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

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........

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.....

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

Dawn

awake often

as not

at 4am

no despair

just light

and a chance to

catch it

then sleep

again

and again

river

river of light

trailing a power

torch of blue flame

in our wake

watching waiting

they are waiting, watching

and I am watching, waiting

light as it comes through a window

then there was 

light as it comes through a window

from the eye to the sky

in the deep streets, 

light as it falls, 
from faces to shoes 
from the eye to the sky