Girly road trip: by Jupiter!

Last year, (which seems about a decade ago already… hell, February seems like a decade ago), when we could still freely travel and generally enjoy ourselves, I took another couple of car-less friends on a road trip; this time we headed to a country park in West Lothian.

Jupiter Artland contains a load of art and sculpture installations on the pathways around a large private house. It’s trippy as hell.

Among the early artworks you encounter is a wood full of creepy girl statues. Each and every one is posed to look distraught or distressed. Naturally, I had to subvert this as much as possible…

I tried laughing therapy with a distraught girl. It didn’t work. (Doesn’t matter – had a good laugh anyway.)

You can pick up a map of the paths, after you pay and get a sticker to reassure people you’ve been past the till. Honestly, it’s more fun exploring and getting that thrill of discovery. The map’s more use for finding out what each exhibit is called (come on, this is art – it’ll mean more to the artists than those looking at it!).

My body is a temple; it’s open on Sundays OH SHIT I DID NOT SAY THAT

The exhibits are varied: a funnel in the ground surrounded by a cage, or a classical looking bust, or a miniature temple can mingle with an empty house with a bare, uneven rock floor, or an outsized rifle leaning against the trees.

TRIGGER WARNING: You have to cock it before use. (The gun, I mean.)

Eventually you emerge into an open section of sculpted grounds and ponds with swans, where families with kids run about and you can have fun pretending to push your friends into the water. You can make people blink by wearing a short dress and climbing up the sculptured embankments, or by wearing a black heavy metal t-shirt to provide a complete contrast to the scenery. I bloody love going out with my friends. 🙂

Pause and reflect for a bit?

This is where the driveway from the entrance winds it way through, and by now you’re only halfway through. Jupiter Artland is huge.

There are more forested paths to walk along, with exhibits such as spiderwebs, or a boathouse filled with bottled riverwater from around Scotland, or a pit lined with expensive purple crystals (actually obsidian glass – monitored by CCTV), or an open-air church-kinda-thing (the perfect spot to take romantic pictures of your travelling companions!)…

Imagine…

Being in a country park, you can expect a whole load of wildflowers. The best time to go is late spring or summer when everything’s in bloom.

I colour co-ordinate with nature. Muthafuckaz.

The walkabout finishes next to the main buildings, including a dovecot and a garden house painted the colour of Scotland’s other national drink, Irn Bru.

You have to be very rich to own a mansion you can paint the colour of Irn Bru…

Inside this orange building is another art installation which changes every so often. On a previous visit the floor was filled with stacks of plastic cups arranged to resemble waves or sand dunes or something. On our visit, it was a … bunch of random shit thrown together to look like a tree. I think. Hell, it’s ahhhhhhht, dahlings, and what do I know about that?

This is a work of art! And so’s that shit behind me.