Irish Arts Blog

Red Water

by Mairead deBlaca

'Water, your exhibition is on water? But why water?' He asked as we stood in The Mill Theatre in Dundurm. 

We were at my current exhibition’s opening, and it struck me how appropriate the title seemed as the 19th of January gave us about 5 inches of rain.  Nice when Mother Nature complements my work. 

He persists, 'So, why did you choose water as a theme?’

Sometimes, he is very good at asking me why. 

I have always had something of a love-hate relationship with water. I love the colours, movement and sounds it creates, but I have a fear of its enormous power.  I am not a strong swimmer and have vivid memories of being pulled beneath the waves on various family holidays. And never once were there mermaids or dolphins there to save me!  As a result, I hate to put my face beneath the water. So I suppose I will never get to swim the channel.  Another thing to cross off the endless list of life - swim the channel, learn Swahili, marry George Clooney, world domination.....

Red Water reminds me of many trips to warmer waters, sitting on boats staring into the sea and watching the colours float by. The sound and colour of water can be such an evocative thing, can’t it? I only need to hear gentle waves and I find myself transported back in time to literally floating my way around the Virgin Islands. I can almost feel the sun on my face just thinking about it.

As the evening ended, he quipped, 'I know why you picked water, it’s a mixer for my whiskey and makes ice for your gins!'

Ah yes. Perhaps he had a point. He knows me so well . . .

Red Water, acrylic on board and other water themes can be seen at my current exhibition, Water in Abstraction, The Mill Theatre in Dundrum, Dublin.

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Bog woman

by cliodhna

 

A card, one of a few I have been doing recently. The photo comes from a walk in wicklow. The water is such an amazing colour up in there! Dark red/black. Especially in the little pools you come across. Definitely fairy country!

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Portals

by Michael Ray

Portals are interdimensional openings, doorways,  bridges, interfaces between different environments, places of transition.

The nature of our reality is that we exist in a multi layered electro-magnetic grid system.  When one moves through portals - either with the body - or the mind - one may move from grid to grid.

Portals link to the spiraling energies of time and space.    These energies allow our consciousness to spiral from one grid reality to another.Whether it be through dreams, meditation, creative play or substance we can travel through portals to somewhere else 

Physical portals, are found in power places, such as the Great Pyramid, Stonehenge, the Mayan Pyramids, Machu Picchu, and other sacred sites.

In space - the universe - we have portals called black holes.

Seeing is believing so they say , and through seeing can also come understanding, i am working on the notion that from intrigue and surprise comes an opportunity to understand more, by looking without we can also see within.

My portals offer a window or doorway to somewhere else, where would you like to go?

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clearing,

by cliodhna

I am spring cleaning, I have to finish projects before I can move onto the new exciting new stuff. This is really hard for me.. the new stuff holds so much promise where as when a project is half way there or even nearly done you can tell how it going to turn out and I lose interest sometimes. Sometimes it's because its not as wonderfully amazing as I envisioned it in my head and I think the next one will be better.

This embroidery above is one such. I did it for my last exhibition in signal and it didn't quite fit with the others maybe, I don't know, can't really remember why I abandoned it. I found it again a week ago sorting through my things and I liked it. Its to do with the dragonfly being the master of illusion and the doorkeeper through that illusion. I love the fabric I did it on, a blue silk, and the sun is a rich red silk that the picture doesn't quite do justice to. One thing I find with any kind of art or craft, if I start off with good materials or fabrics I love they inspire me.

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Confession

By Patrick Naughton
Forgive me Father for i have sinned, it has been 1 month and four days since my last photographic confession. Since our last meeting i have being busy trying to balance the madness of Christmas and two jobs. As a consequence, i have unfortunetly been in neglect of those around me. Yes, my cameras have not seen as much of me as they would like. The negatives have not stopped nagging all Christmas and i have finally given in to appease their feelings. We spent a day together watching light and shadows dancing across Howth Head.  We saw a silhouette of the Bailey Light House and winter clouds falling from the sky. The days of neglect seem like a distant memory now; and yes Father, we had a great day out.

