Salty Mornings...

By winter there were water marks on the walls and blue light filtering through every room, and each wavering breath she took was as salty as tears...

Christmas was wonderful and quiet, family and friends, fairy lights, old movies, champagne and coffee, and today I had a day of frosty beaches and steaming tea, low golden sunlight and salty crisp air, a perfect winter day... and so I am content.

Today I have sand on my feet and salt in the curls of my hair, the sky is a scattering of stars, I still have ink on my fingers and poets in my car and I that feeling of freedom only wide horizons and maps can bring... Today I love scarfs and picnics, I love frost underfoot and golden light, I love keys and as always I hate selfishness. Today the woman I want to be can see the beach from her bedroom window and the waves lull her to sleep each night...

Beauty and Truth...

We talked between the Rooms

Until the Moss had reached our lips

And covered up our names

-Emily Dickinson

I have a lot of work to do; everything needs pinned down, gathered together between pages and boxes. My head is still full of Fairy Tales and coffee, and my days not quiet back on track.

Christmas, for me, starts tonight; a weekend of lace and ribbons, decorations and pine needles, stars and paper, i love it so...

And then I'll keep working; moss on mirrors, buried lace, pearls on trees and bones, green waistcoats for Irish princes and books upon books... why am i doing three projects?!

Today my fingers are blue ink and there isn't a star in the sky. Today I love white lace and long colourful silky ribbons, I love apple and blue cheese for lunch with smokey coffee and songs that haunt me... Today I love long scarfs, peat fires and the smell of books and the woman I want to be understands herself and that thing called fate. She slips on grace as other women slip on their shoes and she is a flurry of chiffon, tea and presents...

Wintering...

All through that winter the house smelt of apples and ice. And in the Spring when the frost thawed, he was gone. His boots filled with salt water and no blossoms on the trees...

oooh I missed daylight... cold and golden daylight. Blue fingers and toes, the crunch-click of frost and film. I missed my camera too. The dissertation is over and although I have my narratives and Fairy Tale to get ready I feel free.

The family have been donating old film cameras to me, it turns out we have quite a few photographers amoung us and so I'm gathering up quite a lovely stash...

Today I love pearls, soft jumpers and frost on the glass. I love the beach on cold days, low sunlight on white sheets and a sky scattered with milky stars. I love fresh white notebooks with sharp pencils and as always I hate half truths. Today the woman I want to be keeps film in her back pocket and poetry in her bag, she knows her limitations and keeps her friends close. She sleeps soundly and her life is daylight, she eats jam from the jars and smells like vanilla...

Twice Upon a Time...

The stars fell down; like broken glass, like a sprinkling of salt and ash; hope smashed on a cold floor...

The days all bleed into each other; the soil frozen now, brittle, dead.

The brambles come, fruitless, they wrap around the house. Cold house. Fairy Tale house.

And she has forgotten to leave crumbs on the path...

I've no idea where these narratives are coming from, or what to do with them... I'm still trying to slay that dragon; my head is still buzzing with the old tales and my days are still Topsy-turvy. I eat bread and jam with tea in the depths of the night, and lunch after dark. Winter is truly here, everything has a sugar coated frosting; candy canes and silver lanes aglow...

I just want this writing over and done with, I've left it far too long. I want to get on with my practical work; chairs woven with words and red satin, waistcoats for princes, light and seeds, moss and lace, apples and pearls, books of images and narratives, so much to do and I want to get lost in it...

Today I love my red silk shoes, so high I think I could reach the sky, I love jazz and fairy tales and raspberry jam on hot toast, with steaming tea at 4am. I love words, hundreds of them on white, and the English language; strange and beautiful thing that it is. I love long conversations and I loathe betrayal. Today the woman I want to be knows the poets off by heart, she trusts the ones that love her, and will not allow herself to be cadged. She is a wild thing and the only mean reds she feels are ribbons; long and silky...

Once upon a Time...

She knows the way, she's traced it a thousand times; second star to the right and straight on 'till morning... red velvet on white crumpled sheets, the stars on fire, and him; red satin scars, a mouthful of pennies and dark velvet earth...

