Watching words in the sea

being covered and uncovered by sand.

Wind blown drip drawing

indigo and gold.

For a moment the sea looks white like a milk pond.

Two crows on sea warn grey rocks.

Do the boat like vessels still drip indigo tonight?

Where is the dolphin sleeping tonight?

Is there shelter beneath the great tall cliffs?

Swell of wind blown grasses and sweet flowers.

Sea and rain hollowed rocks hold little pools of sea water.

The stony beach looks different today, hills of rock.

Roaring sea.

Returning home, stepping on sun-warmed rocks.

Rock pools like rivers.

A trail in the sand of an unknown bird.

Tide lines.

to Ballyvaughan

Four windmills

Rock flowers

brown bird

first raindrops

yellow fern

young bull

two magpies cross

Stone boulders lay silently

Fast moving grey cloud

over grey mountain

rock slope shines for a moment

Low stone walls crisscross

a seagull glides on air currents

leaving no trace of where it has been

A dog barks across

a low rocky mountain

wind gnarled thorn trees

Hawk great sky navigator

suddenly a second hawk

flies low over

the sloping rock fields

Wind dried

sky road

The ocean is covered with cloud shadow

rain in the sea

A single tree clings

to the mountainside

Stillness almost

Chirps from a hidden bird

taking shelter with wild strawberries and mint

Rain drops cling to

flower petals

I wrote this on 26 July 2000

This day 6 years later our son was born! Much has changed since then in our lives but the Burren appears much the same as it did that day!

In the west, practicality seems to breed out the finer details that are so important in art. Sometime we pair away the heart and art in our obsession with survival in our throw away fast culture. Mass production, and often the use of cheap materials that either unfortunately, last forever or are designed only to last as long as they bring out the next model for us to buy are cutting away at our right to a more beauty filled life, compromise when we try to live our dreams seems to be too normal. Where are the artisans?

We have started selling beautiful wooden bowls, platters and lamps created and turned by my Father, in the Secret Gallery. On fine days we leave some of these lovely bowls on a table with an table cloth with word written on a walk through the Burren. This arrangement is at our gate by the side of the road. As the wind blows the table cloth billows out from the sea smoothed rocks that hold it down, and random Burren inspired words are revealed.       

Inspiration and influence can come from all sorts of places; it could come from everything we experience. Maybe we should be a bit more particular about what we experience? I think that what we look at and what we read does go in, and even helps shape who we are. This is why media controls the world, well certainly has a huge impact on it, and now the Internet is changing the world; because it is coming from millions of individual sources. Saying this Google knows so much about everyone, whoops I better stop now! I think of artists being like digesters and distillers of everything that we witness; it is munched and mulched and then played with to create something original. A large part of an artists job is to witness that which my inspire and lead to interesting art being created.

This morning we all loaded into the car, off to see a Dolmen. I wonder what they were for, there are so many around the Burren. I have only visited a couple so far but each one has felt very special, and I would not be surprised if the people then, knew far more than we do about the earth and energies in it. For me Dolmens symbolise a connection with the earth and the spiritual; enclosing a small piece of sky within large rocks that usually lay close to the earth; the earth and the sky becoming intertwined. For me this part of the world is very mystical, maybe because we are in the clouds most of the time! Or maybe Liscannor really is the gate way to Hy-Brasil (Read more about this and  an art piece by Maeve Collins, in another post to come.) I was very glad James suggested we jump in the car and go to see the Dolmen.

Thought of the day

When you open up, it opens up

I feel that there are places in nature that are very powerful, where the veil between the dimensions is thinner. When I make art in nature I am drawn to these places; it is not about how it looks really, its about how it feels. The reason I love the Burren is because of how it feels or how it makes you feel I love how it looks too! In the book Spiritual Alchemy the author says that Ireland is one the countries where the veil between the dimensions is the thinnest and therefore easiest to feel certain energies. Out of all of the places in Ireland that I have been to I think Clare and the Burren area is one of the strongest. It seems to attract allot of healers and creative people. (I see healing as being very creative and music and visual art and poetry and other forms of creativity as being very healing.) I wonder was it the energy of land that attracted the people, then because of all the creative people and healers that it became even stronger? I love the idea of all of that music floating around out there echoing off the ocean and the rocks for eternity!

I was talking to someone who plays music and writes, about a certain place I have made two drawings I said that I reckoned that  it was a very special place, he agreed saying that `if fairies do exit, they exist there!¨ Later that day I spoke to a woman who was very passionate about the same place and brings all of her guests there at least once. I was amazed the other people felt  something there as well as myself and James.

I love the book Eternal Echoes written by John O´Donahue, who died earlier this year. The painting Secret Garden was inspired by a story he told about this garden in the mountains he remembered from his childhood. I loved the idea of a secret garden in the mountains, all ordered and cared for, surrounded by wilderness.

I am going to do some research into Aboriginal art and their connection to the land. I just read about an aboriginal woman Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910-1996)who started painting after she was 70 years old, she was very prolific, and made up for all all those years of not painting!