Endings and beginnings. As I pack up, I also wrap up in my mind what I take away from this place. One of the biggest lessons I've learned is about the gift of letting the day unfold as it will,. My friend Rebecca Crowell wrote a wonderful post about learning to follow her intuition. Of course this is always the case in painting abstraction where you have to trust that what you do will eventually resolve itself into a painting. But this journey to Cill Rialaig has helped with that lesson. In some cases, I've been forced to stay in the moment as in driving a car with a stick shift on the wrong side of the road on steep single-track roads with no guard rails, around corners where you can't see what's coming. I am totally in the moment then! It's been important to give in to the beauty of the day and to the rhythm of life here. Some days have been grey, overcast and windy where the studio skylight is pelted with rain and sm...