It’s incredibly remote, wild, wet and windy. But I am cosy in my cottage studio with a roaring fire in the stove and mugs of tea constantly on the go.
There are lovely friendly artists staying in the other cottages, so far I’ve made two new friends.
I will post some images of work in progress once I get properly started. Lots of painting ideas and maybe a few poems to write too.
Standing at the open window
Of the train rushing through new terrain
Listening to the rhythmic pounding
Of the wheels on the shiny rails
~
Yes, I will, I do, I can
I see, I make, with love
Yes, I choose, I go, I try
To fly. I make a leap
~
Choosing the forward momentum
Denying the steel bars
In that cold and hungry
Prison cell of fear
~
No, to halting fearful saying
You’ve had your fill. It’s too late
No, to thinking it can’t work out
You’re too old, just be still
~
Even the old goose still makes
The journey South
She doesn’t wait
To grace your Christmas plate
~~~
Surrounded by the lull
Of the lapping amniotic salty sea
~
On a calm day blue green
Serene as a lullaby
~
In a storm she crashes
And collapses the beach defences
~
Triangle mountain transcends
The violent fickle pull of the tide
He manifests new pathways
~
Pierces the clouds of self abnegation
And affirms my right
To the light of creation
~
Home of the sun god Lugh
Sharp granite peak of enlightenment
Pointer to the stars
~~~
I’m booked into the wonderful artist retreat (cottage 5 again woohoo) at CillRialaig in County Kerry for 8th January for two weeks. It will take me two days getting there on public transport, and I need to ship most of my materials in advance. I wish I found the planning stage easier, but once I’m there I’ll be there
Getting there
does the swallow
prepare for
her long flight
the night before
is the bear
aware of tomorrow
as she wakes
my brain leaps
in consternation
with calculations
of timetables
connections
arrivals departures
online booking apps
websites for overnights
advance preparations
ephemera
of getting there
from here
but once there
I’ll be there
with all of me
being simply
human
I can only
hope so
thrum of dishwasher
lunch of leftovers
many too many
biscuits
and cups of tea
but in between
there are lazy hours
and books
expansive inner world
of memories
triggered by the writer’s
stories
perception jumping
from page to herstory
my story. black and white
to colour
this gap in time
a space. between
soft greys and
coming greens
a time to
change. pace
and watch a snail
trail on a square
window pane
a blur of dulled
consciousness
from pain meds
mirroring
condensation
on mid winter
dawn’s triple
glazed thrall
sudden gusts
of black dust
motes of
starlings
or small
songbirds
burst forth
from spidery
sycamore skeletons
waving bony
branch fingers
across the
gentle soft
grey sky
with luminous
liminal spaces
watched from
inside a
hazy cloud
of codeine
and caffeine
by bright globes
of whitest
geraniums
startling
against
these winter
hibernating
greens
This is me at Hambly and Hambly gallery with my painting ‘Fermanagh Days’
This is my submission piece for the John Richardson French Residency Award 2021
The decision of the judges will be announced this evening.
I am so thrilled to be on the shortlist of 40 finalists for the award of a 10 day residency in France in April 2022
I wish all the shortlisted artists the very best of luck 🍀 There are 3 places available, and the winning artists will be hosted by Ciara and Nick Hambly and mentored by the Aosdana artist Eamon Colman
I’ll let you know 🤞🍀
PS. Not me! Congratulations to painters Katarzyna Gajewska and Gary Robinson 🙌
And Musician Clara Marie
Like the kite my sight
Is sharp and on the air
With flair I soar
And shift and twist to show
My colours caught by
The golden glow from far below
And like the otter in cold water
I roll and glide
Down slippery lime green slimy slide
Between two elements
With natural ease
No one else to need to please
And the haunting oyster catcher’s call
That fills the wide blue sky
From wall to wall with tuneless song
Where I belong
Between the sea and pebbled beach and sky
A painted brushstroked flock
Behind, within me, my ear and hand and eye
‘Old stick backs’
Monday morning, nearly Christmas
Sitting reading and drinking a first coffee by the stove
Just retrieved the hyacinths ‘forcing’, from the cupboard, in the yellow bowl
They always hold so much promise
At this, their etiolated stage
Like us, searching for the light
All the blue and yellow
Like a painting, perhaps I haven’t painted yet
💙💛
(Little painting above the door by Heidi Nguyen)
I am quite tempted to leave this year’s tree in its ‘naked’ state, a symbol of Winter’s rest and retreat rather than an allusion to all that glitter and gluttony of our often over-done festival time
But I expect in a few hours I will relent and look for the tangle of wires and bulbs and the dusty box of baubles in the store room
As we wind down to the end of this year I am starting to review my works, and think about shows and placements for next year
These two in the image above were part of a large series of about 20 paintings, still ongoing, called ‘Who’s Watching’
It’s still possible that some of them might end up in Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York, as it was Mark of Mark Borghi Fine Art who encouraged me to make these large paintings, and had originally asked for them for his gallery for March this year, but with the ongoing difficulties with the Covid pandemic, that still hasn’t happened
They might go to Hambly&Hambly for a solo show in 2022, but again, I haven’t got dates for that either.
