Mike McDonnell: A man of remarkable talents

Mike was born in Greenock in 1939. He studied medicine at Glasgow University and, later, tropical medicine at Liverpool. He and his wife Gill (whom, Jonathan records, he’d wooed with flowers acquired from the hospital garden) set off to the Solomon Islands. There, as a junior medical officer, he ranged across the archipelago and absorbed its culture, its music, and its art. The couple had their first two (of four) children there.

Mike returned to Greenock to work as a GP in 1971. He found himself drawn into fighting the poverty, poor diet and substandard housing which blighted parts of the town. His approach didn’t endear itself to his practice partners and in 1973, building on his Solomon Islands experience, he applied for the GP post serving two of Shetland’s northern islands, Yell and Fetlar. He practised in that role until 1998.

Throwing himself into both his work and the life of the community, Mike persuaded the health authorities to let him train rural GPs in Yell. However, he was also busy with local campaigns to support jobs and the local economy or improving local transport links.

The interest in art and craft that had flourished when he was in the Solomon Islands was so strong that, by the time he retired, it had become a second career. What’s also clear is that Mike’s commitment to others, the foundation of his medical career, was just as profound in his promotion of arts. He organised art classes, taught in the local school, encouraged local artists and was instrumental in creating the museum and gallery at the Old Haa in Burravoe.

Mike’s pleasure in crafting his pieces in his workshop was obvious to all who knew him.

In the garden at the Old Haa, Mike worked with Alan Smiles, stonemason, to create six large Inukshuk style figures, constructed from six different types of rock found in Yell. Children at the Burravoe school made their own stone figures for a museum interpretative display.

When Queen Sonja of Norway and the then Duke and Duchess of Rothesay (now King Charles III and Queen Camilla) unveiled a commemorative plaque at the new Shetland Museum and Archives in 2007, it was Mike’s superb bronze design that they admired. It uses the museum’s logo, based on the mainsail of the restored fishing vessel, Swan, to create (among other things) a broch, a lorry’s load, a wheelbarrow and a Viking’s tunic.

The bronze version is permanently mounted next to the museum entrance and a wooden version is shown in the entrance lobby.

Most of the work included in the exhibition is three-dimensional or bas-relief, ranging from his punning Irony to many pieces depicting, in particular, boats and their interiors.

Mike’s work did, however, include some paintings. Some of these, done partly for practice and partly for amusement, were what he termed ‘forgeries’, copies of well-known works such as a Modigliani nude.

As we’ll see, Mike’s interests were wide-ranging, and the exhibition picks up a number of themes. His fascination with the sea and ships is obvious, and fishing is an important element in that. His commitment to the environment is reflected in both subject matter and the recycling of found materials. His pieces often touch on local and international politics. Music and poetry were also at the heart of his work. Often, an exhibit draws on two or more of these inspirations.

Ships and fishing

One of the pieces linked to fishing is Comrades, which connects the fishing heritage of Shetland to that of other North Sea ports, Lossiemouth, Peterhead, Aberdeen and Grimsby. St Ives and Newhaven appear in Concord.

In all these pieces, Mike’s attention to detail, and the intricacy of the craftsmanship on display, are extraordinary. We see, for example, a selection of neatly-rolled navigation charts, a stack of tiny fish boxes or a lifebelt.

The environment

From even a cursory glance at the exhibits, Mike’s commitment to recycling is clear. Almost all his work relies to some extent on found objects, such as timber or plastic washed up on the beach, or discarded metal, as in The Knitter. He also collected scrap wood from friends’ workshops. The frames, too, were mostly constructed from discarded wood.

His concerns included extinction (with a witty, wishful reference to sheep), industrial fishing and fish farming.

Local and global politics

The exhibition features several pieces that reflect Mike’s views about the state of both local and global politics. The windows of a beautifully-crafted Lerwick Town Hall are populated by councillors whose claims to competence or integrity are satirised.

Internationally, Meltdown of Humanity is a protest against the horrors inflicted on civilians in Syria, echoing Picasso’s Guernica. Mike was also appalled by the actions of the Taliban, in Afghanistan, who executed Fawad Andarabi for the ‘crime’ of playing a guitar.

Arts and Music

As well as his Solomon Islands sojourn and his upbringing in Greenock, he drew heavily on his knowledge of art history, perhaps most obviously the post-impressionists and (as in the inspiration from Picasso) cubists.

The exhibition features Highly Strung Quartet and it’s no surprise that it sets the musicians on a boat formed from half a (probable) cello. The Musical Sculptures are among several exhibits featuring a variety of instruments.

Poetry

Mike’s work refers to many poets. One piece is based on a Rhoda Bulter poem about the Shetland clearances, when lairds expelled crofters from the land in order to make more money from sheep.

Shetland’s Vagaland (T A Robertson) was the inspiration for Bound is the Boatless Man.

A particular favourite was W S Graham, who was, like Mike, from Greenock. Two examples are Voyages of W S Graham and W S Graham Man of Letters.

The pierces represented here are only a fraction of Mike McDonnell’s prodigious output. The exhibition contains many more and Jonathan Wills’ book illustrates other examples. No-one can be left in any doubt of Mike’s extraordinary energy and creative imagination. His commitment to the arts and music is obvious, and so is his lifelong compassion for the downtrodden, under-privileged and war-torn. We also recall his unyielding commitment to public and community service.

But those of us who were lucky enough to know him remember, too, his personal warmth, sparkle, and good humour, which he brought to everything he did. My own memories include his kindness when my daughters, a colleague and I were stormbound in Yell and he took us in.

Logical Confusion: the artistry of Mike McDonnell, by Jonathan Wills, is published by Bressabooks, ISBN 9798862395808. It can be ordered online from the Shetland Heritage Shop. Also available from the shop are the exhibition catalogue, postcards featuring Mike’s work, a coaster depicting the museum plaque and a gift bundle containing all these items.

You can find an extract from Jonathan's book, together with a selection of images, on the art.scot website.

Images in this article are credited to the photographers concerned or to Shetland Museum and Archives. Copyright in the artistic works illustrated is held by the Estate of Michael W. McDonnell.