Buckie’s Darling unveiled as the new gateway feature for the town
In early 2019 a competition was held for UK based artists to submit proposals for a gateway feature to mark the entrance of Buckie and capture the heritage of the town in a sculpture.
After some delays due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the sculpture was installed on site before being unveiled on Saturday 17 July for the local community and visitors to enjoy.
The project was been funded by £25,000 of Developer Obligations received from Tesco in 2010 as part of the financial contributions for the development of the Tesco store in Buckie. The sculpture was installed on the grassed area off the Tesco roundabout, at the corner of High Street, A942 and Fairway Road on entering Buckie.
10 artists from all over the UK submitted their ideas and the top 3 entries were selected in April 2019 by a shortlisting panel made up of the Buckie Elected Members, a representative of Buckie Tesco, an independent artist and Council officers.
The three shortlisted artists, Carn Standing, Emma Crawford and Maggie Clyde, all made maquettes of their entries which were displayed in Tesco in Buckie for 6 weeks for members of the public to see and comment on.
Over 450 comments were received before the shortlisting panel chose the winning entry, taking account of these comments, and selected Buckie’s Darling to be the gateway feature for Buckie.
The winning submission comes from artist Carn Standing and is a 3D sculpture which has been handmade from the artists’ studio in Portsoy using stainless steel bars, sheet and tubing - making its silver appearance ideal for the shoal of silver darlings
Speaking of the sculpture, Carn said: “I reflected on the meaning of the name Buckie and where it is said to have originated, from the Gaelic word for buck / male deer. I was also inspired by how Buckie grew as a town and a community and the importance of fishing.
“I started to see the herring within the body of the deer as a composition to unify the two things, and a symbolism for the uniting of the several villages which led to the Buckie we know today. The silver darlings merged into the body of the deer have been arranged as a turning shoal of fish to maximise the movement of the sculpture, to bring it alive.”
Chair of Moray Council’s Planning & Regulatory Services committee, Cllr David Bremner, said it's been exciting to see the artists’ proposals and their visions for Buckie and the future.
He added: “Whilst all of the designs were extremely impressive, the Buckie’s Darling sculpture caught my attention straight away. We received a large number of positive comments about the piece from the local community and knew it would fit in well to the local surroundings.
“It’s been fantastic to see the local community engage in the project and provide their feedback on the design proposals and I’m confident that the winning sculpture will be a talking point of the area for years to come.
You can view the story map of how Buckie’s Darling came to be on our website.