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REGAL

By Ellen McDermott

This lady is the third in a series of large 3.5ft x 2.5ft x 2 inch oil painting portraits of women that I have painted recently and can be viewed in the flesh in Kilmantin Art Gallery, Wicklow Town in two weeks time.

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Winter Inspiration

by Mairead deBlaca

"So where does your inspiration come from?" they ask

"don't know, it just pops into my head!" I mutter feeling a little unsure how to answer.

"But, how do you know what you want to paint" they persist!

"don't know it comes from the brush nothing to do with me, really"

Thinking about this question - and other meaning of life type questions, i realised that my inspiration comes from what I see in the outside world.  On a recent trip to my parents home in Cork, I was mesmorised by the bright colours of their garden.  There garden was full of green and red. My next body of work will have to be inspired by the colours of the winter in Cork. 

 

The fuisa was so delicate in the cold garden.

The berries look good enough to eat - for the birds any way!

Post by Mairead De Blaca

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STATE OF GRACE

ARTIST ELLEN MCDERMOTT

I've been painting mostly portraits recently and one of my personal favourites is this 2.5 x 3.5ft portrait of Grace Kelly which I painted in commemoration of her death 25 years ago.  Right now she can be found hanging in the new EXPOSE YOURSELF GALLERY on the third floor of the Dun Laoighre Shopping Center  This new gallery was opened by the founder of the Irish Craft Association, Karen Harper and aims to give more exposure to artists like myself who are looking for a platform to showcase their art.

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Feltmaking Origins & Soft Sculpture

By Rebecca Hillman

I am a Leitrim based textile artist whose passion lies in feltmaking. The origins of felt trace back to ancient nomadic Asia. The oldest fragments found in Turkey date back to 6,500 BC. Felt was an integral part of culture, being used to make hard wearing clothes and shelters such as yurts. Felt is incredibly durable and tough, so much so, it was even used as shields and armour in battle.

It's a material that is very warm when dry, and so its use was (and still is) popular either in hot dry regions where nights were chilly, or further north where precipitation was mainly in the form of snow rather than rain.

I love to work with felt in both two (wall hangings) and three dimensional forms. It can lend itself beautifully to three dimensional soft sculpture ... the image above is an example of some of my work inspired by the environs of 'lovely Leitrim', where I see wading birds such as Curlew on the lake shores, and Oystercatcher which are often spied on the sea coast. Yes, Leitrim has a coastline, even if it is only two miles long!

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All things are visible at night

by cliodhna

I think my hidden blogger who has been suppressed for so many years is starting to emerge. Like Travelling Uncle Matt from the fraggles. These are postcards in code hanging in cyberspace ready for anyone to view them. All fellow fraggles who like to play more than work unite!
I am in Morelia waiting for my brother to wake up so I can wander round the town with him. He is playing with an orchestra from Ireland at the International Music festival here. So I hopped on a bus to join him for his free day before hightailing it back to guanajuato to keep making bags. Craft fair in three weeks!!!!!
...and I am still waiting for my credit card console to arrive from Ulster bank. I started organising it in july... very long tedious story of endless phonecalls.

Anyway I was sitting in the bus on the way here and was struck by the hidden nature of darkness and the night. In the day time we can see everything but we only see the surface reality, what we project onto things (and there is nothing outside us except ourselves) and our minds can make sense and explain and reason away anything we don´t understand. But at night there is nothing the mind can hook onto and we project into the darkness all our fears and imaginings. Think of all the horror movies, when are they ever set in daylight on a nice beach somewhere? Or I remember being a child and being afraid to stick my feet out over the bed in case the little people who live under the bed would come out and chop them off, or another time not so long ago walking in a forest in a full moon and becoming absolutly terrified of werewolves.
So I thought that if I wanted to find something hidden in me that won´t come out I can sit in the nighttime somewhere dark and see what emerges!

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