I have an art residency at CillRialaig in County Kerry starting on 8th January and another residency at Tyrone Guthrie in County Monaghan in June
My gallery, Hambly&Hambly in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, has a fabulous exhibition, HARK!
Celebrating the season with a beautiful selection of new works from me and of course many other brilliant artists from across the island of Ireland and further afield
To celebrate the season and to thank all my great followers, collectors and friends at Hambly&Hambly there is a very special offer available on these new works
The offer is to buy one of these two big pieces shown above (‘Tide’ and ‘Breathe’) at a special reduced seasonal price, and receive TWO of these smaller works below FREE as a gift and a thank you from us to you 🎄
Please contact Ciara Hambly at the gallery on
+44 7808 010327
Or email Ciara@hamblyandhambly.com
Power is out
Cell phone/ mobile will die soon!
So glad we have 3 stoves and plenty of firewood!
No pump though, so it’s only warm next to the fire! We have a solid fuel kitchen stove too, so we can cook on that – and a gas bottle and 2 rings as well. Luckier than most.
Stay safe and warm 🍀❄️
This is a a new (first draft) poem:
‘Perpendicular ‘
For forty years the sea defences have protected
the front. At Borth and Ynyslas.
The old familiar way was shoring up
with strong timber upright breastworks
and jutting joists and great beamed groynes.
Bleached now by summer’s gold.
Old oak silvered and smoothed to salty sinews
Gravel and grit erosion pebble dashing
the frontages. Wrack draped and clasped
in rust. Scarred and scarified
by four decades force. Bearing up
against lifelong accretion. Pileup
of crashing drift and tide.
Perpendicular props. Familial forces
trying vainly to combine their strength
against dying under life’s attack.
Cold stone proposed along this ancient front
now sinking against an unquiet sea.
Forces of opposition with steely knives
and cranes and engineering.
Of a concrete will. Defying the tide like Canute.
Tempting Fate. Or perhaps too late
An un-Christmassy draft poem!
Just thinking about how much overindulgence there is to come in this next month!
This tree is from a few years ago, ours isn’t up yet this year
New poem (draft) November 2021
Chocolates and toffees in bright tubs almost force fed
piled high in the aisles everywhere in the Northern hemisphere
in all of Christendom from October to January. So much gold
foil and bright lights. Too much for me, for my eyes
for my mind for my heart for my soul. For my teeth. For the Earth
a farce of false sweetness. Corruption and greed. How much stuff
do we need. Feed the hungry. Not addiction, excess weight
and Big Business. It keeps me awake at night, gives me heart
burn and palpitations. Nations aren’t ready to lay down their excesses
or redress the imbalances of their fathers and grandfathers. What of the mothers
and children and their children and grandchildren when the lands in the South
that grow sugar cane are desert and dead? When will they get it into their heads
We don’t want all their baubles and promises. Fudged fixes and smoke screens.
Christ would have been happy with dates
It’s so good to see you all again ‼️
What with lockdown and everything I’ve been missing you
Let me know in the comments what you’ve been up to for the last few months
And what are you looking forward to doing as lockdown gradually eases where you are?
Stay safe! 🍀 Looking forward to hearing your news!
Delighted to announce that my work is featured in the new issue of Painterstubes magazine
My painting ‘Peripheries’ is on the front and back covers
http://www.painterstubes.gallery
Here’s the painting hanging in a house in Westport, County Mayo
This installation is for an episode of an interior design show on Irish television. More news soon!
