Quote-tastic

“I photograph because I love things, am mad about things, find things funny, am overwhelmed by a pending sense of nostalgia, a need to share things and have a nod of the head in return by my peers to know that I don’t stand alone in this world feeling like this.”

—

Ying Ang

Update Number Fifty Million

So, I know I've been updating a butt-load lately, haha. Mostly it's because I don't want to fall behind, but also it's because I secretly really love blogging. It's kind of nice to just sit down and recall events from the past few days because most of the time everything goes by so fast that I can hardly remember what I did yesterday, nonetheless last week.

I've been thinking a lot lately about my life here and how much I've been sincerely enjoying myself. It's funny, because I remember feeling this way when I first got to Clark too. Everything is so new: landscape, people, activities, life-style; it's quite exciting and refreshing. I'm thetype of person that is hard to tie down to one place and I think that it was really time that I got out of my comfort zone again and discovered a new adventure. I cannot believe that I've been here for over a month now, almost a month and a half actually, and I'm so comfortable here. I love Ireland so much and I love the house I live in and my house-mates. We are like a big family, we watch out for each other, laugh with each other, party with each other haha, the whole undergrad lot, actually (ugh, now it's starting to sound like Jersey Shore haha, don't worry family! It's definitely nothing like that!). Everyone here is SO nice and wonderful and they all have so much talent, I'm extremely blessed to have this opportunity. Also, it's been a blessing to have TIME. Time to unwind, time to work on my art, time to eat, time to breathe. I'm so used to being the human tornado that I forgot what it's like to slow down and take my time. I don't know WHAT I'm going to do when I get back to the hustle and bustle of Clark! haha. I'm hoping that I will be well rested enough to get back into the groove of it though because last semester was so rough. I think I will get back to the states refreshed but I will also miss this place dearly. I intend with every ounce of my being to come back to Ireland at some point in my life though. I've decided that I need to, and it will definitely happen one day.

Anyways, enough philosophical talk, now to the good stuff.

We had Irish studies again yesterday and it was pretty cold and rainy (surprise!) so we mostly stayed on the bus. The lecture focused on the the Gaelic Age or the Iron age. We talked about how the ancient Celtic people lived and their secular as well as spiritual beliefs. It was very interesting. The physical part of our class involved visiting ring forts and round towers around the Burren, but since the weather didn't let up, we ended up ending the trip prematurely. This I was actually sort of glad about since that jog I told you about the other day really took a toll on my legs, haha. Anyways, afterwards we came back home and I went to my studio to work on my painting of Brijit for a while and got a little farther with it. Afterwards I met up with my friends at Mandy's house and we watched the Kings Speech, which is a FANTASTIC movie by the way, I would recommend it to all of you. The fun didn't stop there, though! I brought my camera and tripod so I could take some more long exposure night shots since the full moon was out. After getting some along the walk home, Shawn, Casey, Hannah, and I - around 1 AM - walked to the nearest Faerie Fort (the same one, ironically, that we visited in Irish Studies earlier that day) and I took some more night shots. It was pretty awesome to be there under the full moon in the middle of the night, it was so bright out! We read a faerie story out loud and I got some really great shots which are below. This night photo stuff is pretty cool =)

Today was kind of a spur of the moment day. There was a trip organized to a neighboring town, Gort, and I wasn't originally going but Mandy convinced me to go so I had about 20 minutes to get myself together. I made it on the bus and once at Gort Mandy and I searched for a few things: coffee, cupcakes/scones, bookstore, lunch. Most of those were accomplished. We met a wonderful woman in the book/school store who is a teacher and she chatted with us about our stay so far in Ballyvuaghan and at the college. She was very sweet and in addition to asking us where we lived in the states and such and such she corrected us on how we pronounced Ballyvaughan (haha it happens more than you think, it's bAlly not BaLLY) and I had a DELICIOUS lunch that consisted of a mushroom, goat cheese, and spinach quiche with lemonade. (our water is still kind of bad in Ballyvaughan so I am perpetually thirsty). Also, I realized today that I have been eating so much heavy food since I've been here that I'm pretty sure that is the lightest meal I've had in over a month! It was delicious and my body was so happy I opted for something light for once. Also, it was a gorgeous day today. The sun was shining and the weather was warm enough to only wear a sweater. Yay, spring!!!

