Lost - final prints

With many thanks, I received an Agility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland-An Chomhairle Ealaion in the fall of last year for the research and creation of a new series of monoprints Lost. While I began research immediately, the prints didn't start taking shape, ie, I wasn't satisfied with the results, till the beginning of March this year (2023). I have previously posted finished pieces here, here and here and now I will show the final works in the series.

My parents fulfilled their long-cherished dream of returning to Ireland in early June 1983. Since I had grown up with them saying this every year since I could remember (they had emigrated to Toronto in the late 1950s) it was actually a surprise to their children that they actually finally did so. 

Taking a break from packing up their home, monoprint, ink on Japanese mulberry paper, 12.5 cm x 18.5 cm

In the early years, Christmas was an occasion for song, monoprint, ink on Japanese mulberry paper, 18.5 cm x 12.5 cm 

I have many good memories of my best friend's parents who really did treat me like one of their own always making room for me at meals and providing me with a place to sleep when I was homeless. They were also great fun at video film nights, card nights, birthdays and other special occasion celebrations.

 

They were just like second parents but also good friends, ink on mulberry paper, 18.5 cm x 12.5 cm

Although I had lived in several other houses in Toronto in my early years, it was the house on Kingswood, in The Beach area of Toronto, where I spent most of my growing up. The front porch featured in many of the games we played with neighbourhood kids in my childhood. It was also a great place to sit inside on a muggy or stormy summer in the city night and still have a connection to the outdoors.

Young friends described it as a big house, but with twelve occupants, the three bedroom/one bathroom didn’t seem large at all, ink on mulberry paper, 12.5 cm x 18.5 cm

The Toronto skyline has certainly changed a lot since this memory of it from the late 70s/early 80s, before I realised it wasn’t always going to be my city, my home.

Even though the ferry ride took only fifteen minutes, from the islands the city always seemed distant, ink on mulberry paper, 12.5 cm x 18.5 cm

This is the penultimate print from Lost series of contact monoprints and a tribute to my great friend, Jay Dampf, who died far too young, several years ago.

On the long bus journey of the first art school trip to NYC, he brought home-made instruments and led everyone in song, monoprint, ink on Japanese mulberry paper, 12.5 cm x 18.5 cm

I had nearly finished the series when I realised I never posted any in-progress/technique images! So here is the aftermath of making a print for this series. It took many attempts to get this one right (more than any other print) before I was finally happy with the image of mother and child.

She hoped I would smile at the person behind the camera, monoprint, ink on Japanese mulberry paper, 12.5 cm x 18.5 cm, 2023. 

Season's Greetings

 Season's Greetings and a very happy xmas to everyone. Remembering loved ones both near and far, walking this earth or speckled among the stars, always with much joy. Above all keep safe and well in this our second pandemic holiday.

Annual Craft Fair

Every year, for several weeks in the month of December, Signal Arts Centre gets in to the seasonal spirit and switches its purpose from a gallery to be a venue for local artisans and hosts a lively craft fair.

Every kind of handcraft is represented - jewellery, knitting, ceramics, crochet, bookbinding, metalwork soapmaking (to name a few).

The gallery is set up like a gift shop, with something for every budget and every taste. 

Seasonal fare in the form of handmade cards and decorations are available, but many items make wonderful year-round gifts.

These pictures were taken last week when the fair first opened but the setup has already changed as I notice some items missing from these pictures, having been sold, and new stock has been brought in since. The fair is open daily (including Sundays) from 10 am to 5 pm until xmas eve, and well worth a look!

Christmas wishes

Happy Christmas and a very healthy, safe and joyous New Year 2020!

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas!

and all the best for a safe, healthy, creative, and wonderful New Year!

Christmas Craft Fair

The xmas craft fair at Signal Arts Centre is in full swing! This year I submitted a lot of the pottery I have been making over the past year on Thursday afternoons in the ceramics workshop. In this photo six of my glaze-painted tiles, two of my draped slab "galaxy" platters, two raku vessels and a number of my handbuilt bowls are visible. The step display that the tiles are on was designed and made by my husband, James Hayes, and some of his terracotta landscape vessels are also visible on the steps.

One of my floral wrap vases can be seen on this table, at the centre of the photo. Some of my husband's versatile mini platters (can be used for small amounts of sauces, hors d'oeuvres, chopsticks, used tea bags, oven-side utensil rests, etc) are on the left.

The craft fair is set up as a shop and there is a lovely smell of hand-made soaps on entering the gallery. Display cabinets have all been freshly painted. In this cabinet I can spot a few of my pieces: a floral vase and small ginger jar on the top shelf, a glaze-painted tile and handbuilt bowl on the lower shelf.

Several more of my floral wrap vases can be seen on another set of shelves. There is a huge variety of handcrafts in the fair, all reasonably priced. The annual Christmas Craft Fair at Signal Arts Centre, Bray, continues right up till xmas eve!

