self-portraits with home made ink!

As part of my studio residency (whether at home due to lockdown, or at Signal Arts Centre when allowed) a daily self-portrait is de rigueur. I have blogged about previous selfies from this year's residency here and introduced the residency, with links to previous years here.

During August of this year, both myself and my husband, sculptor James Hayes, took part in the Aos Dara/Umha Aois combined symposium. I posted about my work here and here, but one of the things James did as part of his work was to experiment with making "iron gall ink" out of oak galls found in Tomnafinnoge Wood. He recorded the entire process, posting a, 11.5 minute video to youtube, which may be seen here. He exhibited the video, along with other work, in the culminating exhibition to celebrate work done during the Aos Dara/Umha Aois combined symposium this year along with work done during last year's Aos Dara symposium. I blogged about the exhibition here.

James also used the same method to make a jar of ink from walnut shells, which he had found during a site meeting at a park in Dublin. Taking up a pen nib and holder, I used the walnut ink to create a self portrait one afternoon, while in lockdown.

And the next day I decided to try out the ink made with oak galls to see if I could spot their differences. In fact, they both were easy to work with as any commercial ink, with only slight difference in their colours.

Signal studio residency 2020

I started my third studio residency at Signal Arts Centre last week and already I feel very much at home in the space, despite arriving masked and chatting to people with coronavirus protocols in place. I had residencies in the studio in both the fall of 2018 and the fall of 2019, so being here is becoming a pleasant annual habit. I blogged about the work done (or started) in both those residencies here and here, and as with those residencies I decided beforehand what my focus would be during my time in this studio. But first things first: after a simple tidy and sweep, I rearranged and covered tables to correspond with how I intended to work. I saw that one of the previous tenants had put the long mirror horizontally behind one of the sink areas (there are two) and I thought this would be a convenient spot for my daily self-portrait, a work warm-up for me. Since I don't actually need two sinks, I simply covered this sink with a wooden board to create another surface area.

I have use of the portable press till the end of the year, so it got its own table between the larger window and the sink that I would be using. My focus this year is to be on silk-fibre papermaking - a process that I learned a few months ago in zoom workshops provided by artist Tunde Toth. I blogged about this workshop here. I planned to make some paper and use it for monoprints related to my current body of work Memory Is My Homeland, which I have blogged about here, here, here, here, here and here.

So I started work well before lunchtime. This is my first self-portrait of the week, done with watercolour pencil.

As I knew I would not be ready for printing this week, and always feel that I should do at least three different things in the studio daily, I brought materials to make collage cards. Thinking of my recent work on Aos Dara-Umha Aois Combined Symposium, which I blogged about here, here and here, I created a collage card based on my memory of the saplings and ferns at the entrance to Tomnafinnoge Wood.

By the end of the week, I had used up most of my silk fibre supplies, but happily so. I made a number of sheets that are raw in colour and I also made some sheets using dry pigments to give intense colours.

Here are some of the sheets fully drying on blotting paper. I look forward to printing on them soon!

Aos Dara - Umha Aois Exhibition

I previously discussed the Aos Dara/Umha Aois combined symposium in recent blogs here and here. For this year's symposium the artists were charged with being inspired by Tomnafinnoge Wood and working individually in their own studio, but it was really nice when all the work came together for an exhibition at The Courthouse Arts Centre, Tinahely, which is near to the forest. The symposium was organised by Niall O'Neill and Róisín Flood who also curated the exhibtion.

For this year's symposium, James Hayes decided to truly combine the spirit of both symposia - he participated in last year's first Aos Dara event, and has been involved with Umha Aois since 1995. He experimented with creating ink from oak galls, found in the forest, and created a video recording the process. In addition, he carved a piece of oak to create a woodblock whose image was that of oak leaves and galls and displayed a print created from that woodblock. Hayes also displayed "Gateway", the carvings he created at Tomnafinnoge on last year's symposium.

Maeve Hunter exhibited a number of felted items and photographs of the items interacting with the environment of the forest. I was particularly intrigued with a felted pair of shoes, which one could easily imagine wearing on a quiet stroll through the woods.