Mostly it was a very nice day. I had planned on going to my studio once we got home but I think I might be getting sick again so I didn't end up going. All this week I've had weird moments of sore throat, nausea, headaches, and ear aches. I kept telling myself that it was all in my head (haha no pun intended!), but I've decided I really am kind of getting sick and should slow down. I opted to stay in tonight so I'll probably be going to bed soon to get a good nights sleep.

For your viewing pleasure (upon some requests) here are the portraits I've been working on so far. They are both works in progress right now, but I like where they are heading. The portraits are something like 25 in x 30 in by the way painted with oils.

Brijit

Emerson

Oh! One last thing! It was my wonderful roommate's birthday on Thursday so we had a party at our house for her and I made her a lovely cake. It was fun and the cake as delicious and she had a wonderful birthday which I'm very glad because she is a wonderful person! So here is a picture of the cake and of me and Maggie =)

Did you know, Did you know?

Did you know that cows chase rabbits? Well, hares more specifically.

On my way back to school today after grabbing my camera from the house I noticed a few of the cows in the field next to campus happily running around. I thought it was cute but kind of weird cause I often don't see the cows running. Under closer inspection (aka me standing on the side of the road staring for a while) I noticed they weren't just playing, they were CHASING a hare across the field! About six of them! Some five of them stopped after a while but one continued to peruse the hare until it jumped over the rock wall. Fun gone, the cow just stood looking over the wall wishing, I'm sure, it could follow. It was just TOO silly. I laughed. A lot.

Anyways, I just thought that was funny and wanted to share it =)

Also, today was a beautiful day. Mandy and I decided to start taking morning jogs and today was the day we began that. It felt SO nice to get some exercise and it was nice to have someone to run with. We ran a little along the coast of the bay and then turned back. It was a great way to start the day. She wants to do it every day but I will only be joining her a few days out of the week since my hip and knee are a little rusty. It will be a nice routine to get into though.

It was very foggy this morning but halfway through the day the fog lifted to a beautiful sunny day. I took some photos on my walk back because I just couldn't help myself, so here ya go!

Fog over the Burren

A horse that came over to say hi =)

Newtown Castle (my campus) in the distance

The road to my school

View from the school

Our little courtyard and Robert's van on the right

Irish Studies: Photos

So here are some photos from my last Irish Studies class trip!

Sheepies!

Casey trying to touch them, haha

Irish froggg =)

Rock wall

A little dog we met along the way, his name was Trigger!

Mandy and Trigger

Gordon D'Arcy, our wonderful Irish Studies instructor

Hannah, Erica, and Mandy playing around in the wedge tomb, haha

=)

Artist Talk

So every wednesday we have an artist or two give talks about their work. Sometimes it's faculty and sometimes it's visiting artists, local or otherwise. It's been a great experience to see what kind of work artists are making in the now and to hear about their experiences.

I've enjoyed most of the work the visiting artists have presented for the most part, but I think my favorite so far has been the artist we heard today. Her name is Alice Lyons and she is from New Jersey living in Ireland. It's interesting that I found her presentation one of my favorites since her mediums are poetry and film, two mediums I have hardly ever touched. What made her work so interesting, however, was A. her public art (poetry) installations (I happen to be extremely interested in public art) and B. her film poetry. The latter was by far one of the most visually stimulating things I've seen since being here and I have probably seen more performance art in the past month than I've ever been exposed to in my life. She showed us a couple film poems, one she did herself and then the two she collaborated with Orla McHardy (a film artist living in Dublin). Their collaboration works are not only visually stimulating, but the poetry is intriguing and quite striking.

Anyways, I would have liked to post the link to the second film she showed, The Polish Language, but the film (8 minutes long in length) hasn't been released on the internet yet, so here is a clip of it

The Polish Language - clip from Orla Mc Hardy on Vimeo.

BUT, (Uncle Jim specifically) you should email her at this address: a@alicelyons.ie and ask her to view it privately on Vimeo. (that is what she has requested on her blog). I very much encourage it, Uncle Jim, because I think you would really appreciate it and so would Aunt Terri. Or maybe not, but at least we could talk about it because I found it wonderful.

That's all I really wanted to talk about. I'm starting my second portrait tomorrow of my friend Brijit. I'm excited to start a new one. I'm still working on the other one of Emerson. AND my second photo critique was not this week, so I have the rest of the week to get some more shots which is great.

Kay, well I guess that's all for real.

