Posts on Creativity
"Firstly to cook for the Baba Yaga, (the forest witch) one lays a fire- a woman must be willing to burn hot, burn with passion, burn with words, with ideas, with desire for whatever it is she truly loves. It is actually this passion that causes the cooking, and a woman's original ideas of substance are what is cooked. To cook for the Yaga, one must arrange that one's creative life has a consistent fire under it."
From Women who run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Rural life; it’s not all birds and bunnies
Living as a rural artist is challenging. Out here in County Waterford, we have to make our own fun as they used to say. We make everything up from scratch. Since leaving Framework the organisation I co-founded in 1994, I have had to review living out here in the middle of nowhere. Of course […]
Challenging invisibility by making an exhibition of yourself
It’s all still sinking in. The hard work, the experience of exhibiting, the aftermath. Because I work in an alone space it shocked me on the night of the opening that people would actually arrive. When they came I was somehow still in the middle of the making. I had fallen out of bed […]
Dear Patti Smith
My friends! This is a repost from one year ago. It’s always relevant! I am still a bit overwhelmed from the exhibition and the work coming out of it. Normal service will resume soon! “I’ve done records where it seemed like no one listened to them. You write a poetry book that […]
How an exhibition creates connections
It’s been a while, my friends. To be honest I have been quite overwhelmed by the preparation, building and opening of the exhibition. When people ask me if I’m delighted by how successful it has been? Honest to my dying breath, I have to partially disappoint by whinging about how damn hard it all […]
Sneak peek behind the scenes of my exhibition
To say I’m freaking out would be a slight exaggeration. Let’s just say the reality is sinking in….. Back in the Spring the idea of an exhibition seemed like a good idea at the time. My self and Kate Quinn would work on it together and we thought we could throw the […]
Putting a fire under creativity
“Firstly to cook for the Baba Yaga, (the forest witch) one lays a fire- a woman must be willing to burn hot, burn with passion, burn with words, with ideas, with desire for whatever it is she truly loves. It is actually this passion that causes the cooking, and a woman’s original ideas of […]
Calm water
Evening is drawing in. The water has settled into calm stillness. Tonight the warm hearts of my sisters in wildness stir new possibilities. We are seeking a kind of wild time dreaming. Then one of them reminds me of Dawna Markova’s poem. I go back to her later, dipping in at random. Here she is recovering from her operation […]
Dreamy summer
These dreamy days. The scent of meadowsweet. Foxgloves swaying in the summer breeze. Everything a tangle of lush green. I am following a whim to return to this special space. This small window on the larger world. Peace is always only temporary. But that’s where things are at for now. There are daisies, there are […]
A secret
Today I am letting you into a secret. I want to take a break from the internet. I have no idea how to do it, but it feels like a good idea. I’ve been blogging weekly for 6 years now. It’s a fantastic discipline and has taught me a lot about just getting on and doing […]