I've been working a lot on my dissertation, and so my head is whirling with Fairy Tales; the old tales and their art objects, politics and princesses wielding axes... My nights are spent surrounded by words, writing-writing, the deadline is too close, like a vile Fairy Tale dragon I let slumber too long, but I'll kill it soon, give me two days and I'll cut myself free...

Today my fingers feel like ice and ink, and my hair has started to trip down my back, my days have become nights and I sleep at noon. Today I love lyrics that read like poetry, and dresses that flutter, I love the red feel of the old tales; all that decadent dark. I love coffee with chocolate cake and rosy apples and as always I lothe falsity. Today the woman I want to be wears peacock feathers in her hair, she dances until she can no longer stand, she laughs as if she wont fall apart and is friends with all the stars in the sky...

Stone and Lace...

"And have you any dreams you'd like to sell;
Dreams of your loneliness, like a heartbeat drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had,
And what you lost..."
-Dreams, Fleetwood Mac.

I haven't posted in a long time, I've been thinking a lot about my work recently; how it exists. I've been trying to move the narratives into tangible objects, attempting to make the ethereal visible...

I have discovered that this is more difficult to do in the imposed white spaces of the university studios, in the heart of the city in the old co-op with its deco staircases, warehouse sized spaces and antique, all but destroyed, ballroom. The old has been stripped from these places, the quiet ripped out or painted over, the old building faces one of glass and steel. The road becomes motorway right outside our door. Nothing is still.

I want to create some sense of quiet, like a pause in time. A stillness that only exists when time becomes slow and even light seems to hang in the air...

My work exists in the quiet places of this world, and bringing that into the studio and consequently gallery is going to be my main challenge...

Heathcliff...

"I am Heathcliff! He's always, always on my mind..."

-Emily Bronte "Wuthering Heights."

A copy of Wuthering Heights, weathered in the garden for a year and a half. I'm so happy I left this out all that time ago, it now fits seamlessly in to my "Oracle" project. As it dries it starts to look more like a book again, the pages curl up, the print becomes visible and the soil crumbles away. I'm not sure what to do with it now, perhaps theres a place for it in the museum piece.

I love Wuthering Heights, although I haven't read it in years, but that type of love, that narrative isn't what I want to do with this project. They say you have to be young to fall in love with Wuthering Heights, to want that kind of destructive relationship. I think I'm well past that, give me a Darcy rather than a Heathcliff any day...

Today I love tea and breakfast for lunch, my long lost claddagh ring and long lost friends. I love Autumn and filtered golden light and as always I hate regrets. The woman I want to be has long dark hair, she smells like oranges and dark chocolate and that hurt in her soul doesn't keep her up all night. Give me time...

Faded

Slowly, very slowly that light made its way through the rooms until all that once meant something started to fade away...

Lilydale, scanned photo treated with sandpaper. Something ghostly, something fragile? A faded memory or lost family story. I'd like to explore this further, I like the effect but as with the rest it needs more development.

Today winter has gone again, and Autumn has returned, I've had a lovely long golden morning, full of peat smoke, crisp leaves, books and coffee, light grey rain and knitted scarfs. ooooh Halloween!!!

And there she stood, by the mosses, her hair turning green in that deep summer rain...

This is the moss locket and narrative from earlier in the term, I wanted some sense of decay or neglect to it. An abandoned or lost object, or something beautiful with a secret. That secret hidden a year too long...

It needs more development, I've planted moss in one of my fragile white tea cups, the green just creeping onto the saucer, that change in the leaves perhaps? Delicate tea spoons tied with white lace, some feeling of normal among the strange.

I've also left one of those tea cups outside, we'll see what the winter does to it, a change, destruction, decay beyond my control...


This is another experimental set up, the same narrative as above, on the plinth and moss planted in the glass urn. Again it needs development but I want to move on from just images, I need something more tactile... To create an interplay between the image, text and object.

I wish I had buried something in the soil, so it was just visible against the glass, the locket or a piece of bone perhaps. I'll create that "bone jar" within the next few days, perhaps in something more domestic, a jam jar maybe.