Moving Right Along

T. S. Eliot - “The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.”

Today at mass the priest said the above quote when referring to today's gospel. The reading was actually a pretty difficult one to swallow in my opinion. It talked about obeying the commandments sort of... or else. Lots of talk about how divorcing is adultery and so on and so forth. Things that are pretty hard to grasp in this day in age. I mean, I was interested to see how he was going to talk about this one. Well, he did it very elegantly, I thought, and focused on the fact that no matter what we do, our actions should come from our hearts as opposed to selfish reasons. Hence the quote. I thought it was a nice thing to remember and again something that can get lost often in day to day activities.

Anyways, I don't mean to turn this blog into one about my trips to mass, haha I just really like this priest because he's very enthusiastic, clearly loves literature, and so far has had only very enlightening things to say. There was also a bake sale after mass which was nice. I bought some treats for the house which were immediately gobbled up by my hungry little house-mates. Not after cheering me for bringing home treats. =)

SO. Yesterday we went to Galway! We being Mandy, Hannah, Casey, Erica, and me. We each had motives and decided to collaborate on a day trip to get everything accomplished, and we did! It was a really nice day weather wise and success wise. We visited some fabric stores, clothes stores, a book store, an art store, a few cafe's, and the mall. The book store was one of my favorites, it had old and new books. I bought an old book of rhymes and verses about a ton of things, a lot of them meant for kids. I really really like it a lot so far. So it was easy enough to get to Galway, only 15 euro roundtrip for students, very convenient. Now that I know how it works travel will be nice and easy for when people visit.

Speaking of people coming to visit, I'm wicked excited for my friend Nina to visit from London! It's only like a week and a half and I'm starting to plan what we'll do depending on the weather. Galway is in the Itinerary though as well as a tour of my studio =)

Hmm, let's see what else... I'll have pictures from stuff up soon, I haven't even sorted them out yet haha.

Ummm, I really really really want a Starbucks frappaccino right now... so not gonna happen.

I've been working on my portrait of my friend Emerson, it's starting to look pretty decent. I used my palette knife mostly for painting today which was really awesome and I think I'll start doing that more often for these larger paintings. It really helps me paint more structurally which is great.

I have my second photo critique tomorrow, yay! I'm excited because the stuff that I'm showing is even MORE different from what I normally do. It's so abstract and I love it. I'm thriving really well off of no portraits haha.

Well, I guess this is getting kind of long so I guess I'll go. Before I leave though I'll show you one of the verses I particularly enjoyed from the book I'm reading.

Away Go We

One, two, three,

And away go we!

Shingle, starfish,

Sand, and sea!

Wind on cheek,

Clear sun on skin;

The tumbling waves

Sweep out, sweep in.

A magic, broken

Music calls

In the water

As it falls;

Voices, a sigh,

A long-drawn hush,

As back -- in myriad

Bubbles -- gush

The green-grey ripples,

Flecked with snow --

A music solemn,

Sweet, and low.

Irish Studies: Pre-history, Frog Orgy, and Twisted Ankle

I am so exhausted right now, it has been such a long day. I find myself tired a lot actually. I mean, I know 9:30 am for check in isn't that early, but most days I wake up between 7:40 and 8:10 am to get ready for school, get to school before 9:30 and I'm there until about 5 pm when we are dropped off. Of course I don't go straight to bed after that, there is dinner, often times a movie, random shenanigans, or doing some late night artwork. There are also ALWAYS things going on at school and around Ballyvaughan that the staff at Burren encourage us to take part in. Between early mornings and late nights fitting in artwork, food, fun time, school activities, and downtime: again, I find myself tired. It's a good tired though because everything has been such a great experience so far.

On that note, I was just commenting to my friends Casey and Hannah about how lucky we are that part of our exhaustion at the end of a given day is due to hiking through the Burren with our incredible tour guide and professor Gordon D'Arcy. He is actually one of the most knowledgeable people I've ever met and we all love him to pieces. His knowledge of the earth, the creatures that inhabit it (including the human race), and history blow my mind and I wish I could have a little D'Arcy to keep in my pocket when I go on adventures.

