We are coming towards the end of the Unst Fest. The yoal regatta takes place tomorrow and yoals on the back of trailers have been arriving from other parts of Shetland. To those who are not familiar with yoals they are large heavy-duty wooden rowing boats, often beautifully streamlined, combining sturdiness with speed. They are powered by a crew of oarsmen or oarswomen and the races tomorrow will take place in the relatively sheltered waters of Baltasound. I am no expert in the art of yoal racing, but as an onlooker I can confirm that to watch them speeding across the water is an exciting and exhilarating sight.

The exhibition has now been open a week and the visitor numbers increasing day by day. The last three days have averaged between 35 and 40.

Outside London and major cities much contemporary art has a bad reputation. It is dismissed as piles of bricks or unmade beds for which the mega-rich are prepared to pay write huge cheques. Alternatively the world of contemporary art is seen as a racket involving cronies paying each other large sums of public money to make obscure works of remote interest. What compounds contemporary art’s poor reputation is the elite and impenetrable writing that accompanies much of what is shown. Described by some sceptics as ‘arts bollocks’ this indecipherable gobble-de-gook is supposed to add cultural depth, but mostly serves to distance the world of contemporary art from the wider public.

Despite this, the main achievement of the various art movements of the last 100 years has been to show that art can reach beyond its former traditional boundaries. It does not have to represent anything recognisable. It does not have to be paint on canvas or be a figure carved in stone. It can explore ugliness as well as beauty, it can disturb as well as provide pleasure.

There is no clear definition of what art is, but people recognise it when they see it. An object that is able to provoke reaction or evoke an emotion, what ever form it takes, can be art. Great art usually comes from an innovative idea or profound emotion that is given a physical reality by the technical skill of the artist. Great art may then be seen, in the words of the artists Maggi Hambling ‘to inhabit a mysterious place between life and death, simultaneously composed of both’.

If the art work goes no further than being a concept, simply an idea, it remains as an art work in progress. And on the other hand, if it is a perfectly competent representation of a visual cliché is only a technical exercise. It is like a pianist practising scales rather than playing a sonata.

What I hope Unst Modern has shown is that within a small community there is the talent to produce both skilled and meaningful art that can be appreciated and understood by the majority of people who come to see it. Although Unst is a special community, given its island position, I see no reason why other communities cannot do the same. When art is valued within a community, art will naturally emerge from the people living in it and artists from outside will be attracted to the place.