Archive for January 2009
Flight Formations and Leaps of Faith!
“Part of the same thing” Detail of drawing in progress
Pigment and ink on Wallpaper Marianne Potterton 2009
This morning I was thinking about how birds fly in amazing formations, I find it really inspiring. I watched a couple of videos of amazing flight formations, they were fantastic! It connects to lots of things in I am thinking and feeling about at the moment but too much to write about right now so I will write another post about that soon! The drawing I am doing now is inspired by flight formations.
One Yes one No and a Hundred more Applications more to go!
Oil on canvas “7 moons” Marianne Potterton 2008
At last the letter arrived, I opened it and was rather disheartened to see that I had not been chosen to be in an open submission group show that I had applied for in November. I suppose it just depends on the curators, some will like your work and others wont. It just means that as an artist you have to send a lot of different applications out into the universe. Thankfully I had sent out another one and was accepted! Yes I am going to be in a three person show in August in the Courthouse Gallery in Ennistymon, I hope as many people as possible can make it there. I have not seen the other artist’s work yet, but I am looking forward to.
I have been doing barter, sold and given away quite a few of my paintings including the one above, so I am going to have to paint some more which I can sell! Barter is a wonderful thing! I own quite a few pieces of art that I acquired through work swaps with other artists, I only wish I had done more work swaps! I would also be happy to trade art for other trades and things that people have to offer. So if you would like to do some barter please let me know.
Shadow self
Pigment on wallpaper scrolls Full moon January 2009
Left Self with Samurai sword
Right Even bigger than me
Pigment on wallpaper scrolls Full moon January 2009
I have just been rereading The Celestine Prophecy and it has been really nice, it sounds like it will be a really lovely world we just have to wait a few hundred years!
Coincidences on the Camino de Santiago
Baby buggy down the glen by the Falls Hotel Ennistymon
Yesterday while putting a rather sturdy three wheeled baby buggy in the boot of our 4×4 Lada Niva, I realised that I had bought the same buggy in Santiago two years before our son was to be born in that city. The reason I bought the buggy was because I had just fallen in love with James Slevin, who was pushing all of his supplies rather then carrying them on his back like the pilgrims, he was a long distance walker and I was determined to walk every step of the way beside, behind and in-front of him, it is not always practical to walk hand in hand wile pushing buggies, apart from the sweaty hand thing many of the places we went were tiny paths through woods and up mountains! Was me buying a baby buggy with a man I had only days before met and promptly fallen in love with, in this spiritual city such a strong yet unconscious affirmation that it would draw us back there two years later to give birth to our son?
Yesterday I got a little feel of that again as I pushed our Daughter and Son down the glen by the Falls Hotel in Ennistymon, it is a lovely walk, just a pity it is so short! At the moment James is planning a walk and is very sad to see that nearly all marked walks in Ireland are mainly on the road. If anybody knows of any walks not on roads in Ireland can you please let us know. There are a few lovely Green roads but they are not long enough to get off the gray roads for enough time to feel truly in nature.
Moonbeams, shooting stars and an enchanted frozen Lake!
“Traveller” Marianne Potterton 2008-2009
Oil and Indigo pigment on canvas
“Here now Peace” Marianne Potterton 2008-2009
Oil and Indigo pigment on canvas (Detail)
Moonbeams squeezed under the door the night we had driven back from the enchanted frozen lake, making a wish on on shooting star on our way home. That was yesterday. Somehow all of these experiences filter into my paintings. So as James often tells me it is so important to expose ourselves to lots of powerful and interesting experiences so our art is fed by them and becomes richer. Yesterday I went to Lough Ger in County Limrick, it was beautiful and well worth a visit.
These are two painting that I reworked the other day. Sometimes it is hard to know if you are making the biggest mistake painting over a painting that once you thought was finished. I was never really happy with these paintings so the other day when I had no canvas to work on I thought that I would see what I could do with them. I do like them much better now and feel more confident showing them. Though sometimes I think a painting needs time to be and one day will be it’s time, possibly these could be the best works or it could be that they never really arrived at an interesting place.
The top painting has gone through many different phases, now you can barely make out the astronaut/diver, just their rose coloured visor. The lower painting is staying with the space theme in a way, with planets and stars and down to the activity of atoms and invisible changes. This connects to the 7 Veils of Illusion series from earlier. Saying Here, now Peace.
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