Today we learned about the prehistoric peoples as well as the farmers that worshiped the sun. Gordon started out by telling us that we were done with flora, fauna, and rocks and were now focusing in on people; but there is actually no getting Mr. D'Arcy away from his rocks. I realized this when almost every one of his slides included ROCKS! We actually focused on tombs today - Wedge tombs, Dolman (Portal) Tombs, Passage Tombs, and so on as well as what they were used for. On our adventure today we drove around the Burren in search of some of it's tombs.

We hiked over some pretty rigorous terrain today. Lots of poop, lots of broken ground, lots of moss, lots of holes but we saw some pretty cool stone structures. I think the highlight of this whole day, however, (aside from seeing the Burren's main Portal Tomb again which I still think is really cool) was the frog orgy that we stumbled upon. Yes, you read that correctly, frog orgy. At our first stop before we left some of our group seemed to be oggling at something. Of course we had to investigate and low and behold they had found a swampy basin of water which contained hundreds, HUNDREDS people! of frogs. They were mating and croaking away and it was quite a sight to see. Hannah and I were really excited. We touched some of them haha, but don't worry, I didn't try to catch any! Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera out of the bus at that stop so I don't have pictures, but I'll see if someone else does.

Anyways, it was a fun trip but we were all EXHAUSTED by the end mostly because there was a disco at logue's (the local hot spot pub in town) and we danced the night away the night before. The last stop had especially tricky ground and I think I may have twisted my ankle. I am currently in the bathroom soaking my foot/ankle in hot water for 20 minutes while alternating icing it with some frozen green beans. Hannah, Mandy, Erica, maybe Casey, and I are going to Galway tomorrow so I'm hoping it is better by then. We'll see.

That's pretty much all I have to say about that subject. I mean, there is more, but this post is getting a little long and I'm sure most of you are wearing thin already haha. I took a bunch of pictures so I'll post them once they are edited.

On a side note I had the best tomato soup I've ever had tonight. Sorry Panera, there is no going back now...

Also, I've been having some cravings that just cannot be fulfilled while being in Ireland, speaking of Panera. Namely: Coke slushie, DD Iced coffee, and asiago cheese bagel with cream cheese. There are more, but those have been the most prominent in the past few days. GAH! It's frustrating, but I guess I'll live.

Studio

Hi! Here are some photos of my studio with the infamous TC. This was just a late night when I decided to stay behind and get some work done last week.

You Are The Salt Of The Earth

"Faith without love creates fanatics, Faith with love creates peacemakers"

- Fr. Richard Flanagan

I went to church with my friend Loretta today. Mass is at 11:30 every sunday and it's at the church down the street. We met the paster, his name is Richard Flanagan. This particular sermon talked about being the "Salt of the Earth". Fr. Flanagan gave a very nice homily which included the quote above which I thought was so true and so often overlooked. The readings were a nice little reminder to be a good person and watch out for your fellow man, something I think we often forget to do when getting caught up in the busy rush of life. Anyways it was nice to go to church again and even nicer to do it in Ireland. We'll be trying to go every Sunday with a few of our other friends and I'm excited to get into a routine with it. It's very comforting and also a nice way to get to know the community which we don't have much interaction with during the day.

After church we walked through town a bit back and forth between one of the student houses in the town and Logue's. Loretta needed to check that her card worked so I stayed at Logue's and got a coffee and a delicious DELICIOUS scone while she checked that at the store across the street. I need to get my hands on some scone mix or an easy recipe because I've pretty much decided that I love scones slash I also love the hearty buttery cream the Irish like to spread on the scones. Again I find myself talking about food haha.

After all the roaming around she and I headed back to the house and ran into Kate who was on her way to the school. Soon along the road plans were changed though and Kate and I decided to take a walk since even though it was overcast it was actually a nice day out - something that is kind of a rare opportunity - so a walk was more appropriate than going to the college. After dropping off Loretta and grabbing my camera we headed out towards this abandoned stone building I noticed a few days back that is right past the school. I couldn't be happier that we chose to look there.

It was one of the most magical things I've seen since being here. It was off to the side of the road hidden back by some moss covered trees. After hopping the rock wall we went down the house and our mini adventure began. It was beautiful. The building's roof had collapsed leaving an open stone building covered in vines, moss, and branches. We explored it thoroughly before finding more littler stone buildings without roofs and then a bog like area COVERED in moss. It was so incredibly magical, I kept expecting a unicorn or fairy to come out from behind some tree. I decided I definitely want to go back and take some long exposure night photos of it. Also, Kate and I both decided it will be ten times more beautiful (if that's even possible) in the spring and summer when the leaves on the trees grow back and creates a canopy over this magical place. I can't wait.

