The secret gallery's blog » earth

Mushrooms Rock!

Marianne Slevin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:03:39 +0000

Pencil, Biro and pigment on paper ”Mushroom Field” Marianne Slevin 2010

It is funny when you discover the same thing coming from several different sources at round about the same time. Today has been a lot about mushrooms for me. How mushrooms can help save the earth. I just watched a great video on TED T.V by Paul Stamets about solutions to help save the earth. They grew Oyster mushrooms on some land where there was toxic waste and the mycelium, a fine but strong branch like network covered the land producing mushrooms actually revived the land and soon there were insects and birds and it was an oasis of life once again! Fungi uses radiation as food, Mycelium can absorb oil, it can even brake up rock.

The drawing above was from the idea of mushrooms saving the earth but done before I had seen the video more about my imagination then facts. This morning one of the Tweets I was reading jumped out at me so I followed the link about this discovery that mushrooms may save the planet. It totally inspired me. This drawing is like an elaborate doodle, very enjoyable to draw! I think there will be more to come on this amazing fungi at work!

Sketch book drawing of Mycelium by marianne Slevin 2010

Standing On The Earth I See

Marianne Slevin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:04:29 +0000

Standing on the earth I see,

That you are quite the same as me,

We are both like leaves from an apple tree,

I think I am I, but I don’t even exist

surely I am, without the I added in

I look at you, as if you are you through and through

but we are all made from the same sodding goo!

Oh no that’s not right cause it’s not goo at all

it’s something that’s no thing at all!

Now I am no wiser I have just down sized me

to a ant that is beside me,

Then I realize there is no separation at all!

For I am as large as the planet which is still rather small

And I am not sure if my cousin is the moon!

Poem by Marianne Slevin

Walking the Green Road

Marianne Slevin — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:30:07 +0000

Yesterday morning I walked the old green Road, or at least some of it, between Fanore and Ballyvaughan. I noticed as I walked over the extremely uneven ground while looking up and around me, my feet knew how to place themselves on the earth, is this not a little strange, can our feet detect the lay of the land? I tested myself and made sure I could not see the what surface my feet would land on, it felt like they somehow knew how to land on the unpredictable surface of small rocks and earth I started running and it was amazing I still did not fall! I am not saying that it a larger bolder was in front of me that I would not run into it, but I believe that it is more then just our finely tuned bodies. The more logical among you will say that this is what our bodies are designed to do and it is nothing to do with anything metaphysical. I believe that it is both our physical bodes and our metaphysical bodies.I have been set the challenge of proving it! To me it is not only logical but impossible not to be so if we are indeed all part of the same thing, my finger knows what my hand is doing so why should not a person know where the surface of the earth is?

I enjoyed singing out loud, and watching the stone walls, they looked so playfully built; not formal but inventive and ever changing. I thought about leaving our sons sunglasses looking out through the hole in the wall, but decided that I better not leave something that would turn into litter even if it started off as art! I have been attempting to be much more playful in every day living including my art. I looked down the hill and saw a huge ledge of rock like a cart and was not sure if I saw or imagined a cart wheel where one should be if it were really a cart! I have been listening to lots of lectures by the late Alan Watts and really enjoying them. James my partner, started me off on them and now I think they are great, and very funny! I would really recommend them.

Rising tide lines

Marianne Slevin — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:44:31 +0000

Yesterday, we drove through such a deep flood, that the head lights of our Lada Niva filled with water, and made them look like goldfish bowls! Apparently about 70% of the earth is covered in water. Our own bodies are also about 70% water, I think. What happens when the ice melts with global warming? If the ratio of land to water changes on the earth, what will become of our own physical bodies? Are we not also part of nature? Shall we float or drown or perhaps go else where!

I just had a realization today that I have had a preoccupation with waterlogged fields, for years. Probably from before I ever heard of global-warming. I have done many paintings of unexpected objects under the sea; from beds to bulbs, trees and horses! I have done instillations of drowning/floating hand made objects too.

After an unexpectedly inspiring visit, to a certain particularly miserable supermarket, sometime early in the early hours, an image of an instillation came in to my mind of a clean empty supermarket, in the open fridge section there was an arrangement of beautifully hand painted milk cartons. They were paintings of dripping sea and sky in what looked like oil paint, but considering they were painted in recycled milk cartons, they were painted with a lot of care and love. The cartons had plastic screw caps so they looked like they could still be full of milk, maybe they were! The flash of an image I had was a perfect antidote to the previous ‘real’ visit to the supermarket.

James suggested getting lots school children to paint one carton each, brilliant! so we are off the find the empty supermarket and ask allot of school children to paint their own interpretations of global-warming and the sea on a milk or fruit juice cartons. Getting children involved in this collaborative project would be great, I also love the idea of doing something to raise environmental awareness with art, both bringing our attention to how much stuff we are creating to simply be thrown away as well as the huge issue of global-warming!

Peace to all!

Shelters and spaces to dream in

Marianne Slevin — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 06:01:00 +0000

During this saturated cloud of a summer I am hugely grateful for these strong old stone walls. Though in sunnier climes I do recall enjoying a more out door life where shelters could be under trees, in valleys and other places in nature. When we renovated our adobe house in Spain we wanted it to feel and be as natural as possible. I love when inner spaces and outer spaces merge. In the painting Refuge I wanted to get across the feeling of living in nature, well sleeping, dreaming and washing I like to idea that it can still be quite elegant! In the painting, a white bed cover with a delicate floral print and white four poster bed-like mattress sits on the earth, with a similar style jug, towel and wash basin en-suite! This scene takes place under a tree on the brown earth, but the bed cover is not all covered in mud! I love the total impracticality of this! This is one of the reasons I love painting, because it does not have to be real, in the way we often think of reality, and it does not have to hold up a roof!!