New Town haul

dusk till September 26.

The park also boasts a new permanent sculpture commissioned from Paul

Cosgrove and Keith Rand. Fiona Dean, the third artist-in-residence in a

nine-year programme (Jim Cathcart and John Ferry worked there from 1984)

is making a public sculpture for the Whirlies roundabout and Elspeth

Lamb and Dean are to collaborate on art work for the East Kilbride

village theatre.

Nearby, Scottish Nuclear have invested heavily in top quality for

their stylish new #9m building at Peel Park. The newest piece is a

spectacular and witty water-sculpture of three quirky, questioning heads

by Shona Kinloch which shows that large corporations need not be stuffy

and can even have a sense of humour. In addition an impressive new #1.1m

Arts Centre with large gallery space and studio theatre is due to open

in the old village by Christmas. All in all a very positive contribution

from East Kilbride District Council and Development Corporation.

The Scottish Sculpture Open is now in its seventh year. It is

organised from Lumsden Sculpture Workshop and was first seen in

June/July in the spectacular if distant setting of Kildrummy Castle,

Aberdeenshire. Calderglen is a great chance for the Central Belt to

catch it. One hopes it will become a tradition.

Eighteen artists show one large work each. The sculptures are grouped

around the information centre. Young talent includes Sibylle Von Halem

with a playful small fantasy folly; Arran Ross whose elaborate

polychrome Hawaiian girl carving sits well in the garden arbour and

Marion Smith with a beehive Refuge. Invited sculptors include Doug

Cocker with unexpected Keith Haring-type pegmen joined at the head, Fred

Bushe, Frank Pottinger, and Arthur Watson who needs to come up with a

new idea.

Most memorable is Peter Bevan's Cathedral, a giant white hand held

aloft by a 14ft-tall basket-work classy wood scaffolding, symbolic of

the fragility of gestures of peace and generosity. I also much enjoyed

Frances Pelly's sea-blue stained mermaid right by Cosgrove and Rand's

new sculpture, The Keep.

The Keep is carved from a tree which accidentally got waterlogged and

drowned. When I saw the tree being carved you could see -- and feel --

the water-sodden results. Rand and Cosgrove began separately but

''fancied working in collaboration'' and researched Mains Castle,

Torrance House, and the Mains of Lindsay.

The final idea is based loosely on the town coat of arms. One figure

perches on top of the 35ft tree as though to take a dive and the other

poses by a broch doorway like a farmer leaning on a shovel. Other

anonymous masses and weatherbeaten woodcarvings of a man rowing a boat

and a long fish bench testify to earlier successful artistic efforts in

Calderglen.

Fiona Dean, the current artist in residence, is involved in education

programmes, workshops, and the new northern development area link road

at Stewartfield. ''East Kilbride is wall-to-wall roundabouts. There are

six in close proximity here so it's as well to use them! There's finance

for four so far,'' says Dean. ''I am working with the architects from an

early stage so the work is properly integrated. My first piece, Mi Casa,

Mi Castillo, is tall, linear, and architectural and is almost ready to

be installed by Mains Castle. It's one-inch-thick steel, is four metres

high, and was made at Stockweld in Bellshill.'' She is also planning a

sculpture relating to the history of St Bride opposite the theatre and

related to Lamb's vitreous enamel wall piece.

Shona Kinloch's three four-and-a-half-ton heads for the water feature

in the pond at Scottish Nuclear were cast at Edinburgh's Powderhall

Bronze. I saw them there, some in 12 sections, before their green

patination, and marvelled at their size. Inevitably sited in front of

this handsome glass building they've shrunk considerably despite their

crowning fish spouting water in arcs. This is Kinloch's best piece yet:

large-scale, ambitious, yet with no loss of quirky sparkle. One head is

posing the question; one is dubious; and the third -- ?. Go see what you

think.

Kinloch, now 30, graduated from Glasgow in 1985. She caught the public

eye with her Glasgow Garden Festival Dogs and a major figure for the

Italian Centre. Now with this sculpture she has reached another rung on

the ladder.

Other art work outside Scottish Nuclear are Jim Ritchie's three

upright metal and granite monoliths, while inside in the atrium are two

oil paintings by Jack Knox (one unusually of Standing Stones against an

orange sunset, the other dark starry seascape more characteristic), and

a vivid vermilion wool hanging by Adrian Wiszniewski made at Edinburgh's

Dovecot.

The dining-room features an enormous and intricate ''fishy'' carving

by Martin Rayner. Rayner lives by the sea at Newport and fish, a boat

hull, and many other marine references are contained in six rich,

decorative polychrome panels.

Victoria Cassidy's work is also highly decorative but while Rayner is

bouncily extrovert in an attractive but loud fairground macho kind of

way, Cassidy plays a stringed instrument rather than a brass band.

Elegant, soigne, definitely feminine, her gentle drifts of pale azure

and violet touched with gold are irresistible. Her work is also

incredibly detailed (what eyesight, what patience!) and has long

featured astrology, maps, and signs of the zodiacs.

Her new exhibition at the Compass Gallery, An Egyptian Diary, is the

result of a visit to the sands and lands of the ancient Pharaoh. Using

the age-old emblems of Osiris and Isis she conjures subtle pattern and

texture. Her technique ''manipulating watercolour like veils of silk,''

is extraordinary. However, I do wish she would rely less on well-known

symbols and try inventing her own.

Last chance to see George Walton at Glasgow Art Gallery. This is a

terrific show of the Glasgow designer and architect who was a friend and

colleague of Mackintosh.