Memory Is My Homeland prints - part 2 of 2

This is the second blog to feature linoprints that I made towards the end of last year. I blogged part 1 last week, which can be seen here. The unique prints on silk fibre sheets (that I made last fall during my studio residency at Signal Arts Centre) will be included in my exhibition next spring, Memory Is My Homeland, at Rathfarnham Castle.

This image of a clothes peg developed from my thoughts of living with my Mum and Dad in Bray in the late 80s and early 90s. Living with them as an adult was so completely different than growing up with them as my "parents". We each seemed to understand that there was now a person to person relationship and sharing household chores was part of this new, gratifying dynamic.

Clothes Peg, linoprint on Fabriano Tiepolo paper, edition of 10, image size: 6cm x 7.5cm, 2020

I added some mauve threads as inclusion to the silk fibre sheet when I was making it. 

silk fibre sheet size: approx 21cm x 27cm

In 2017 I wrote a fictionalised account of a specific incident that happened when I and one of my sisters were caring for my Mum the previous year, shortly before her death. Prayers for My Children was published by the online journal, Tales from the Forest, and can be read here. For me the image of rosary beads was a strong one and I cut a lino block with both the incident and the story in mind.

Prayers for My Children, linoprint on Fabriano Tiepolo paper, edition of 10, image size: 6cm x 7.5cm, 2020

I did not use any dyes for the silk sheet I printed the image onto, but I there are small torn paper (acid-free) inclusions.

I loved the gate between our second house in Kerry, near Portmagee, and the field in front of the house. The gate itself was white picket with a blue glass ball on the pillar-post on one side. My husband had dug up two wild rose plants from the roadside hedge across from our first Kerry abode in Kell's Bay and planted them on either side of the gate. When we left there and moved back to Bray a year and a half later, the roses were dug up again, waited for several years in pots and finally transplanted in the garden of our more permanent house now.

Field Gate, Knockeen, linoprint on Fabriano Tiepolo paper, edition of 10, image size: 6cm x 7.5cm, 2020

I added some blue pigment to the silk sheet when I was making it.

silk fibre sheet size: approx 22 cm x 27 cm

One of my earliest memories as a toddler (maybe two years old?) is using the chain fence - that divided the surrounding sidewalk from the lawn in front of the first house where I lived in Toronto - as a swing. For the longest time I thought this must be a false memory as it didn't make any sense to me. When I was in my 20s, however, I passed by the house while on a streetcar in downtown Toronto and saw the exact type of chain fence that I remembered. It was a low barrier, maybe a foot high, made of sturdy chains that curved to small posts at regular distances in front of the gardens of a row of houses. Only a very small child could possibly use this as a swing and obviously I must have!

I put both green threads and torn bits of paper as inclusions when making this raw silk fibre sheet.

image size: 6cm x 7.5cm

silk fibre sheet size: approx 21 cm x 26 cm

Writing and reading

I have been reading quite a lot over the past few years, the picture below shows a sample of books I have been enjoying lately: political philosophy, poetry, biography, creative non-fiction and essays. A lot of my reading material is suggested to me by Brainpickings (link in "Inspirations" sidebar) which is put together by the brilliant Bulgarian ex-pat in NYC, Maria Popova. I have been subscribing to Popova's weekly compendium of essays and reviews for a number of years now, and I think she is probably one of the most erudite thinkers and writers currently around! Popova is the mover behind the annual Universe in Verse event in NYC, a fundraiser for the environment that brings together poetry and science. If you don't happen to live in NYC, you can catch up on the 2017 and 2018 events here. The 2019 event takes place at the end of this month and will also be live-streamed. I expect that it, as with the previous years, will be made available later in full. 

April is poetry month, and as in previous years, I have been doing the poem-a-day challenge. I follow the website for Na/GloPoWriMo (National/Global Poetry Writing Month), which gives daily prompts and links to poetry based resources. It is fun, challenging, and useful to my own writing practice. The poem-a-day helps me focus and I often write things I probably wouldn't write otherwise. I have the months following April to go back to these poems and revise, but for now, I just need to get them written! One of the poems I initially wrote for Na/GloPoWriMo, Thingvellir at Night, has recently been published online in Scarlet Leaf Review, along with several others.

I have not yet figured out what the difference is between essay, memoir, and creative non-fiction, but regardless, I was delighted that my work, Holding It Together - bookbinding as memorial - was published online last week in Abstract: Contemporary Expressions.

Although poetry and art criticism (and letter writing!) have always been my main modes of writing, in the past few years, I have expanded to include other forms - fiction, memoir, non-fiction. I was especially delighted when my short story, Prayers for My Children, was published online in Issue 7: Continuity by Tales from the Forest; poems have also been published in Issue 6: How it Begins and Issue 9: Limits. For further links to my writing, please see my webpage lorjames.com and follow the links through the "writing" section.

Back in January of this year, there was a call for poets to read one of their poems for Poetry Sound Map. I decided to make a recording of one of my older poems Portrait, which was published in either 1989 or 1990 in New Irish Writing, a feature of The Sunday Tribune at the time (now it is a feature of The Irish Times). I am very happy to be included on the world map of recordings from poets alive and dead - I am in great company!

Incognito 2019 and other work...

I've got a few things that I'm working on at the moment, hopefully to bear fruit in the coming months. But one of the most pressing things I must do now is actually organise all the artwork I created during my ten week studio residency at Signal Arts Centre. The past few months have also coincided with a new studio being built in the backyard for my husband (sculptor James Hayes) and this currently empty space provided a great area for the photographing of the artwork.

For the past few years I have been participating in Incognito, an annual fundraiser in support of The Jack & Jill Children's Foundation. For this fundraiser, artists create and donate small pieces of art on cards; the cards are exhibited and sold in a Dublin gallery (this year a gallery in Cork is also involved).

There are no signatures on the front of the cards, so buyers do not know whose work they have bought until the work is sold - hence the name of the fundraiser. All cards are sold for €50 with the entire proceeds going to Jack & Jill. This is "Fracture" - a tiny painting that I adhered to one of my cards in 2017.

This is a lino block print that I affixed to one of last year's cards. The rosary beads image of "Prayers for My Children" was inspired by the same circumstances that inspired a short story of the same name, which was published online in Tales from the Forest last year.

In fact, this blog began with showcasing the Big Egg Hunt Dublin! It was a more labour intensive fundraiser, and probably not as lucrative for Jack & Jill as "Incognito", but it was a lot of fun.

At the end of the event, my piece was bought by IBM Legal in Dublin. This is an amalgamation view of my egg, "Wild Roses".

pastel drawings

I have been busy with a lot of writing lately (poetry, short stories, art criticism). At the end of January my short review of William Crozier: the Edge of the Landscape at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) was published as part of CIRCA magazine's This Matters Now series. I saw this exhibition a few months ago, and blogged about it here, but you can read the review here. I was also delighted that my short story, Prayers for My Children was published a few days ago in the online journal, Tales from the Forest; you can read it here.

Last week I decided that, even though I hadn't finished cleaning up the studio, I wanted to do some visual work, other than ceramics. I pulled out some chalk pastels and heavy grey paper and began drawing.

As may be apparent from my prints and handmade books over the past year or two (see here, here, and here), I am inspired by my times of "shinrinyoku" (walks in the woods for good health)

and by walks along the seaside where I become obsessed with pebbles at the shore (also see here and here).

I really enjoyed drawing with the chalk pastels as I was able to lay down shapes and colour to effect quite quickly.