light and shade

alone on the inside

twisted wire and rusty light

my good friend joanna paterson 

loves a nice bit of rural wire

here is my wire offering 

with turquoise and terracotta weeds

to boot

muddy pools and boggy lanes

the same muddy pools and boggy lanes

but in black and white

rougher around the edges

a romantic eye view

through grey tinted spectacles

rules of photography

look ahead

look up

look down

look behind you

the zone

 knowing the zone and

because nothing breaches the roar of sea shushing

I saluted a fellow traveller

but he never turned his head

Micky Mac's Room

red

there's a lot of red in London

look down and then look up

look down 

and then look up

one golden leaf

in a beautiful garden 

filled with colour and light

there is a dark spot in the water

 beneath the surface

waking now on a wet morning

my half shut eye craving light

I stand at the edge of that pool and 

sink into the mystery of its one golden leaf

she's a mystic queen without a throne

as she floats past me

 she's a mystic queen 

without a crown

the meeting on the turret stairs

The meeting on the turret stairs by Frederic William Burton from Corofin, County Clare, is officially Ireland's favourite painting. This wrought iron staircase in Trinity Library reminded me of my earliest encounters with it......... 

Occasionally on a fine Sunday our Dad would announce that we were going to the National Gallery in Dublin. We could just about walk from our house (a ruse to tire us out) and once we got there we ran through the vaulted rooms only standing still at our favourites; the marriage of Strongbow and Aoife, the lightning strike through the mountain valley, the girl with the parasol, the school teacher with the big nose and his two scruffy pupils, and above all this romantic watercolour only shown on particular winter days when the light was not too intense. 

To this day any spiral stairs, any dark twist in the path, any encounter with a Knight will have the same effect........

in the moment

I was tracking a boy from the window. It was drizzling rain but he still took the cliff path. 

Before I had finished moaning in my head about the greyness of the day I saw the small face of his dog in the grass. 

The happiest smiling dog who was in the moment, in the pleasure of that day, more than any of us.

the paragon cafe in katoomba

 in katoomba

or "shining falling water"

the paragon cafe

of 1909

so very old here

in the new world

of australia

lady!

lady!

you have made

a perfect

head shaped you 

for my picture.

not in a cafe in paris

nor a burlesque bar in berlin,

in a field in faithlegg

bathed in blush.

starving the bad wolf to feed the soul

is there a goal here? well maybe one.....

no plan, no name, no readers
this shadow at the door.

a bad wolf who comes up with a lot of reasons for me to stay hidden and quiet....

remembering the best way to outwit the bad wolf
 by always slithering sideways
rewarding the soul with open space and the giddy expectation of
NO RULES.

a sketch book, a blank page.
a portal to explore and experiment, a jotter full of notes to self,
sketches, outlines. 

no commenting required, keeping counsel.......
just putting stuff out there and letting it hang in the wind.

why? because creativity needs to blossom and as yet, too tender to plant out,
a little more hot housing is in order.
 this shield of glass is keeping the wind from getting in at the sides,
it's thin and transparent but it's solid.

if you just found your way here, please feel welcome.
maybe you are on a similar jaunt?
maybe our paths will cross over time?
maybe you have something to teach me?
meanwhile I am trusting this and yielding to impulse.....

the boy

london june 2013

a soft day

a soft day

with a dark sky

and a field of grain

the director

in his head

settings and pixels

in his hands
the framing of silence

in his heart

a constellation

in this moment
sparks fly

with thanks to Evin O'Neill writer/director and the crew of A Dry Christmas

immaculate

bring her only 

immaculate vanilla flowers

she will contain them

walk around the room

and absorb their white scent 

into her pure heart

one small splash

it was dark in the

grim streets of berlin 

and warmth beckoned

us in

each table scrubbed 

cleared and set

with sugar a candle stick

an orange daisy

the lit flame still,

out of the wind

and the promise of one small splash

of summer