How strangely life works sometimes. Here it is a month since I got home from Ireland. I went on the trip somewhat reluctantly because I had had a difficult workshop in August trying to learn abstract painting with cold wax as there were elements of hot wax that were not satisfying. In time I calmed my fears and decided to just enjoy the fact that I was able to go to that beautiful island, read, walk and just enjoy myself. I did just that. I met wonderful people, saw Dublin with it's plethora of museums and followed RC's instructions. I also set aside my years of dissatisfaction with the contemporary art world and how I felt I was just making stuff like everyone else. I was in Ireland just to be in the moment and enjoy a new experience.

One day we took a small van with Seamus driving. Delightful amusing Seamus. It was about an hour's drive on winding roads through small villages....hardly villages...more like cross roads. The van parked at the end of the road where the cliffs meet the sea. The spot is called An Ben Buie. I stood for a matter of moments looking out over the sea and experienced a sensation that was thrilling, odd and a bit scary. I really could not put my finger on the sensations I was feeling. The next day in the studio, I started my drawings of people emerging from what I am not sure. But they were very amorphous, tall and thin like a Giacometti sculpture. That theme I pursued the entire time I was at Ballinglen Foundation. Now that I am home I am reproducing them in large scale on panels. I kept trying to think of a name for the series. Something about mankind, impermanence......

Last night driving home from a dinner I caught the tail end of of a woman's talk on The Moth. She was  talking about Thin Places in the world two of them being on the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland!! I have since read that 'thin places' are where the Celts thought Heaven and earth are the closest.....very little division between them. So that was the sensation that I felt standing on the cliffs of An Ben Buie.

December 2, 2016

It's been a month since I got home from Ireland. It was a memorable trip and I am still savoring thoughts of it. But I was hesitant to start new work based on the trip but finally took the plunge. With great trepidation, I started some relatively large pieces based on the sketches I did while at Ballinglen Art Foundation. I was so afraid that the hope I had acquired while there, would evaporate if I started to enlarge the drawings. Finally I tore into some older panels. The more layers the better, I always say. I have not yet come up with a title. It has to do with man kind, impermanence, cave drawings. This image is 60 x 25 inches. the first one almost completed. Some more layers needed so he is emerging from the flat plane.

Months have passed since I last posted a blog. All winter I worked away to CWM seeming to get no where. Discouraging but I kept hoping it was having some positive effect on my overall work. I came home late March as I had a large commission to do for WB Gallery. I started two 40 x 52 inch pieces both based on poppies. The client already owned one of my poppy small works. 3 weeks into I sent an image of one of the panels. it was too light for their liking. Fortunately I had the other panel done only so far so I was able to apply the layer of amber shellac on the wax and fire it up. That gave the overall tone of sienna they were looking for.Another 10 days and I delivered the piece to Hanover where my gallery director picked it up and delivered it to the client. Finally the deal was sealed. The entire event was stressful. All that time, work and effort not knowing if it will please the buyer. Not at all like the process of going into ones studio and just painting your heart out uninhibitedly.

That's all behind me and now I am preparing for my solo show at AVA gallery in W. Lebanon. This is a show I won last year  after being chosen as an artist deserving recognition in the states of NH and VT. I have a large room and can work as large as I like. I will show my older dress pieces, the two falling stone works that got me the show and newer works. I am doing some 60 x 30 inch ink drawings on yupo paper of stone walls and hope to have a couple stone walls in encaustic as well.