselves without knowing who and what walks the land, perhaps on different timescales to us. And we cannot disentangle ourselves from these spirits and their stories.

Can you walk us through your creative process?
My artistic ideas always come from experiences. From there a story starts to emerge. The story can start as an image, or even a feeling. The shape or tone or composition then usually start to deepen whilst out walking. When I start to actually create, usually putting pen to paper, the end result can be quite unknown. The story or feeling is the main thing that runs throughout. Sometimes the end piece itself is quite unexpected though, but it always portrays the story I wanted to tell. Though sometimes with a different slant than initially anticipated.

My work is usually through illustration but I also enjoy carving stone and bone that I find. Usually skulls found out whilst walking. I usually carve sigils and spells into my bone work. Though I’ve also recently dappled with carving pictish images into stones. As well as these designs being beautiful, their simplicity and flow lends themself well to being carving into harder material like stone.

In terms of creative blocks. I don’t force my work. My work emerges in response to experiences. If I want to create, I see what needs to be brought alive and awakened within me first. And to do that, I go to the forest or into the night.

Find out more about Tessie’s work on Instagram. We Fear Nae Evil runs at Six Foot Gallery until Friday 16th October 2026.