I want to create something beautiful but a little unsettling with this narrative. It is turning more than a little dark, but at the moment I'm ok with that.

I'd like to experiment with one of the glass cases we have in college, create a museum set up with this work, I'll just see where it takes me...

Snow White

"snow! Wonderful Snow! Don't you wish you could roll about in it like dogs?!" -Jo March, Little Women.

Its snowing! Yesterday morning I woke up and my world was painted white. Its surreal it melts to reveal orange and gold autumn leaves. I've always loved snow, its like a pause, like catching your breath or a blank page in a new notebook, and then its gone... close your eyes, breath deep and life moves on.

This is part of an inspiration line for the Twelve Wild Geese project, Aran knits and woven bog cotton. In college I am currently printing the Fairy Tale, My fairy Tale, onto the wall, letter by letter, with tiny stamps and ink. Its taking a long time but I love it, I'm surrounded by words and ink, getting lost...

Today I love toast and jam, knitted jumpers and Autumn snow. Today the woman I am has ink on her fingers, stars by her veins and frost in her hair. Her house smells like ice and peat smoke and it feels strangely like home.

Lace and Light

Fragile days,
Light on the sills like torn lace,
Pale bone china, wearing thin,
And time flitting through the windows,
Dark green and deep...

I really do love how the Polaroid ages each image, and softens the world into a vague beauty.

I'm working on The Oracle narrative, I feel as if it has become stagnant, I don't know where I'm taking it... I have ideas I want to work with, tangible objects, but as for the narrative, it hasn't moved on...

Apples and Polaroids...

Ohhhhhh, I LOVE my Polaroid camera! I've been playing around with it for a while, and I adore it. I love how it sees light, golden and dreamy...

I bought an old sx-70 from eBay at the end of the summer, and filters from save Polaroid so i can use 600 film. And so I'm very conscious of using the film, it almost feels precious; stored in my fridge, between the coffee and jams, and developed under my jumpers next to my skin. I love the involvement with it, not the detachment there seems with digital...

Autumn is here, today crisp and golden, I've been filling my days with stacks of books, apples and coffee.

Grey Lady

And so she waited, taking her tea each morning and looking for a change in the leaves, but it had been there all along something dark green and deep...

Today I feel grey, despite the sunshine I find myself tried, all I've wanted to do is curl up... need to snap out of it.

I've been thinking alot about my narratives and collage yet producing nothing tangible. I need to just start exploring and get something done.

One thing i did do this week was fill my locket with moss, for a wall piece experiment. (Photos to follow soon) I'd like to work more with mosses, perhaps grow them in big glass jars or urns, something beautiful but with a sense of neglect or decay about it...

The title comes from an Iron&Wine song, Grey Stables, which I've been playing alot;

"my lady, like a teacup on the counter

frail, pleasing everyone"

Salt and early Autumn Light...

Every evening, as the waves lapped in, stray apples would wash up on the beach and the horizon would tilt a little more off balance...

Its been over a month since my last post, I'm back to college and I've had a few family hiccups but my world is settled now and autumn has truly set in, long golden sunsets, turning leaves, crisp air and so I feel much more content.

I spent last weekend in Donegal, my favourite place in the world, salty air and golden light... I loved taking these beach images (more on flickr) it was a little tricky but I'm happy with this now.
I'm developing my narratives for college, and I'm very excited about how each could become a final body of work. I'm not settling yet though I want to explore as much as I can, I feel some of my images will be fixed points in the narratives but I need to create something tangible, something I can hold. I'm thinking of a book, although that would create a fixed order to the narratives...

I had a wonderful experience last weekend, I put my images and narratives on the coffee table in Donegal and my friends moved them around into the order they felt right with, I'd like the narratives to be that fluid, to act as mnemonics and become personal narratives to the viewer. I'm not sure if this will be possible for me...


I've been watching the apples change, and much prefer this image to the earlier greener one. I love the colours of autumn but my narratives have been so summer based I'm worried about how to take them through into autumn and winter, but I'll let it go, just keep taking photos and see where the narrative takes me.

Before the apple tree goes over I'd love to install hundreds of pearls strung through the branches, purely for the aesthetic, typical me, but you never know what that will lead to...

