The Arts Banquet

The launch of the new Arts Banquet took place last night last in the heritage town of Killaloe / Ballina Co. Clare. This new arts festival is about opening the doors on the art world and making audiences participants. The festival hopes to bring a feast of arts to all who are interested or who wish to be the musicians, artists, poets and writers that they always knew they were.

The Community Sculpture "My Wabi Sabi Sphere" will start it's workshops tomorrow, 25th June in St Annes Community College @ 2pm. For those interested in getting their hands messy and having the title of 'sculptor' come and join in.

Community Sculpture & Children's Parade Family Workshops,

at St. Annes Community College, Killaloe,Saturday 25th June 2 to 4pm

(Parade workshops starts at 11)

Youth Workshop, Friday 1st July, Kincora Hotel

Active Age, Friday 1st July, Kincora Hotel

Open for all, Saturday 2nd July, Pop Up Playhouse, Cathedral Quay

The sculpture can be viewed by the public on Sat 2nd July, 8pm Quay Arts and for all of July in the Killaloe Cathedral from 3rd July

The following are a list of Arts Banquet events that will take place during the the next week.

Wednesday 29th June

Killaloe Writers Group - Readings & Selected Poetry, 8.30pm, Il Ponte Vecchio, Killaloe

Thursday 30th June

Music in the Glen Strings Summer Concert, 5pm, Pop Up Playhouse

The Hunt Museum Lecture, 6pm, Il Ponte Vecchio

Killaloe/ Ballina Youth Theatre Club Final Year Show, Pop Up Playhouse

Quay Arts Theatre Nights, 8pm, Quay Arts, Ballina

Friday 1st July

Sharing Stories - Children's Workshops, 2 to 4pm, Killaloe Library

Quay Arts Theatre Nights, 8pm, Quay Arts, Ballina

Lola Montez Theatrical Caberet, 9.30pm, Pop Up Playhouse

Saturday, 2nd July

'A Day in the Life', visual arts, all day event, Quay Arts

Killaloe/ Ballina Community Orchestra, 4.30pm, Pop Up Playhouse

The Great Big Boru Gig, 8.30pm, Pop Up Playhouse

For full details on all events and locations click on

http://www.feilebrianboru.killaloe.ie/index.htm

http://www.musicintheglen.ie/

http://www.quayarts.ie/

My Wabi-Sabi Sphere

As part of the Arts Banquet Festival (local arts festival) I am creating a community sculpture. The theme of the festival is 'Transition, Transience and Change'. I love the idea of engaging with a community to create a single piece that represents each person in it.  Last year for the Brian Boru Festival I did something similar using a tree. It was a community tree and each flower and leaf on it represented someone who helped create it. It was very simple and easy to do yet it inspired a lot of questions and comments.

This year I have upped the ante. My interpretation of the theme is the 'Wabi-Sabi Sphere' sculpture. Sounds very odd and arty. I have however tried to simplify it for people to understand. I am running workshops with school kids, families, teenagers and an active age group. I will also have much of the work coming from myself.

I came across the idea of Wabi Sabi a few months ago and it hit a nerve with me. It is a Japanese philosophy which is centred around the acceptance of transience. It is a beauty that is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. It has three underlying aspects, nothing lasts, nothing is finished and nothing is perfect. This all really resonated with me. So often I am restricted by a need to be perfect and held up on the goal to finish. So much so that it often ruins the enjoyment of doing something or causes me to put things on the long finger for fear of doing it 'wrong' or stressing out that it 'needs' to be finished yesterday. The idea of Wabi Sabi allows me a breathing space. When I think of it I realise that I will never be finished and nothing will ever be perfect and there is beauty in that.

When I heard that the theme was 'Transition, Transience and Change' I knew I had to bring in the idea of Wabi Sabi into it some how. The idea for a sphere came about as I knew that we could use the local cathedral to exhibit and that excited me. I wanted to create something that would contrast with the space. A  simple form in vibrant colours to contrast with the dark ancient structure.