Newly stretched and available through Green Fuse Gallery
Peripheries is a large bold piece, oil on linen, c. 90x250cm
open.substack.com/pub/lizdoyle/p/falcarragh-breakfast
Falcarragh Breakfast
~
Pine whorls, willow scrub
Midline spotted with sharp green grass
Oily puddles in pitted hollows
Of lumpy tarmac
~
Tentatively trotting down hill
Heart responding
Muckish stark against the violet sky
Errigal swathed in wisps
~
Overnight oats and warm green apples
From lichen coated branches
Beyond thick warm glass
Where the crumpled bracken turns
~
Snatched snippets of chat
‘Light’, ‘In the West’
‘Not to be perfect’, ‘Others’
‘Doing it’, ‘Now’
~
Four square cushions piled
On yellow planks. Tilt my hips
Pelvis spreading, reaching
For the granite crust
~
Hand knitted brown tweed
From Ardara
And a candle
For Creeslough
~~~
With loving thoughts for the community in #Creeslough where 10 precious lives were lost in an explosion last week
‘Water to spare’
~~~
A dog’s tail, an empty chair, an empty terracotta pot. Anticipation. Lush. Inside outside interaction. Who waters? Who sits? Who is the sleeping collie waiting for?
~
Yellow wall and red geraniums, green growth of many shades and shapes. Who chose the vibrant warm wall colour? A corner of a cane table with text heavy folded paper. A broadsheet. Who reads?
~
Can we guess the occupants’ race or creed or country? Could it be North America or Europe? It doesn’t seem parched enough for Africa or most of Asia or Australia. Water to spare for pretty household plants, a collie in the house not herding sheep or cattle. Time enough for reading the Times.
~
Just a glance at a small corner of a lucky life lifts and heals my heavy heart.
~~~
This is an ‘ekphrastic’ poem, ie a prose poem written in response to an image
I have been learning about different poetic forms from Alison Smith who runs the free Facebook group ‘Womens School of Metamorphosis, Radical change from inside out’
https://www.facebook.com/groups/wsmradicalchangeinsideout/?ref=share
Foot bruised by an accident of enthusiasm
I can sit on the salvaged Parker Knoll recliner
pondering in splendid regality.
Spider Queen surveying her domain
of seven growing decades
Through wide opened double doors
On the hottest day of herstory
~
Up close (and so personal)
A bee fusses the scented pelargonium
on Dad’s old hand built coffee table
Marquetry stained by decades
of over enthusiastic watering
A fly dies in the cobwebbed corner
~
Foreground of swaying
frothy alchemilla mollis
Mum’s favourite coloniser of stone patios
and steps, perfect foil for sweet
Pastel pink blowsy Summer Wedding
rose blooms, stark against darker shadow
Memories of those North facing gardens
~
Backdrop of top heavy sycamore crowns
Rustling with seed jewels
Harbouring raucous caws of picus picus
Five for silver or six for gold
Most likely seven for those family secrets
Never been told
~
In the midfield young rowans
reach adolescent feathered arms
Up to the light. Early years stunted
by the North wind
Now finding strong footholds
Deep in the Donegal granite.
~~~
Heatwave
~
a Sunday in July, midday in a heatwave
‘caravan beach’ fills with campers and tents
~
sultry as summer in the south of France
Donegal unused to this weather
~
pull down black blinds to the South
open all windows North
~
dogs pant on the slate floor in the hall
fill water bowls almost hourly
~
solar panels reach maximum
fill a bath for watering later
~
so glad of the breeze from the sea
lifting the heavy geranium heads
~
swifts on the red endangered list
guillemots declining steeply
~
neighbour’s wayward cat has returned
the Times warns of two thousand extra deaths
~~~
hair shaggy and long, yellowish grey
mane of wild mare on the moor
~
sun brown spotted hands, neck crepey
tales of giant turtle’s travels
~
paddling feet flattened and broad
limpet lumps clamping the granite in clusters
~
eyes fading sky blue to cloud grey
rowan bark silvered bearing bright berries
~
mind wanders, meanders, drifts dreaming
spider spinning out silky concentric circles
~~~
Those of you who would like to see more of my writing, I have joined Substack:
donegallizdoyle 