I'd really love to know how these images work for others, I know the narrative and it makes sense to me, obviously, but I find it difficult to take a step back and detach myself from it to view it as the audience would...

Something else I've been thinking of is selling prints of my images, my aunt has framed and hung two of my images from the Vie en Rose narrative, it was strange to see my work on someones wall, but it got me to thinking if my images would sell, I'm not sure... So any feedback about either point would be more than welcome...

I hope to be posting more regularly now, I have so many ideas for this project and I'm lucky to be in a course where I can indulge them.

Today I love golden light, sand in my shoes and salty air. I love my Lizzie Bennet coat and apples in my pockets, and as always I loathe lies. Today the woman I was, drank frothy strong coffee in the morning light and ate a pear walking down the street, she accepted a compliment and watched movies spoken in a foreign tongue...

"Where to begin?- that was the question at what point to make the first mark? One line placed on the canvas committed her to innumerable risks, to frequent and irrevocable decisions." -Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse.

Blues, pearls, waves, salt and the sea... Where to begin indeed, this is how I work, on lines where I can see it all until I'm confident enough to stick it down, to commit to it...

Today I love blueberries and my sea green jumper, I love my grandmothers cameo ring and the blue of the sky. Today I love my polaroid film in anticipation of the camera I finally bought and as always, I can't stand fairweather friends. Today the woman I want to be sleeps soundly and dreams only of the present. She reads whole books in one sitting and the newspaper with her morning coffee...

That Sinking Feeling...

That Autumn the trees were laden with fruit, each one bitter and hollow, the cakes made from them needed ladles of sugar, and still they caused dreams so deep and murky that even the bravest feared drowning...

Autumn is coming quickly, washing in, in torrents, today smelt of rain and earth. That rich, brown scent of Autumn. The light is golden, underneath the storm clouds...
I'm not sure I like this narrative, I'm getting nothing done, every time I turn around another day has come and gone... My notebooks are instead filling with lists, lists of what I love, what I don't and who i want to be...

I love the smell of rain, and the sound of pearls. I love jumpers over dresses and bare feet. I love compasses and loathe clocks.
The woman I want to be speaks fluent french, plays piano and leaves apple cake to cool on her windowsills. The woman I want to be trusts herself and owns red silk shoes, she eats pears walking down the street, she accepts a compliment about her looks and her secrets are only recipes...

Theres a storm brewing...

all through that summer it rained, deep green, salty rain which fell in sheets so suddenly and so heavy the world became blurred... and so the lost settled in, roosting in the blue china and between the sheets...

It has been raining for so long now, deep grey days, thunder rolling in, I love this weather, its great for a cup of tea and a book, not so good for light, or long walks or pretty skirts... its writing weather, I'm trying to progress my narratives, unsuccessfully, I may just leave it for now and work on my dissertation, I need to get it out of the way...

Narratives and Fairy Tales in the Visual Arts, eugh so much work to do!

She could call up a storm with a single thread of her raven hair...

Love notes...

He left notes for her in the oddest of places...

I have been reminded recently to be thankful for the little things; thankful for good health, a house full of laughter, good friends and good food. Talks that go on all night, the sound of rain on the roof, pear tart and a creamy cup of coffee...

The woman I want to be laughs more, takes everything in her stride, doesn't get stressed, the rain doesn't deter her, she gets up early and cares nothing about what everyone else thinks... maybe someday.

I hope to turn this image into a card, or possibly a postcard... we'll see...

Polaroid, Polaroid, Polaroid...

Oh I want a Polaroid camera... I love that they are instant, a moment perfectly captured and printed, not stored away in a cold machine, I love that they are tangible, a moment, an image to be held, I love how they see light, their eye finding the vague beauty in life, not the nitty-gritty everything of digital, I love the aged tone of them, I love the tradition of writing on them, dates, notes, narratives... really I think I'm just in love with the whole idea of them.

There are some wonderful Polaroid blogs out there, I adore nectar and light, a beautiful name, wonderful images and a great outlook on life, photography and food...

This image is from polyvore, if anyone knows its origins let me know.