Mustard fruit

A number of years ago, my husband was watching a cooking show on xmas eve, where the chef talked about a super easy recipe to make as an accompaniment to the xmas ham. This recipe, with origins in Italy, is so easy to make that he set about immediately to make it in order that we could eat it the next day! Mustard fruit is so delicious though, it should not be hidden away to have only once a year. This accompaniment to the xmas ham also makes a fabulous chutney to have with cheeses and the other usual party snacks year round. Here goes!

Use any and all of your dried fruit that happens to be in your cupboard or fridge but make sure you have a varied mix. Your chutney may actually have a slightly different flavour every time you make it, depending on what's available for your mix. This year we had raisins, dried apricots, maraschino cherries, dates, dried figs, and candied peel.

The recipe is: 1 cup chopped dried fruit, half cup brown sugar, half cup vinegar, at least 1 tblsp dried mustard (add more if you wish!).

Mix all ingredients in a pot and bring to a hard boil; simmer for 5-10 mins stirring regularly so as not to stick to the bottom of the pot.

As it cools, the mixture becomes fairly thick. Spoon generously over your ham. Enjoy!

Xmas is definitely over!

As promised, I finished decorating my husband's xmas stocking before I really said goodbye to the season. I finished the stocking at the end of last week, and today gathered up all the last bits of wrapping paper and decorations in one place so that they can be put away with the rest of the decorations and not thought of again until the end of November.

I embroidered the letters of my husband's name in chain stitch on one side and used satin stitch for the holly leaves. The picture below shows a side seam where I put liberty bells (the same on the other side seam).

I was thrilled to find the red berry bells, which are quite jangly, especially as the liberty bells are soundless! There were plenty of berry bells so I sewed them on the top of the stocking trim. My husband was quite delighted with the result, as am I.

Before xmas season ends...

In early December 2015 I picked up a much-needed new stocking for my husband, planning to personalise it for the big night of hanging and filling. December, however, is always a busy month and I never had a chance to decorate it. When the decorations got put away in early January 2016, so did the stocking. So it wasn't really a surprise to find the impersonal stocking with the onset of xmas preparations at the end of last November. Once again, December was just too busy to personalise the stocking, but I promised that it would take priority in the new year and would not be hidden away until it had something personal on it. With that promise in mind, I headed to the notions shop where there was even a sale on xmas stuff - so I picked up red berry bells (ah - jingly holly berries!), some tiny liberty bells and a few skeins of green embroidery thread.

The fuzzy faux fur at the top of the stocking made it difficult to draw out the name first, so I just had to wing it. I haven't finished the last two letters, so I think the "e" will appear a bit closer to the "m" when I am finished. I plan to put 3 liberty bells down each side of white trim, and embroider holly leaves with bell berries on the other side of the white trim.

Generally I am embroidering 3 rows of chain stitch to give thickness to each letter, but the faux fur sometimes finds its way in between threads and opens the space up. This is just part of the material, I am letting it have its way! Hopefully I will be finished it soon and can be satisfied that next xmas won't show any tasks undone.

Christmas tree!

The xmas tree was picked up this morning, and we'll be decorating it on the weekend, so we are definitely feeling like the season is in full swing. I didn't take any photos of the tree selection process, but thought I would celebrate "tree-ness" by sharing some pix of cards I made in previous years which included a tree in them. I mentioned in previous posts that I had re-discovered a grey box full of small artworks and cards earlier this year, and also a huge selection of cards that my Mum had held on to over the years were returned to me. So these images are from the Grey Box and my Mum's archive. 

This was my card from 1986. The lino print image was printed on different coloured papers. At the time I was living in a bachelor apartment in Toronto, and the image depicts my hanging planter disguised as a xmas tree, my favourite armchair (from my family home) and a squiggle of lights that I had hanging across the window in my room.

Originally I was going to do this as a lino print, but then decided I wanted to use specific colours (gold & green) so made stencils. This card is from 1989 and at the time I was basing a number of paintings on dreams, in which dolphins featured. I stylised the dolphin pair such that their combined inner outlines formed the shape of a tree.

In 2000 I simplified the card by using collage and stencilled elements in my very stylised triangular trees.

In 1994 I was living at Darby's Bridge, Kells Bay, Co. Kerry, and decided to feature the nearby humpback bridge, which gave me my address. It was a Christmas card so I added a tree to my lino block design!

Happy Christmas!

Very busy these past few weeks getting prepared for our biggest occasion of the year. Still a few more things to do, will be spending all day in the kitchen tomorrow, but I don't think I will be posting again until 2016. So I will take the time now to wish everyone a happy, healthy and above all, safe holiday and all the best for a wonderful new year.

More Christmas Cooking - Gingerbread Cookies!

