Back in B-vaughan

I'm back home from an incredible four-day trip to London. I didn't want to leave, but, as I've been telling everyone, am equally glad to be back in the painting world of Ballyvaughan. It's nice to have somewhere so beautiful and inspiring to call "home". There's really no way I could adequately describe all of the moments that made this trip so phenomenal, inspiring, exhausting, inspiring, breathtaking, sensory-overloaded, inspiring, mentally stimulating, and of coarse, inspiring, but hopefully the iphone photos I took can be pieced together to form some kind of overall, coherent London tone. Here we go:

Monday morning

This weekend has been crazy. Because of an upcoming (leaving tomorrow!) trip to London, I've been in the studio almost nonstop trying to create a decent, half-way presentable body of work for midterm critiques. Because of this, I have very little to update and few photos to post. A few of us were walking home from the studio yesterday evening for a fantastic "family dinner" of french toast (with maple syrup!), quiche, and fried potatoes. It was glorious, and much needed. I haven't been that full in weeks.
On the walk home we noticed that the quality of light was exceptionally beautiful, and that the cows were unusually close, so I attempted to take a few photos with my iphone. These are the results.

London tomorrow!

"In rain or sun we loved this country; its haunting impersonal bareness, its austerity, aloofness, small lakes, the disproportionate bulking of the mountains, smells of shrivelled seaweed rotting in grey dirt-spume, brine, storm-wood, tarred rope and riggings, sea-wrack, and mud after an ebb tide...
Bare, boulder-strewn land backed by purplish heather and misty mountains. The people lived close to the soil, pushing back the soft bog and making it give food; a barren, troubled existence. Yet this country grips their body and soul; it haunts the imagination in its cruelty, strength and beauty, and the bleak coast with its wild angry sea, changing skies, crashed rocks, as if old gods had sported with pieces of granite mountain, can be recalled when sleek fat land is forgotten. There is a hunger for the soil, an elemental feeling that even a stranger or foreigner can sense."

-excerpt from "On Another Man's Wound", by Ernie O'Malley.

I don't think I've ever read a better description of this fascinating, sad, and hauntingly beautiful country as the one he gave.

There's very little to update concerning my personal life. I've been spending most of my time painting, reading, sketching and walking. Today I made a fantastic batch of carrot soup. Tomorrow Logues's Lodge is giving step-dancing lessons. I'm looking forward to that. Haha.

The last two days have been absolutely beautiful. My lavender plant is loving all of this sunlight. I, on the other hand, have spent the last two days almost entirely indoors attempting to produce half-way decent paintings. Yesterday was very productive, today was more frustrating than anything. Hopefully tomorrow will go back to being productive. In the meantime, I have some photos from a walk I took yesterday afternoon when the lighting was at its peak.

evening walk

I made myself take a walk this evening with my camera because it's been too long since I took any photos. The first photo is from the Clare vs. Cork hurling rematch. The rest are from tonight.

This week so far

So, that 'newly scratchy throat' mentioned in last Saturday's post turned into a full-blown illness. Because of that, I have very little to update, no new photos and my brain is too fried from illness-related insomnia and overtime studio work to form a coherent string of thoughts, but I felt that a post was necessary...just to stay in the habit. My life this week has been a constant repetition of tea, tylenol, paint, carrots (for vitamin C...easier to find than oranges. haha). It's been very...productive, actually, but not exciting material for a blog post. I have a string of new ideas for paintings that actually relate to my MFA, and am managing to find ways of narrowing down my MFA research to a single topic...or three. After several weeks of feeling like I had no direction or motivation other than to figure out how to cope with being back in school, in a new country, away from everyone I know, washing my face in a sink with cold water every morning...this new feeling of solid inspiration, and launching-off-point-finding is very welcome. Hopefully the paintings are paintable. It's always much easier to dream them up than to create them. Working on that stage next. In the meantime, here are a few pictures that I have not yet posted:

This flying ant creature flew into my bathroom through the open window. The next morning I found it watching itself in the mirror, running its legs through its antennae. Like...it was grooming itself?

Creeping people on facebook and then drawing them. Beware!

The road to school. Or away from school, from this perspective.

Dublin. D'lin. the Dubs.

Zaytoons! SO exciting. I dream about this place.