This is an sx-70 the one I'm after, this image from "Polaroid of the day", its a beautiful camera, folds down and tucks away. I've been shopping around, on ebay mainly, fingers crossed I'll pick one up soon.

It would be a perfect media for me to explore with my narratives, I'm getting quite excited about all I plan to explore and experiment with this year, I actually cant wait to get back to uni, if I just had my essay over and done with...

Blossom...

He bought her a house in the woods and tea with flowers in the morning when she woke...
Apple cake and sunlight on the windowsills
Fresh sheets on the line
Laughter in every room...

Salty superstitions... a story of apple blossom, love, lost souls, storms, superstition, the sea, pearls, pebbles, white slips and blue jeans... I'm working on it...

Plant apple trees for a happy marriage, add the blossom to bridal boquets.- Old superstitions.

In Irish mythology there is an island across the sea, the isle of promise, an isle of medows and orchards where golden apples grow. The island belongs to the god of the sea, and few ever return...

Milk and Honey...

Drink tea before bed with milk and honey, tell the bees, breathe in the late summer light and rest safe from time a few minutes longer...



I was hoping by this point in the summer I would be photographing lots of images with that beautiful honeyed light, the late summer brings, but it has been stormy for weeks, raining for what feels like months and always grey. Night seems to fall quickly without those long sunsets I had hoped for, hours of gold and rose light, as thick as syrup...

The leaves have started to turn, and the garden seems stunned by so much rain, I have barely seen any bees. As much as I love autumn, I had hoped to capture the summer dying summer, but it seems to have died suddenly in the night...

I'll have to re-think or make do, try to allow this story to progress as organically as the sea story...




Store wishes and truths in jars, between the jams and the tea, for those worst of days...

As I have already said this is a story of lace, loss and love. I want to have something frail and delicate about it. Something not quite tangible.

I collected two huge jars of dandelion seeds back at the start of the summer, I love how light they are, like lace...

The French use dandelion flowers much the same way we use buttercups, holding them to your chin and judging your future by the glow. The Americans use the seed heads to wish, the English as clocks, the number of puffs of breaths it takes to clear the seeds being the time, and here there is a tradition of asking a question and 3 or less puffs means yes, more means no.

More Polyvore...

Walk me home, barefoot along the shore, and I'll read your future from the footprints in the sand and the salt in your hair...
Polyvore is really helpful to me, to expand my narratives and as a source of inspiration. :)
If you aren't already on it I suggest you sign up, its addictive...

Polyvore...

Bring me the ocean in a tea cup...
My new favourite toy... I've always done my ideas books and sketchbooks with collage, writing and my images so polyvore is pretty perfect for me :)

Salty superstition...

Slip a pearl into his pocket, draw a swallow on his foot, hide his boots, fill his bath water with salt, add black pepper to his food, grind peony root and add it to the wash, wrap strands of his hair around oak branches, buy him shirts of sky blue... it won't matter; if she wants him there's no stopping her, you can't argue with the sea...

I'm working on two narratives for my final year and one sculpture project, this may change as I continue, but just now it's the "haunted" story and the bog cotton, along with this narrative, a story of pearls, superstition and the sea. It started to come through as I worked on last years Rose narrative, I would sit down to write for the rose photographs and would find myself writing a different story... or I would just decide to photograph the pearls instead, I would see the image in my mind and need to create it...

I'm not as sure of this one as I am of haunted but it will be interesting to see how it progresses, I feel it must be in my head and is a story that needs told, so I hope to allow it to develop organically and see what it is... is that strange? :)

As the storms rolled in that spring the apple blossomed early, its fresh scent rose in waves drawing schools of rosy salmon into the shallows, and when they were cut open their bellies were full of bones and buckles, pearls and rings, and lost souls that settled right on the sea green slabs of the harbour. They clung to the salt and seaweed on the men’s boots and travelled home with them, settling in on the garden paths and in the branches of those apple trees...

I wrote the above narrative a long time ago, it was just waiting in one of my many notebooks, and so when I photographed the pearls it just seemed perfect. What is interesting me with this one is the mnemonics, I seem to be unconsciously triggering myself to progress the narrative..