Of the various works I created (using a variety of materials: graphite, oilstick, watercolour, acrylic, etc.) I chose two of my favourites to frame for the exhibition. The acrylic collage "Saplings" is on the left in this picture and the graphite drawing "Lightning Tree" is on the right.

Holger Lonze has been involved with Umha Aois (Experimental Bronze Casting Symposium) for many years and displayed a bronze sculpture evocative of growth.

Dave Kinane, who has also been involved with Umha Aois for many years and was on last year's Aos Dara symposium, created works which again truly combined the spirit of both symposia. He created a bronze age toolkit with which to work two pieces of green wood from Tomnafinnoge into beautiful sculptural forms.

Kinane hafted bronze axe heads and chisels,  made on previous Umha Aois symposia, using ancient traditional techniques.

Niall O'Neill, who is one of several founders of Umha Aois and co-founder of Aos Dara with Róisín Flood, displayed a number of his smaller bronze sculptures in this exhibition. O'Neill is known for his large public sculptures and his large sculpture from last year's Aos Dara still stands at Tomnafinnoge Wood, along with work by Flood, Kinane and Conleth Gent. I blogged about last year's here and wrote about it for CIRCA magazine here.

On the Art Centre's stage, Conleth Gent displayed three sculptures made from wood found at Tomnafinnoge and an additional wooden sculpture which he modified purposely to belong with the group. To hear Gent, Hayes, Kinane, O.Neill and myself speaking about our work and O'Neill and Flood discussing the symposium, have a look at video made by The Courthouse Arts Centre in case the exhibition could not go ahead due to Coronavirus, here.

 

Aos Dara/Umha Aois Symposium 2020 Part II

I started writing about the Aos Dara/Umha Aois combined symposium, in which I was a participant, last week. Details of the symposium and my preparations for work can be found in that blog here. As I had the paper prepared with graphite already, I began drawing with my trusty Staedtler eraser, as per my proposal. I was glad to have some green graphite, because after being in Tomnafinnoge wood, I did not want to limit myself to dark, grey works. However, I was  very pleased with this drawing and the subtlety of the green graphite on the tree worked. I did several other drawings on graphite, which I was not happy with, so of course, I am not showing them! (They'll be binned soon enough.)

My original intention, when preparing several sheets of paper with black acrylic, was to paint images in white only. However, as I mentioned last week, the colour of the forest so impressed me that I didn't think such a minimalist approach would work. I really liked that image of the lightning tree and got out my oilsticks to do more justice to the colourful tree.

When I make collages I tend to tear the paper into shape rather than cut. This facilitates a certain amount of unexpected results in the intended shapes as well a beautiful deckled edge, showing off the original colour of the paper (in this case, a creamy white).

Another image that I repeatedly used as inspiration, was that of the small mushrooms which could be seen in networks growing from mossy, fallen tree limbs, and I even spotted a circular Faerie Ring of small mushrooms. While I definitely did not think my graphite, and black & white acrylic drawing experiments with mushrooms actually worked, the jury is still out on the collage.

The acrylic collage that I thought worked best was Saplings. I had experimented with this image several times in other media, with always problematic results, yet I kept on working on it as I really liked the image of trees and ferns that could be seen at one of the forest entrances.

I was guaranteed that one piece would be displayed in the group exhibition, but I chose two to frame as I couldn't decide whether I preferred the sombre Lightning Tree or

the colourful Saplings. I brought both of them to the gallery and said they could choose either. Happily both pieces will be in the group exhibition that launches on Culture Night 2020.

Aos Dara/Umha Aois Symposium 2020 Part I

I wrote about having my proposal accepted for this year's Aos Dara/Umha Aos combined symposium here and included some of my preparations. I saw last year's work, which I blogged about here reviewed for CIRCA Magazine here. Tomnafinnoge Wood is really beautiful! It is an old oak forest with two rivers and several paths from which to explore it.

