Irish Arts Blog

Jazz with Mr. Jones

   

The invitation arrived by messenger. 5 p.m. Friday at 54 rue M, where New Year Eve is not just another day and where I gave the first Mrs. Jones her only Charleston lesson.

It is the most celebrated apartment in town, unless you count the Murphys’. The big living room with mirrored walls and angular white furniture looks much less austere filled with talented people. Mr. Jones waves me over from the piano bench; he shoos the cats (“Anything” and “Goes”) onto the zebra-skin rug, pats for me to sit down.
I can barely hear him over the room roar and cocktail-shaker rhythm section, but I just make out the words…“that black-and-white baby of mine.

As he whispers in my ear I can see the Senegal Matrimonial Masks hanging in the hall, apparently they didn’t make it to Oxfam after all.

Jazz captures the movement of the music and atmosphere of that very long weekend.

Pirates,Whales and Gardens!

by Sandra Richardson,Feltpix

This is my Cool Pirate, he's a good guy - Whilst working on my sea/water theme over the last few months I decided I needed to vary it a little and came up with my pirate who would love to sail the seas!I'm sure he would encounter many boats on his travels, from fishing boats to sailing yachts as well as a variety of fish, like the whale below.

I have been busy with lots of commissions lately, which are great but often difficult! I haven't figured out if it's harder to work from a photograph that someone has given you to copy or to work on the image they have in their heads!

I decided to step off the sea and back to land for this picture of the birds in the garden. As wonderful as it is to hear the birds song, I wasn't too happy the other morning when it sounded like all the birds in the neighbourhood had arrived in the tree outside my bedroom window!

Bloom

by Cristina Colli

Mosaic is an art form that allows the use of almost an endless variety of materials.

Pebbles, semi-precious stones, shells, beach glass, jewellery, scraps of metal can be integrated in a mosaic, beside traditional materials such as marble, smalti, gold leaf smalti, stone, ceramic and glass.

When I first saw Paua  shells, I was immediately attracted by their striking blue, green and purple iridescence.

Their naturally curved shape inspired my 3-d piece “Bloom”, a small sculpture made of fibreglass mesh, polystyrene and cement.

I also used gold leaf smalti, moonstone chips, pearls and iridescent glass to carry on the shimmering  play of colour of the abalone shell.

I particularly enjoyed the challenge of combining something hard such as cement and glass to convey the delicate beauty of a blooming flower.

The Wedding Gift

Asking an artist for a piece of work as a wedding gift is always a good thing for this artist.  Just come on by and pick one out - if you like it, take it!  Asking the artist to paint something for the couple which captures them, is a little bit more daunting for this artist.

This wedding gift is a Kenyan Sunrise, capturing where Darren and Silvia got engaged. The groom fell upon one knee and cried tears of joy to the laughter of the hippos, delight of the chimps and the stares of the lions - not sure if this happened but it is my blog! The sunrise also represents the beginning of their new life together.  The bride loves red, purple and green - the colours of the African hills and the morning savannah are purple and green.  Kenya is so helpful with her array of colours! The groom loves the bride.

Finally, the Italian bride loves Ireland, her Irish man and our Celtic culture so the sunrise is also a Celtic spiral - capturing the Irish man, the culture and the bride's love of all things Irish.

I hope Sylvia and Darren enjoy this painting and have a wonderful long life together.

I wonder will it always be over the fire place or will it be relocated to the downstairs Loo!!