I grew up having holidays on a Donegal island, and an island on Strangford Lough, my parents spent years at sea before I was born, making it around the world twice on various ships, and family mythology tells that an ancestor was washed up in cork from a foreign land (we guess Spain). My friends are surfers and sailors and so given all that I suppose the salt water is in my blood... there's that mythology again ;)

That May the air turned hazy, and as the boats set out the forget-me-not wove itself through the grass, little pieces of sky fallen to earth, a sure sign of a love to be lost...

Bones...

frail petticoats in white
a truth hidden a year too long
those sheets turning grey in the deep summer rain
and time slowing to stop by the mosses and the hawthorn in bloom.


Hawthorn in the house, brings in death.- Old Irish superstition.
Chemically the hawthorn flower is said to have the same scent as a decaying body, and so this more than likely gave rise to this belief. However in parts of England hawthorne is said to bring fertility and will protect a child if placed in its crib, I find this disturbing...
The hawthorn has long since gone over here, I got a few photos before it did, however not enough of them, the same with the queen-annes-lace, from tuesdays' post, I'll just have to make do.

Inspiration...

I found this beautiful image on polyvore, I'm obsessed with foxgloves and the uses of herbs and flowers, just now.

I've been spending a lot of late nights, drinking lots of tea, writing and learning the oddest of things...

I think its important to keep reading and learning, we can never know enough, as an artist knowledge and the odd pieces of information, not just the obvious, can become a whole body of work...

Books inspire me more than visuals, as odd as that may be, poetry too, Sara Teasdale and E.E Cummings are favourites right now.

I'm very excited about getting back to college now, I have so many ideas...

Below is an image by photographer Sara Morris, I love her work it has that sense of the magic in the everyday that I am trying to capture in my own images.

Haunted...

All through the summer it tapped at the windows and doors, and very slowly, so no one noticed, it laced its way around the house turning everything to milky grey. Soon all the days looked the same and when she discovered the clocks had stopped, time had grown so brittle nothing could be done...

The story I'm working on at the moment is one of loss, lace and love.

I want to look at the nature of fortune telling, and old superstitions, weaving a ghost story in fragments, like torn lace...

Past Work; (Second Year)

Two years ago my grandmother died, before she did she planted a garden full of roses, (32 where one would have done the job, given time) this is that story, Photography and Narrative, a story of loss, dealing with the mythology of memory, which I hope many can relate to... It also had something of a fairy tale about it, Sleeping Beauty, and so the spools...Below are a few of my images and narratives from that story;

They say the human soul weighs a mere 21g. The weight of a life boiled down to something you could hold in the palm of your hand. Something you could measure out or put away in storage jars, in the back of your cupboard between the flour and the cake tins...

That was the year she planted the roses. At least three per meter. Each one so vigorous it could have taken over the cottage wall all by itself. She planted thirty. So closely packed she could have climbed to the sky. Or perhaps she thought they would wrap around the house, that they would close off the windows and doors, choke out the sunlight like a weed and time would last a little longer.

Spring washed into summer with torrents of deep-green rain. It beat on the windows and doors and bounced off the paths like broken glass. The house was mostly empty and so the vines were free to creep along the fence, over the walls and into the very bones of the building and there they waited…

The swallows came late that summer. They circled for weeks before settling in; they were nervous and fidgety, abaonding their first nest. That should have been a sign. Count the swallows flight, stitch blue thread into your hem and stay close to home...

For weeks the light in the house was golden; a heavy, dark gold and the smell of those roses got everywhere, as if they were in the very walls and under her skin. No amount of lavender and sea salt could shake it just as no amount of drizzle cake could pacify the bees in the garden. All through the following winter the honey for miles would taste of roses and years later women would swear that a honeyed rose would cause dreams of love...

Hello

I'm an art student, embarking on my final year, I'm a photographer, storyteller and weaver, but thats just this week... :)

I love light, and beautiful things, and that sound my camera makes when I take a photo amoung other things.

There are so many stories to be told, and my mind is full of them, here I hope to share them and grow my work, any feedback is more than welcome.

Siobhan.