To create the sculpture each person who participates will paint a sphere to reflect where they are in their life, this could be something as simple as a colour. I felt that as an individual the sphere can be a symbol of something that is a perfect whole and complete, yet because it is a sphere it is always moving and changing or has the potential to move and change. Therefore My Wabi Sabi Sphere is a representation of that person and where they are in their life, even when they are in a state of change, transformation or transience they are still perfect, whole and a thing of beauty. I will then create a sculpture using all the spheres.

I will post up the photos of the sculpture in progress and the finished piece over the next few weeks. In the meantime you can read up about Wabi Sabi on the web.

http://nobleharbor.com/tea/chado/WhatIsWabi-Sabi.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi

Try to remember Wabi Sabi next time you are caught up in perfectionism.

Feeling Blue

Original Artwork by E. F.

I have finished working with the day care centre for the summer. The group of women (older people, elderly, active age, retired! not sure which term is p.c.) are all so different in their abilities, creativity and approach to art. However the one thread for me with them all is the need to help them see themselves with fresh eyes. I often think that my work is not to inspire, guide or teach, but to help people unlearn beliefs about themselves or about art that serve no value to them.

Above is a painting by one of the women who I find a big challenge on some days.  And those days are always the ones when she feels low. She lost her husband recently and comes to the centre for company and to get out of the house. I can't imagine what it would be like to spend your life with someone, share all your memories, raise children together grow old, make plans and then to wake up one morning and that person is gone. With all the years ahead to re imagine as a single person.

She claims to be no good at painting or drawing and only comes for the company. However each day she turns up beautifully dressed. She chooses her outfits to balance perfectly with tones and textures matching or contrasting and always a stunning piece of jewelry. If I try to tell her she is very artistic she won't believe me. She is also the one person who works so fluidly. Sometimes I put a still life composition in front of her and she uses it only as a starting point. The end result never looks anything like what is on the table, yet it is always so creative and unique. Everything she looks at she interprets but when she finishes she sees this as a minus not a plus and is always so critical of her work. If artists just plainly copied what was in front of them art would be so boring and bland. Interpretation is what makes it individual and creative.

When I return after the summer my focus is going to be on individual inspiration and developing  creative confidence. I hope I can make E.F. she her value and use art to help her feel inspired and revived and not something more to feel blue about.

*********

As promised I have been looking around for art that has a purpose other than hanging in a gallery (even though I love art that hangs in a gallery.)
I came across a really interesting blog site...

http://www.postsecret.com/

It is full of homemade postcards where people share their secrets. Some are funny and some are quite sad but it is all so interesting. Let me know what you think?





I am for an art.......

I have been reading up a little on Claes Oldenburg. His sculptures were so clever and funny, they really can put a smile on your face. I can imagine walking down the street and seeing an ice-cream cone on top of a building. I thought I would share the rest of the quote I used in my last entry. I wont include the full writings as it is very long, but I am sure you will get the gist of it.

Claes Oldenburg (b. 1929) from Documents from The Store

I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on it's ass in a museum.

I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance of having a starting point of zero.

I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap and & still comes out on top.

I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary.

I am for an art that takes it's forms from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself.

I am for an artist who vanishes, turning up in a white cap and painting signs or highways.

I am for an art that comes out of a chimney like black hair and scatters in the sky.

I am for an art that spills out of an old man's purse when he is bounced off a passing fender.

I am for a art out of a doggy's mouth, falling five stories from the roof.

I am for an art that a kid licks, after peeling away the wrapper.

I am for an art that joggles like everyones knees, when the bus traverses an excavation.

I am for an art that is smoked like a cigarette, smells, like a pair of shoes.

I am for an art that flaps like a flag, or helps blow noses, like a handkerchief.

I am for the art of conversation between the sidewalk and a blind man's metal stick.

...........

What sort of art are you for?

Art & Social Commentary

I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on it's ass in a museum.