Back in 1999 I returned to Canada for the last xmas and new year's of the 20th century, spending two weeks with my sister-in-law's family in snowy Prince George, BC. Arriving a few days before xmas, my husband and I had the opportunity to help out with the decoration of the gingerbread cookies. We thought the cookies were so delicious and the family evening so much fun that we decided that gingerbread cookies would from then on be part of our annual tradition too. Though we no longer try to decorate the cookies individually (for instance, transforming the gingerbread ladies into a recognisably Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield) we still enjoy the tradition and take pride in our creations! This recipe has been tried annually and remains true.

6 cups self-raising flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp baking powder

4 tsp ground ginger, 4 tsp cinnamon, 1 1/2 tsp ground clove, 1 tsp salt

1 cup butter (NB for some reason the past 2 years we have added an extra 2 oz butter as the mix seemed dryer than usual); 1 cup dark brown sugar (packed)

2 large eggs, 1 cup molasses (or treacle) 

First mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.

In a separate large bowl mix butter and brown sugar.

 

Creaming until fluffy...

Add eggs and molasses

Gradually add dry ingredients to wet mix, 

stirring after each dry addition.

Divide mixture and form into several balls.

Wrap in cling film (Saran Wrap) and refrigerate for an hour.

Preheat oven to 350 F/180 C. Roll out dough on floured surface and cut into shapes.

We use dinosaur cutters as well as Winnie-the-Pooh and traditional xmas cutters. Make the most of the rolled dough! Bake 8-10 mins.

Cool cookies -

- before decorating! The icing I use for decorating is a simple glace - icing sugar mixed with a bit of boiled water and various food colourings. I use sandwich bags with a tiny corner cut as decorating bags (discard when finished). This recipe makes well over 100 cookies (I think I counted 180 this year) depending on the sizes of your cutters. Store in a cookie tin or freeze some for later. They are great holiday treats but we also include them with our xmas gifts.

Christmas Cooking - Cranberry Clementine Conserve with Brazil Nuts

I have been very busy with college work, so am behind in my annual Christmas cooking. But finally, last weekend I got started when I saw that cranberries were available in the grocery. At this point I no longer follow the original recipe, but do everything by eye. However, if you have never made this before, follow the recipe and then make your own adjustments for flavour, sweetness, yield, etc. So here is the recipe:

3 clementines, 1 lemon

1.75 -2 cups water

6 cups cranberries (2 standard packages)

3 3/4 cups sugar

1 cup chopped Brazil nuts

I used 3 x 250 g pkgs this year. It helps to spread the berries on a cookie sheet and pick through them, discarding badly blemished and/or mushy berries. My rule of food: if it doesn't look like you'd be happy to pop it into your mouth, you don't want it in your cooking.

It's easy to just pop berries that you're happy with into a bowl of water to give them a little wash.

This year I used between 100-125 g of Brazil nuts, and just gave them a quick whizz in the food processor to chop them finely. Put in a bowl and set aside.

 It's easiest to peel the lemon and clementines before juicing. Cut the zest finely in slivers. Juice the citrus fruit and set aside.

The citrus zest slivers are added to the water in a heavy bottom cooking pot. Cover pot and cook over low heat for about an hour. Check on pot during this time as the water should not be boiling madly, but simmering and you don't want the water to boil away.

Add the cranberries and cook gently. Berries will start "popping" after about 20 minutes; stir regularly and you can help them get jammy by squishing them with a wooden spoon.

Stir in the nuts.

Add juice and sugar and bring to a rolling boil, stirring constantly until conserve thickens. A tip I got somewhere years ago is to warm the sugar before adding to jams. I do this by putting into a bowl and sitting it in the top part of the oven (in Ireland the grill part, not turned on, but getting the heat from the main oven which is sterilising the jars).

There are different ways of sterilising jars. After washing and rinsing, I bake my jars for at least 20 mins at 200 C. Primarily I am using standard jam and mason jars that I brought with me from Canada, so the lids are being sterilised by boiling for at least 5 mins while I am doing everything else. Another tip: only add a small bit of hot conserve to hot jars at first to ensure that the glass doesn't crack. When it is apparent the glass is not going to break, fill jar leaving some headspace and seal using matching lid. If using recycled jars and paraffin, let the conserve cool a bit before pouring in wax; twirl jar a bit so that wax crawls up the sides of the opening, creating a full seal.

The yield for the recipe above is about 6 fancy jam jars. The one with the tin foil, is actually a larger jar, so I would have had 6+ jars. As a matter of fact, I used more berries than the recipe called for and I could have added more water than I did, which would have increased my yield. I have found that I can add more water and the conserve sets pretty well, though the colour can lose some of its intensity. This batch that I made last weekend is quite thick, but still spreadable. It is quite tasty and tart -- a fantastic accompaniment to turkey and turkey leftovers in sambos (mmm, toasties!) but I have also given this conserve as gifts to vegetarians, it is wonderful on toast too, just used as a jam.