Posts Tagged ‘meditative’
Wind intervention at The Secret Gallery and Public Art Work by Maeve Collins
These wind drip drawings were made 8 years ago on this very same clothes-line. Then the sheets of cotton lay on the ground and little paper vessels that I made by stitching old bank statement held the indigo pigment and oil that dripped as the wind blew them dangling from the clothes line. It was a nice circle to hang them from the same clothesline but this time let them be blown by the wind and dance! I loved the sound they made and the meditative feeling you get from watching the repetitive but ever changing motion as the wind blows the wind dripped drawings; a little dance making the invisible visible.
The cotton moving backwards and forwards and the sound it made reminded me of a Public Art Piece that an Artist and Friend of mine Maeve Collins did in the Square in Ennistymon last summer. Maeve hung some real and elegant bed sheets with mirrors attached reflecting what was happening in the space around them, as they moved backwards and forwards on the sheets, while at the same time played recordings of elderly people talking about life on the island, which Maeve recorded while living on Inisheer. It was a lovely piece the Artist sat with her work to talk with anyone who wished to converse beside the meditative wave of the sheets that had been brought into the town. This is just a snippet as there is a lot more to Maeve’s work that I did not mention. As part of this Public Art Work her recordings also sailed over the waves to the Aran Islands and there was a third part to this work, a line holding clocks, umbrellas a dress and musical instruments entered the sea at Liscannor, and the gateway to HiBrasil, an island some people say they have seen. I hope to put up some of the Artist’s images of this poetic art work soon, as I am having a little technical trouble today. So have a look in a few days they are well worth it!
A little thought I had today
If it is not right for you it is not right for the world!
Laying a line of Mother of pearl along the garden path
Today, I suddenly started to tidy up the garden, it had got pretty neglected looking. A month or so ago, I had put a kind of trail/ladder of mother of pearl shells and driftwood down the garden path. Gradually it had turned from a line to a tide line to a messy bird picked, children kicked, moss covered and even seaweed-like, green balls of slime infested path, with some random shells and driftwood on it!
I cleared (I am trying not to use weed killer, my hands have aged about 50 years in a single day!) and edged the path and washed the shells and relayed the trail, starting this time with oyster shells, then driftwood going up as far as the little tree, and up to a branch! Then I lay the Mother of Pearl shells, it was such a meditative experience; gathering the shells then washing them and laying them out carefully. It felt like a lovely ritual, I would like to do it once a month or so.
Even after the big tidy up, the path was still a little messy and mossy, and wet and ended in a Turlough, complete with strange green slime balls!(Does anyone know what these rootless, spreading, weird things are?) Placing these perfect, beautiful little shells on top of natures contributes of it’s persistence and constant reclaiming and growing back over the man made path, both gestured at poetry and absurdity! This felt like a meditative ritual, creating a space to be very quiet and work in a gentle way with nature. When doing my interventions I like to introduce unexpected objects to a place, they tend to be playful and often quirky: changing the way we see things by putting them in a different context.
The secret gallery's blog 