Claes Oldenburg

I clearly remember the moment when I realised that art could be political. I always knew it was personal. I painted in that way. I used art as a way to express myself. My paintings were generally abstract and full of movement and colour and I could use the process of painting to deal with something, disregarding the outcome. When I went to work in community development I found myself using art in a social way. It was a tool I used when working in groups. I found it opened people up and could tackle issues with such ease and so effectively. When I went to college to study community art it blew my mind to realise the potential that art had for bigger issues.

It seems so obvious now, probably the first cave paintings were pro-democracy messages. Even crafts like quilting were used by women to highlight the need for equal rights. Advertisers, more than likely, stole their trade from artists with a social conscience. Today I know very few artists who use art to share a message. I don't know if this is because I am not that aware of them and have my head in the clouds or because art isn't been used that much for purposes outside the gallery. It is such a shame that art is so hidden in galleries.

I rarely work with others artists. Most of my work is with people who never use or view art. I try to emphasise creativity over 'art' as it has become such a scary word and has connotations of high values and intellect. And who wants to associate with 'high values' or 'intellect'? I am going on a search for artwork that speaks value. Art that offers a social critique or a political message (political is also a word that has lost the run of itself, running far away from everyday people, which is where it squarely belongs).

I came across a Chinese artist awhile ago, called Ai Weiwei, who had an exhibition in the Tate Modern in London. His work was called 'Sunflower Seeds'.It was more then one hundred million individually made and hand painted porcelain seeds. Visitors were encouraged to walk over, touch and experience the seeds. It was in an attempt for people to contemplate mass consumption among other things. It was refreshing to see this and realise that artists doing this work are being recognised.

Above is the first image I ever did that was related to my view on society. The drawing is of a magpie dropping the central bank (Irish building) into his nest alongside a ring.  The bank  was to represent what was going on in Ireland at that time, cheap money available to anyone, and the ring was representing what we were doing with the money, buying 'bling'. I wanted to show the insignificance of it all with the predominance of nature.  As a society we value cash and status more than nature, yet nature really has more power over us than we think.

Let me know if you find any artists using their art for more than just sitting "on it's ass in a museum".

www.aiweiwei.com

www.tate.org.uk

My Womb

I am currently six and a half months pregnant and it has got me thinking about the whole process of creation. Art work or any creative project has the same process as the creative process of nature, e.g. babies. First there is the idea (conception), then the actual making or growing (gestation) and finally the birth. However I think the process for babies can be simpler.

Creating babies has a clearly defined beginning, middle and end.  I am not negating the complexity and joy of bringing a baby into the world but I just find some creative projects just so damn hard to give birth to.  And with art projects I am often unclear of what I am trying to do until it is done. 

Above is a painting I did during my last pregnancy.  It is part of a series and related to the embroidery I showed last week.  The project is called 'My Head, My Heart, My Womb'.  It is based on my hospital stay in antenatal care during my last pregnancy. The paintings and ideas behind it were used as a brief or a starting point for work I do each week with women in maternal care in the Maternity Hospital. 

The idea came to me with such ease, the paintings painted themselves and I was offered the job to work with these women with open arms.  I have spent nine months (coincidence) working with pregnant women, most have never painted before, producing beautiful images relating to there pregnancy and how they are feeling at the time. All of them are in hospital because of complications, some more serious then others.

During this time so many ideas of exhibitions and books were discussed and promised and all fell through.  I collected all the images, many of the stories and evaluated some of the women's response to the project.  However it hasn't been birthed. I don't know where to go now or what to do. I don't want to lose all this valuable work. 

So often projects, paintings, novels get lost in the womb. Perpetual gestation. So what is it about growing babies that I can learn from to bring this project somewhere? First, everyone is clear what you get at the end. Second, there is labour before the birth, and there is no avoiding that part.Thirdly, you have prepared yourself for the nine months of what is to come and allowed for space in your life to accept it. I think I will sit with these ideas of what exactly do I want and what sort of work is needed to achieve that. In the meantime I will start sharing some of those images and stories so they don't get lost in my womb, with the real baby.