CULTURE
land,’ remembers McIntosh. ‘I was befriended by a Xhosa herdsman at the side of the road, a goat farmer, who took me back to his rondel (hut). His daughter was a witchdoctor and so I lived with them for a few weeks. I didn’t take part in any ceremonies, but it was fascinating to see how their lifestyle worked in South Africa.’ His stay in South Africa is reminiscent of
the time he spent with the First Nation tribe in Canada. Alastair McIntosh, Adam’s father, led the campaign against plans for the ‘super- quarry’ on Harris during the 1990s and, as part of the protests, he brought Stone Eagle, chief of the Mi’kmaq tribe, to Scotland to talk about how their sacred burial ground in Nova Scotia was being threatened by a similar project. So when McIntosh junior stayed in Canada,
the Mi’kmaq gave him the native American name ‘Two Skies’ because he would always have one sky at home in Scotland and then another that would follow him around the world. The moniker stuck and became the name of McIn- tosh’s jewellery business, which now employs nine people in Scotland and provides work for silversmiths and goldsmiths in a Fair Trade workshop in Jaipur in India. ‘It seems funny – the son of an environmen-
talist mining stones,’ laughs McIntosh. ‘But dad loves it, he’s all for it. The way I’m extracting stones isn’t on a big commercial level. I’m just picking away at faces. I’m not damaging things. Plus, his wife gets jewellery – so if she’s happy then he’s happy.’ When he’s not travelling the globe, McIn-
tosh’s life at home can be a bit of an adventure too. At the age of 15, he built a treehouse for himself in a sycamore tree on a farm in Fife, which featured in Scottish Field in 1998. Today,
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WWW.SCOTTISHFIELD.CO.UK
McIntosh is still living in a treehouse, but now it’s in an ash tree and boasts all the mod-cons, including broadband internet access. ‘It overlooks the Forth Estuary, so it’s a nice
wee spot,’ smiles McIntosh. ‘You can get a bit seasick in the wind, particularly if you’ve had a few drinks with your pals.’ Work is also keeping McIntosh closer to
home these days too. Having built relationships around the world and secured the supplies of gemstones he needs, McIntosh is now combing Scotland for semi-precious stones, including agates in Fife and marble from Iona and Skye. His latest products are based around
Lewisian, the second-oldest rock in the world, which can be found up and down the West Coast. A haul in the Central Highlands also yielded pink garnets set inside white quartz. ‘We’re constantly looking for new material,’
he says. ‘If you make jewellery for their friends and family then land owners tend to be happy for you to collect stones from their land.’
Find out more at
www.twoskiesdesign.com
‘A lot of our customers aren’t just buying the jewellery – they’re buying the story’
Above left: Adam as he appeared in Scottish Field in 1998. Above right: Chipping away at an exposed serpentine marble seam on the West Coast of Scotland.
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