Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Donation/Your price Art Dale
In The Guru Teahouse, Ennistymon, Co Clare, from Thursday 12th 13th & 14th 9.30 -6 and Sunday 16th December 11-4, this painting and others will be for sale for whatever price you are happy to pay for them. For four days only, I am taking the prices off my paintings so that people who usually can’t afford to buy original art work can buy a piece of my art.
I am extending the creative process beyond the art object, so this exhibition is a continuation of my practice as an artist. I hope to make art more accessible everybody. I think that if people get to see piece of art in their homes everyday they, it is very different to spending a few minutes with it in a gallery. Many people never get this opportunity.
In a world where things are designed to brake or go out of fashion after a year or two, art is something that lasts for generations and is worth just as much after you buy it. You feel great when you buy it. I hope you find some painting you love!
Hexafluorosilicic acid, a mouthful
For the past eight months I have been researching fluoride, officially known as hexafluorosilicic acid, which is quite a mouthful to say. In fact, when you say it to Google it doesn’t understand at all and comes up with many hilarious suggestions, some too rude to repeat! My husband was diagnosed with diabetes type 2 and I was doing some research about it when I came across an article about fluoride. I read something that changed my life forever, since then we only use well water for all our drinking and cooking. We had been drinking tap water from the mains for 5 years since we came back to Ireland from Spain. My husband had been a long distant walker, exceptionally fit, slim and healthy when we lived in Spain. Since moving to Ireland we both put on a lot of weight. In April this year my husband suffered a massive heart attack, he was soaking in the bath when it started. I am extremely happy to say that he is now sitting across from me looking incredibly well and slim and healthy.
From the research that I have done I feel confident in saying that exposure over a five year period, through ingestion and dermatological absorption and inhalation of fluoride, lead to my husbands heart attack aged 39, as well as him getting diabetes type 2. The Irish scientist Declan Wraugh produced this peer reviewed Public Health Investigation of Epidemiological data on Disease and Mortality in Ireland related to Water Fluoridation and Fluoride Exposure (download report pdf). Declan Wraugh has spent the past 2 years working on this totally out of his own pocket, while our government never funded one study about the health impacts of fluoride on the Irish public, when the onus was on them to do so. The Girl Against Fluoride has been doing an incredible job with her campaign bringing pubic awareness to this crucial issue. She has an upcoming court case against the Irish government about their policy of mandatory fluoridation of the public water supply. Since February 2013, Adrienne Murphy’s investigative journalism in Hot Press has been uncovering many urgent issues regarding the fluoride. It is interesting to note that none of these people were invited to the recent fluoride debate on Prime Time.
Since February 2013, I have been making artwork about fluoride, from both personal and scientific perspectives. I started the work subconsciously, then became very conscious about what I was doing through research. I will be showing some of this work in an upcoming exhibition with GUAC called Feasting on the Wind, in The Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon, Co. Clare. Opening on Friday 25th October at 8pm. The exhibition continues until 21st November. The work that will be on display is a collection of “Letters” made with ink and a quill on Japanese paper, combining drawing and writing. A dress that belonged to our daughter and hair from our son embroidered to spell out the words Sarin Nerve Gas Fluoride, this refers to the recent discovery about Syria and the hair samples that tested positive for sarin nerve gas, being indistinguishable from fluoride. If most people in Ireland had their hair tested for sarin nerve gas it would test positive. I feel very protective as a parent and this piece is about this.
Inner Thoughts as a Bamboo Forest
View of Bamboo Installation at “Vulnerable” by Marianne Slevin at The Secret Gallery October 2012
One of the rooms in the exhibition “Vulnerable” was this bamboo installation with text and the sound of a hidden Tibetan singing bowl. On every leaf I wrote one thought about myself that I found hard to say, they are my own suppressed feelings, growing up as a woman in Ireland. I had started my research for this work far away, both in time and physical distance, but in the end I had to look at myself, my own vulnerabilities. The biggest mistake I could make in presenting work about the mistreatment of women in other cultures would be to not look at my own culture and inevitably myself.
In order to be happy, humans have a built in bias toward what they are and do being better than others. I think we have this bias culturally as well as individually. Maybe if we are aware that this bias exists occasionally we can peer around its veil and see we are no better (or worse) than anyone else or any other culture.
What I found surprising was that my own suppressed thoughts and feelings were not just my own, but in many cases they were shared by other, and when I exposed myself in this light I found that others were quick to share their own inner feelings in return. It was a kind of fast forward exercise in honesty and sharing with others what you may only share with those close to you or maybe nobody at all.
There is so often an unrealistic striving for perfection in society which leaves us feeling unworthy and simply not good enough, this effects everything from aesthetics to emotions. We try to make sense and order out of just about anything! I wanted to make some work that made people feel good, by allowing people to see a glimpse of my own vulnerability. Maybe seeing it visually described brings home the enormity of the stuff we feel we have to carry around with us all the time, and perhaps it is so common that is should no longer be a weight on us.
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