Now I'm pretty much back at the house by myself since most people are at the school. I just made some delicious tortellini and I'm about to clean some of the kitchen because it's pretty darn messy right now. It's about my turn, I've been lazy for quite some time now.

Hopefully tomorrow I can start one of my portraits. I'll also get to talk to Martina about my Something as Nothing project. Yay art school in Ireland =)

**Photos from the little Moss Adventure!

Rain, Rain, Rain, and Wind, Wind, Wind.

So, let's see, what have I been up to this past week?

Well, mostly art since I DO go to school (although I know it may not seem like it sometimes on here haha). I had some minor struggles catching Robert (the school groundskeeper/van driver/ repairman) in the art shop so it took me about three days to get the rest of what I needed for painting. Once I got him though I finally bought my canvas and gesso and I've stretched a larger piece of canvas over a wood board so I can start my portraits. I also found some smaller pieces of scrap wood in the 3D lab which I gessoed and left plain for painting and charcoal sketches. I decided to do a few decent sized portraits for painting of some of my fellow students. I have a few in mind that I would like to paint and the portraits will be about 25x30 inches (maybe larger depending on how they look). I'll probably get in a good 3 or 4 while I'm here, hopefully. I'm pretty excited to start since the only painting I've really done so far is a few self portraits and a sloth for fun.

As for photo, the last assignment we had was called Place as Identity and I did a series of night photos. I've decided I'm not going to be doing any photo portraits while I'm here. I mean that might change depending on what would fit into the assignment, but at least not portraits like I've done in the past. I'm allowing myself a little break from that because it was stressing me out last semester. We had a critique for the last assignment already and it went very well. I got some great feedback and I was very happy with the photos I got out of it and I will probably be continuing to take night photos here because it was fun. This place is wonderful for long exposure night photos. Anyways, for the next assignment we have to capture Nothing as Something. So far what I think I'm doing for this is photographing light and how it creates atmosphere. The assignment is sort of a "transcendent object" assignment, which I've done before with painting, but with photo it's a little more fun because it's kind of like scavenger hunt. I'll be talking to my professor about my idea and showing her what I have so far on Monday so we'll see what happens with my idea after that.

Here are the photos from my first assignment

Life drawing has been going well. It's just nice to be able to draw a model for a few hours, nice to draw in general. It is very much like the drawing the body class I took last year only without the out of class assignments so in that sense it's a little repetitive, but I like the professor so that's good. I'll post some of those drawings once I photograph them.

So that's how my art has been going so far. It's been so windy this week, like out of this world windy. It's been kind of hard for anyone to do anything due to lack of motivation. Thursday it sounded like a hurricane in our studio since it's on the second floor, it shook the roof and windows and made terrifying noises. The wind is so strong we are literally getting thrown around and it's hard to get from one place to the next without hearing slamming doors and seeing people fighting against the wind. It's all pretty incredible. It's also been raining a lot.

Yesterday we went on our second Irish studies trip. This one focused on the flora and fauna of Ireland and the Burren. Unfortunately I don't have any photos from our 2 hour hike because I accidently left my memory card at home, but it was so incredibly windy I'm kind of glad I didn't have it. We hiked through the valley towards the coast and luckily most of the way the wind was at our backs, however, the closer we got to the coast the more that changed and Mandy, Hannah, and I had quite a laugh as we attempted, after falling behind, to catch up to the group.

We saw some wildlife though, despite the terrible weather. There were lots of wild goats going up the mountains. They were so neat to see. Lots of cows, a couple Connemara ponies with some glam rock hair blowing in the wind, and on our mini adventure down to the river, Hannah, Mandy, and I discovered an Irish frog! It was yellow with black spots and Hannah almost stepped on it, but we didn't get a picture because it was too fast. Maybe when Mandy puts photos up she will let me steal some to post on here because she brought her camera. Anyways, it was a really fun hike and we were very VERY fortunate that it didn't rain because it would have felt like bullets on our faces.

Today I'm pretty much just lounging around. It's still raining and it's supposed to do so throughout the weekend. It's okay with me I guess, but I wanted to explore a little and it looks like that won't happen. I'll probably go to the studio tomorrow to get some more work done, maybe stretch another canvas and do a few more self portraits before I start one of the real portraits.