Cill Rialaig Artist Residency Week Three

The adventure of being in Ireland continues. I begin to get into a routine of life and then it changes. I had a wonderful visit from my friend Mary Meighan, who leads Celtic journeys in Ireland. We walked up to the ancient monastic site just up the road from Cill Rialaig. After spending some time in the site, Mary offered a Celtic Blessings to us for our work, blessings upon the ancestors of the land that they might guide us and blessings to the people at home who helped us be here. Mary and I also visited other ancient sites that day. Part of the journey was to talk to people about where the sites are. We searched for the holy well of a female saint and asked for help from construction workers, from the women who work in the Cill Rialaig Arts Centre and from a woman in a white hairnet who works at the Skellig Chocolate factory. Everyone is more than eager to help if they can. The woman in the chocolate factory knew of St. Finian's holy well across the road on St. Finian's Bay but not the other well that Mary was searching for. But she phoned her daughter, who did know. Sadly the well isn't accessible any longer. Part of the enjoyment in finding these ancient sites are the people you meet on the way and the stories they know.

My time here is a balance of painting and hiking and seeing the land around this area. I often feel guilty if I'm not painting. Yet it's the hiking, the driving the narrow winding roads, finding the ancient sites and just sitting and looking out over the sea that is deeply feeding my soul.

Rebecca and I did a strenuous hike up to the top of Bolus Head at the very end of the road that passes through Cill Rialaig. The road ends and turns into a grassy, wet path dug deep with sheep hooves. We had to climb a stile to make the final leg of the hike to the top. At the top we were given magnificent breathtaking views out over Finian's Bay and the Skellig Islands to the right and then to Ballinskelligs Bay and out onto the Atlantic beyond. The winds were stronger up here and it was much cooler but the day was as usual very changeable. It was gorgeous and warm at the top but on my way down, just as I neared my cottage, showers came and I was wet by the time I got home.

Today we are in Eyeries, a tiny village on the Beara Penninsula to visit Rebecca's artist friend Sally Bowker who is at the artist residency called Anam Cara. The GPS said our trip would take 2 hours, We finally arrived 5 hours later, tired from trying to stay on the narrow winding roads while craning our necks to see the spectacular views along this section of the Ring of Kerry.

This morning Rebecca and I are off to visit the Irish artist, Charles Tyrrell, whose work I saw last year at the Royal Hibernian Gallery in Dublin. Large abstract minimalist work. He has a studio near the little village of Allihies about 7 miles away. And then we have many stone circles and standing stones to see before we get back to Cill Rialaig. We may spend another night away rather than drive in the dark on the winding cliff roads.

My friend Mary Meighan's mother told her, "When God made Time, He made plenty of it." Mary said that Celts believe in "the fullness of time, not the scarceness of it". I'm heading out today with that attitude.

Liminal Time

The word liminal comes from the Latin, limen meaning threshold. an in-between place, a place of transition, a time of waiting and not knowing. Dawn and dusk are considered liminal places. Crepuscular animals, like foxes and coyotes are most active at this time of day, a time that is considered a magical time in Celtic spirituality and to Indigenous people which is perhaps the origin of their designation as tricksters. As I write this, the northern hemisphere has just passed the vernal equinox, where day and night are of equal length.We are in a liminal space between winter and spring right now, unsure if we will have one more storm or snowfall before spring finally settles in. We're also in a liminal place as we live through this pandemic with the anxiety and discomfort of not knowing. A time of great transition for the entire world, wondering what we've learned from this and what lessons we'll carry forward. Author and Fr...

Lessons that Stone Walls Teach

Dry stone wall in the Burren, Co. Clare, Ireland I've just returned from teaching a Workshop in Wild Places class in the Burren in County Clare, Ireland. Writing this post, I'm reminded of another post I wrote after visiting Inishmaan, the middle of the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland several years ago. Stone walls crisscrossed the island in tight webs like a fisherman's net. I wrote then that the web of stone walls made me think of the idea of putting limitations on our painting as a way of exploring more deeply and how walls give limits against the limitless. You can read that article here. As our group hiked in the Burren with our guide, Marie McGauran we learned that the walls are stronger because of the holes in them. The wind can pass through. The oldest stone walls, estimated to be 3500 years old are at Skara Brae, a Neolithic site in Orkney. Most walls were built in the 18th and 19th century, marking areas of private ownership and resultin...

Am I Too Old to Change? Embracing Life

Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán from Pexels I'm in the process, at last, of working on the book that came to me in a dream seven years ago. It has circled my head all these years, demanding I get at it. It's called: We're Not Done Yet: Coming to Art Later in Life . It has actually hung in the air a couple of feet behind my head, attached by a string like a helium balloon, like a cartoon cloud, waiting for me to get to it. Some of you will know of it because I posted a request on Facebook in 2019 asking for artists who have come to art later in life to reply to me if they'd like to answer a questionnaire. I received 168 responses plus earlier interviews I did before the put out the questionnaire. There was some overlap, and some didn't respond after they'd offered to. All in all, I received 128 responses. By a huge majority it was women who responded to my questionnaire. By the time we get into our 60's we bring a rich life experience to our work: m...

Janice Mason Steeves

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