Irish Arts Blog

Waterways Exhibition

The Waterways exhibition is part of the "miniature" series of exhibitions annually held by the British Association for Modern Mosaic - BAMM.

This exhibition is held in London, at the Canal Museum and it runs until 8th November.

The theme is inspired by the venue. It encompasses many areas including associated wildlife, landscape, history and canal art (Roses and Castles) itself.

I contributed two pieces:

A rose is a rose by Cristina Colli

“A rose is a Rose” takes its inspiration from the rose motif typical of canal folk art, with its vibrant, bright colours often set off by a dark background.

Gliding through by Cristina Colli

“Gliding through” is dedicated to the beauty and elegance of swans, often seen swimming gracefully through the water of canals.

Exotic Pink Shoes

By Emma Barone

When I made this painting I considered it mediocre.

I hung it in a trendy ladies boutique where it received almost iconic status. The feedback from customers who visited the shop was incredible. It captured the imaginations of many well heeled ladies & became a conversation piece amongst them.

Sometimes we artists are so close to our own work that we fail to see what others see. On occasion our opinion about the art we produce may not coincide with the general consensus.

When art is put into the public domain it occasionally acquires a new guise or a life of its own.

Due to the overwhelming response to ‘Exotic Pink Shoes’ I decided to get postcards made. Everyone who leaves a comment on this post will receive a postcard.

Enjoy.

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.

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.

Axis Mundi, The World Tree as a Woman

When I was very small the gift I treasured most in the world was a black,fine-tipped magic marker. It was even sweeter when accompanied by a cheap multi-pack of rainbow coloured felts. When they ran out of colour you could pop the ends off and trickle warm tap water into them to extend their weakly colourful lives for just one more day. Such bliss!

As a teenager I loved drawing with dip pens...a collection of handles and nibs stained my walnut desk. Even to this day I love the feel of dip pens, technical pens and fountain pens. My fingers always seem to be stained with ink.

One day I swear I am going to splurge and get myself a Mont Blanc fountain pen, or "fine writing instrument" as they say. (sigh) ...the things that dreams are made of....

-Susanne Iles

GEISHA

Artist Ellen McDermott

This 50cm x 40 cm oil on board portrait of a geisha is waiting for me to find a nice black frame for her  but somehow finding the correct frame has managed to take longer than the time it took for me to paint her.

Green Eyes

This is a notebook page that has followed me round for many years waiting for its time. I did paint an oil painting about it a few years ago but it didn't quite get there. maybe I will do something with old green eyes now.

Green eyes fell in love with the sea when she wore her robe of green.
But she wore her robe of green to mate with the sky and she loved the sky and green was the colour of her deepest secrets
He saw her robe of green quite by accident and his heart opened and his eyes changed colour. One should never see the secrets of the world by accident (though surely there are no true accidents). We are driven mad by knowledge when we learn it before our time.
He has lost his heart not to the sea, but to the seas green secret embroidered robe.

Irish Stone Spirits

Remember when you were little and you found the perfect stone? You would run its roundness up and down, through your fingers, and carry it in your pocket like a talisman. Your worry stone. Your lucky stone.

Sometimes you would put it in your mouth to tumble its smoothness over your tongue. Of course your mother was appalled! How dangerous! Hidden in your hand it could make you feel invincible.

Back then a stone was a little piece of forever.

Fly Agaric Shoes

Amanita muscaria

, commonly known as the fly agaric is a poisonous fungus, The quintessential toadstool.

This experiment is about mixing & combining nature with manmade… the natural world with the material world. In this case a fly agaric with a pair of ladies shoes. I know it sounds bizarre but that’s the beauty of it.

When you get down to the nitty gritty its all made up of the same stuff….atoms, molecules, fragments, particles, sparkles, colours, magic etc.

In my mind it is possible to create the impossible, it’s only through limiting thinking that we fail to see the opportunities to create a vision or concept that is alien to the generic lifestyle that is prevalent today.

These fly agaric shoes have allowed me to use my imagination to produce a unique concept.

We all too often underestimate our abilities as creators of our own vision.

The beautiful "fly agaric" mushroom (Amanita muscaria) is unmistakable with its bright red cap covered with white scales (remnants of the membranous universal veil that once enveloped the entire stalk and umbrella-like cap). Some authorities believe that this striking mushroom was the mysterious God-narcotic "Divine Soma" of ancient India.

Sailing southern seas

by cliodhna
I have been messing with photoshop recently, having fun, even though being on a computer so much kinda wears me out,
This is a submission I have done for threadless, a cool t-shirt company.
Its called sailing southern seas and she is sailing on magical stardust under the constellation of orion. The north star is below her. Also southern seas have a much more warm holiday like feeling to them than northern seas.

and some detail of the ship and the girl

Its april! time for those april showers we all hear so much about, oh wait, its ireland, I forgot.... oh well, march and june showers too so then.... :). I missed april fools day. I was going to do something for it and then it passed by, guess I was the april fool.....

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