Irish Arts Blog

Update on Stork Cufflinks

A couple of people asked me to post the alternative design to my Stork Cufflinks for the Obstetrician. The 'Sperm and Egg' Cufflinks that I ultimately preferred. I ended up giving them to my genius friend Lee as a thank-you for creating my website in only a way that he can. He subsequently wore them to a film opening where the vice president of a global production company spotted them and complimented his 'house on a hill with smoke coming out of the chimney' cufflinks... Lee set him straight though! (and gave him my card, no order yet!)

Reapers Whistle

 

by Patrick Naughton

This poem was inspired by a day in Galway listening to the hymns of the past and the ghosts of the present:

There was an old man who looked dead and gone,

pale as death with the reaper beside,

he held the black juice dear to his soul,

when he played the accordian these angels appeared,

these angels had instruments of their own,

a guitar, a flute and a seanog spawned,

they drank, they sang about times long gone,

oh t'was a day to remember in that snug alright,

i saw the old man nearly dead and gone,

playing that beautiful song till night,

they sang about bogs and twigs that day,

reminded me of a tale someone once told,

never fall into a bog or there'll be trouble to pay,

cos once your in, you'll never be out,

maybe that's what happened to the old man,

fell into the snug that cold winters day,

and until this time he will remain.  

Galway Ground

by Patrick Naughton

I wonder what secrets nature holds,
ears to the ground, stories told,
weather beaten stone where the sun shines bright,
why does the light capture the day so right?
imagine a place where it's dark for time,
some nordic land way beyond,
i suppose they dream of the sun at night?
just one of the secrets nature holds.

Mountains

While skiing in Austria recently I fell and tore my ligaments. Naturally, I cried and cried and cried for what seemed like days but once I came out of a the blur of tears I have started to become focused on the mountains.  Not in the winter season cause I am still annoyed at them for causing me so much pain but the mountains in other seasons. 

How the light hits them and how the shape is never wrong

nature just makes them that way

the mornings can be different to the evening setting sun

 

how big and powerful they are and how comforting they can be.

Mountains so much fun and so much pain!!

Percutaneous Aortic Valve Replacement!

Bet you think you've logged onto the wrong site by mistake! Well you didnt. I have just been busy with an exceedingly weird commission... the most difficult brief EV-ER to be honest.
These cufflinks were made for doctors & surgeons in Blacrock Clinic to commemorate the first non-surgical aortic valve replacement in Ireland. Irish Times Article
(incase anyone's interested)

This was what I was working from...

I made 5 pairs and actually this picture doesn't do it justice as I did light colour pairs and dark colour pairs. This is a light color valve cufflink with a dark colour letter. The letters were all different pertaining to their surnames. The valve part is made from soft brass and the chicken-wire-outsidey-bit is an actual 'renal stent' that I got from a pharmaceutical company which was super handy as making that little intricate mesh was about to send me over the edge. It took a lot of designing but hopefully the end result is recognisable (to those in the know anyway). Weirdest brief yet thats for sure!!!
 

Low Tide Beach

cm 22 x 28 - Low Tide Beach by Cristina Colli

I'm fascinated by the beach at low tide, and the different patterns, flows, textures created by the tide currents. I'm captivated by the soft colours of the sand, the water shimmering, the sense of movement, the contrast between dry and wet sand...

I intend to make a series inspired by this and  "Low tide beach" is the first piece.
This mosaic kind of flowed, I really enjoyed making it. I used smalti, gold, marble and shells that I collected during long walks at the beach close to where I live. I cut the shell and turned them into tesserae and I love the idea of incorporating them into the mosaic.

Curragh mosaics

 

 

by Cristina Colli

I was commissioned these mosaic panels by  a client who trains racehorses. He works and lives by the Curragh, an open plain in county Kildare, and he wanted two non-representational mosaics inspired by the area, with an emphasis on water and horses.

I chose a series of design elements to convey my impression of the Curragh:

- at the bottom and top part, colours are inspired by limestone, while the fragmented sections portray the pattern created by intersecting gorse bush branches;

- the blue area represents water from the aquifer, while the central part stands for the grassland of the Kildare plain;

- repeated organic shapes in yellow and browns are inspired by galloping horses and convey their speed, rhythm and energy.

 

Out of Africa

I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills. The Equator runs across these highlands, a hundred miles to the North, and the farm lay at an altitude of over six thousand feet. In the day-time you felt that you had got high up, near to the sun, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights were cold.”

Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen

I am heading to Merrian Square this weekend - it is my first time getting a pitch on the square.  Being of the age of less and less firsts, I am truly excited! Going through my stock of work in preparation for my day of cold and rain, I came across this piece inspired by another first - my first trip to Kenya.  I had seen the movie and read the book and had fallen in love with Kenya and of course himself with the rugged hat and sexy swagger!

This painting hopes to capture the break of day and the breath taking strong unforgiving colours.

Where oh where has the time gone?!

It's December - it can't be true! Someone has their finger on the fast forward button of time, so they need to slow it down a little... The silly, festive, fun and busy season is here. I've just done 2 craft fairs and after spending the last while getting ready for them and Christmas I decided that i would take off to Switzerland this week for a well deserved break! No doubt I will come back ready to sew pictures of snow capped mountains.

Here are some pictures to warm us up on these cold days, these were done after a visit to the zoo with my kids one day. I'll be back in the new year with lots more..!

by Sandra, Feltpix

a long time

by cliodhna

I had almost forgotten about this place. I have been really busy, traveling, moving, doing two weeks in the pyramids of Teotihuacan and then in Tepoztlan for a course in dreaming. Keeping up my own blog at the same time. Thanks to 'post in the future', I could arrange it for a week or so in advance and then forget about it.
I come here and see some beautiful art posted while I have been gone. Mosaics, photos, a pair of cuff links. I bought a bracelet from Lynn and I still haven't seen it yet! Its for a Christmas present for an Aunt and it is sitting with my sister waiting for the right time. I will have to get them to send me a photo of it on someones wrist.
Art wise, I have done some embroideries and have set up my oil studio again. Something about the smell of oil paint. Nothing like it. It smells magical, opens doors in my imagination, calms me, peaceful. I have just finished a picture which I have not taken a photo of yet. AboveI have posted a work from a couple of years ago which it seems I am returning to this simplistic style, swirls, dots, decorative, symbolic. Next one is a recent one

It is from the rainy season here in Mexico. We have finished with the rain and now it is COLD! I am surprised by this. I have four years in sunny heat and now suddenly with the altitude its got cold. Might even snow! (which for me being from Ireland and very exciting).

xx clio