Alan & Stella Whittle
Solus Studio, Stoneybridge, South Uist
Mobile: 07787030504
Opening Hours: 10am – 5pm Mon-Sat, 11am – 4pm Sun. Other times by appointment, please phone to avoid disappointment. We welcome payment by credit/debit cards.
We also offer a mail order service through our website: www.uibhist.com
Solus Studio is the studio, gallery/gift shop of Alan & Stella Whittle.
Alan & Stella are a husband and wife design team specialising in kiln-formed glass, ceramics, sculpture and paintings of local interest in various media.
Solus Studio is located in South Uist where Alan & Stella live together with two collie pups, eight chickens, a wind turbine called Daisy, a red van named Eric, a fast expanding veg garden…oh and three teenagers.
Stella works primarily in kiln-formed glass and specialises in recycling waste glass such as window panes, coach windows and bottles, that would otherwise end up landfill. These are transformed into jewellery, bowls and sculpture. She has designed a range of stained glass mirrors utilising recycled bottle glass.
She also works with non-recycled, brightly coloured art glass which is again used to produce a wide variety of items, including picture wall panels, sculpture, bowls, platters and jewellery.
In addition, Stella works in silver (and has her own hallmark), much of which is incorporated into her glass jewellery, and occasionally produces lampworked glass beads. She also designs and produces trophies and presentation pieces for various clients.
Stella frequently teaches in local schools, working with children and their designs to produce decorative and commemorative windows as well as recycling and ‘green’ projects. She accepts commissions.
Alan is a sculptor and works primarily in cold cast work and hand built ceramics, with ranges of local interest scenes such as traditional cottages, landscape models and wildlife. He also produces a range of book-ends, chess sets, clocks etc. embellished with Celtic, Pictish and Viking motifs carved in relief.
His ceramic work includes large bowls, platters and wall panels and more recently slab-built sculpture.
Alan has exhibited widely in trade fairs as far apart as the USA (Atlanta, New York and Chicago) and Paris, as well as ‘local’ ones in Glasgow, Ingliston and Aviemore, and has supplied outlets worldwide.
He has been commissioned to produce corporate gifts for several international companies, including half a tonne of green and gold bookends for an Irish American company, for their corporate Christmas gift baskets.
Most commissions are smaller and he has done freelance design for promotional companies, from one-offs to masters for mass production in the Far East, as well as single models of personal significance to the client.
Alan has, in the past, designed a complete range of educational games and puzzles in Gaelic and English under the name ‘Cluiche’ which were sold in high quality toyshops nationwide.
He also paints in watercolour and acrylic, mostly local interest scenes. However he has been known to paint stage scenery for local schools and large interior and exterior murals.