My intention was to explore different media and while I had prepared graphite and acrylic pages in advance to work on, while I was at Tomnafinnoge Wood, I did some bark rubbings.

 I thought I might use them in planned collages, and though I didn't, they got me into the mood!

I also collected some oak leaves while I was at the forest and printed from them directly when I got home.

Using my watercolour pencils, I did some sketches from the numerous research photos I had taken during my day in the woods. There were some very strange looking mushrooms growing on trees!

There were lots of smaller mushrooms at ground level too, on fallen, mossy tree limbs, and I even found a quite large Faerie Ring, which neither me or my companions dared to trespass in! I did especially like these mycelial networks and wanted to work more with the image. I'll report more on this in next week's blog.

life during lockdown part 4

For the month of August, I have been synopsising what I have been up to during lockdown. I have posted three other "life during lockdown" blogs here, here and here. I will return to more singularly themed blogs in September.

My exhibition, Liminal, opened at Tiny Cat Gallery earlier this week. I have to admit that the virtual launch was more fun than any of my previous "live" exhibitions. The cardboard box gallery is manned by tiny plastic cats and artist designer Lisa Cole, who is the curator of the gallery, creates elaborate and humorous narratives to go along with each of the pictures she posts.

At the beginning of the month, I attended the first of four Zoom workshops on felting. The workshops, held each Friday morning this month, are sponsored by the University of Atypical in Northern Ireland, and facilitated by artist felter, Niki Collier. I have been working in my kitchen, with my laptop perched on the cold stove. This is my set-up for the first workshop.

This month Angel City Review published two of my poems in Issue 9. This literary journal is freely downloadable from their website. Below is one of the poems, which is relevant as I type this on the eve of the fourth anniversary of my Mum's death.

Grief
I felt it in my body
Months before I knew
My mother's fatal diagnosis.
Something was wrong.

The pain grew in my foot.
From heel to ball
It would not move forward
Into the oncoming grief.
Knowing what lay ahead,
Both feet rebelled
And refused to take me there.

After the funeral
The pain in my chest grew -
A series of respiratory malfunctions,
Brochitis, tracheitis, sinusitis,
The common cold.
A plague on my house.
Constant coughing,
Chest tight, heart palpitating -
A permanent heart ache.

This grief is cellular.
Pain moves in and out,
Osmotic, changing density
Till every pore weeps.
The sadness of my body
Cannot recover that
Which is forever lost,
Yet stumbles on.

My feet still hurt.
Often I am numb.
My limp is barely perceptible
To unaware strangers
These days as I
Wheeze forward slowly
One tiny step at a time.

I was pleased to find out, at the beginning of the month, that my proposal for the Aos Dara/Umha Aois combined symposium had been accepted. For this year's symposium, due to lockdown, the organisers required that participating artists spend some time in Tomnafinnoge Wood, an old oak forest, then create work in their own studios. Culture Night in September, will see the launch of an exhibition to include some of this year's work, as well as last year's work, at the Courthouse Arts Centre in Tinahely, which is near Tomnafinnoge Wood.

The day I spent at Tomnafinnoge was perfect! It was a dry, summer day and the woods were greenly gorgeous. I found this tree, which had obviously survived a lightning strike, to be of immense inspiration.

I loved the way the tangle of branches created a net-like canopy - some shade from a very hot sun that day!

One of the main points of my proposal was to create drawings where the paper is covered by graphite and one removes the graphite with an eraser. I have always thought this was a very sculptural way of drawing.

I also prepared some pages with black acrylic as I thought I would draw with white paint on them - kind of opposite to what I planned to do with the graphite as this would be an additive method rather than subtractive.

I also did not want to ignore colour and imagined doing some collages. Normally I create collages with scraps of paper for the purpose of occasion cards, as I blogged about here, here, here and here, but I realised these scraps of paper were not exactly artist quality. To rectify this, I decided to paint, with acrylics, a number of pages with colours that I expected to use in Tomnafinnoge collages. I will dedicate a future blog to some of the results of my work!