Dublin and Shanghai!

After the Big Egg Hunt artists event last week, James and I walked up to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin in order to see the Francis Bacon Studio, which had been meticulously catalogued, taken apart in London and recreated in its chaotic entirety in the gallery in Dublin.  It is a fabulous exhibit, with accompanying interactive computer information as well as a room full of Bacon's research material and photos, so one really gets a sense of Bacon's working process.

On the way along the quays, I came across this bus signage which I though was totally surreal.

Last night the group exhibitions "ReMade" and "Gather" opened at the TuShanWan Art Museum in Shanghai. They are part of Irish Wave 4, an annual event of exhibitions from Irish based artists which take place in Beijing and Shanghai.  This is a photo of my work "Pastures Green" taken in the cow shed at Fernhill Gardens, Dublin in 1997.  The two cow curtains visible in the foreground are now being exhibited in Shanghai.

The Big Egg Hunt - Farewell!

This morning I was in Dublin for the Big Egg Hunt artist event and photocall. It was great to see all the eggs gathered in one basket (so to speak).  Impossible though to take a picture to show all 100 in the T-space of the building, plus the side gallery. Here is mine, Wild Roses, in the foreground, Lynda Cookson's Aspirations in the middle ground, and James's Hilbert Curve just beyond (then the others become a colourful blur).

A view of the other row of eggs (the floor plan was like a big T -- two rows going down the stem and then bunches at either side of the entrance.  There was also a gallery with the 30 something eggs which will be auctioned live on Saturday night at the gala event.

And I was giving my egg a big hug goodbye, as today will probably be the last time I see it.  There have been bidders, so it will go to someone at the end of March.

Good Egg Hunting!

Yesterday, despite the freezing climate, we ventured into Dublin to find some of the eggs.  Mine was tucked away inside Dublin Castle grounds, near to the Chester Beatty Library.  There was a tiny bit of damage done to "Wild Roses" -- a bit of blue paint chipped off, probably in the siting move, leaving a tiny circle of white.  Though probably not noticeable to most people, I will touch it up next week when the eggs are all brought together in a space at the IFSC in Dublin.  That will be my final goodbye to this egg.  :)

Painter Felim Egan's egg is so much more beautiful than any photo can show.  He is a well known painter whose work is in the National Gallery, and this simply is one of his paintings wrapped around an egg shape.  It an encaustic painting and deliciously tactile.  This egg was also in Dublin Castle grounds.

I watched some Facebook postings of Lynda Cookson's egg "Aspirations" in progress.  I love the painting!  It was found in Powerscourt Townhouse shopping centre.

Niamh O'Connor's "Laced" was also at Powerscourt Townhouse.

Again, all the photos I had seen of this piece did not do it justice.  There is an amazing amount of detail of pressed lace; again this is an encaustic egg which is absolutely beautiful!

We moved on to Brown Thomas on Grafton St.  This is a shop that has a doorman wearing livery and a top hat...  James Hayes's Hilbert Curve was in among the very expensive shoe department.  A member of staff very kindly offered to take our picture around the egg, and was chuffed that one of our party was the artist (James is my husband).

There was nice lighting on Hilbert Curve, and a very large mirror nearby.

We were surprised that designer Louise Kennedy's "La Duchesse" seemed to be tucked away in a not very interesting spot beside the elevators.

As can be expected from a designer of Kennedy's calibre, La Duchesse is tres elegant, but again, most photos I have seen of it belie what the eye sees in person.

Another well known designer of elegance, John Rocha, created this sparkly egg which we found appropriately in the Tiffany area of Brown Thomas.  Any photos I have seen of this are completely missing its sparkle.

We zoomed around St. Stephen's Green finding the eggs there, and then dived for cover in the warmth of the nearby shopping centre where there were more eggs.  My absolute favourite of all the eggs, seen in photos and live, has got to be Jordi Fornies "Treeborn".  It made my day to be able to see it in person.

Marlay Park

On Sunday we went to Marlay Park after breakfast, to find some of the eggs in The Big Egg Hunt Dublin.  Reportedly there were six there, but we found 7.  This one, Eggscuse the Mess by Frank O'Dea, I particularly like, so had a photo opp!  

It took us ages to find the entrance to the Regency Garden, a walled garden within Marlay Park, where all the eggs were hiding (in plain view -- except the one which is masquerading as a shrubbery).  The entrance was through the coffee shop, where we returned later for twelveses.  The coffee shop patio seems to be the happy home of a peacock and peahen.  Here is the peacock being very impressive indeed!

Performance and Paint

We went to the Mermaid Arts Centre this afternoon to hear Vyvienne Long and The Balanescu Quartet do a rehearsal for their gig Saturday week.  It was fascinating to hear them play, and the banter as they tweaked a few pieces to perfection.  It was supposed to be open to the public for half an hour, but 45 mins went very fast.  What a lovely way to spend lunch!

In the meantime, I am also working on some new paintings for my Moments series and revelling in my recent acquisitions from London -- Liquitex paint bought at Cass Art in Richmond and my new Van Gogh book with lots of colour pix!  I have also been enjoying my various bits of reading, including the manuscript of a novel (unpublished so far) of one of my sisters-in-law.

Painting!

James edited together the film from the plantcam in the studio to create this video of me painting the egg -- 10 days of work tuned down to 2 and a half minutes.  Some feat of magic I'd say!

London - 2

We spent a day in the Science Museum, which is pretty fabulous!  There is a huge hands-on section for kids of all ages.  Here we are learning about infra-red and heat detection.

We also saw a 3D Imax film, Deep Sea, which we thoroughly enjoyed!  Elise was delighted that Captain Jack Sparrow (aka Johnny Depp) was one of the 2 narrators (Kate Winslet being the other).  We also went to the short Apollo Experience in 4D (the chairs moved, we got sprayed by water at splashdown, etc.).  It was a full fun day!  The next day (I think) among other things, we went to the British Museum to meet up with some favourites.  Elise wanted to see the Rosetta Stone again as she didn't remember it from last time and her class had been studying Egypt earlier this year.  We also made special re-visits to the Sutton Hoo artifacts which I love, the Egyptian galleries and the Easter Island giant stone figure.

We got to the Saatchi Gallery on the Wednesday, specifically to see Richard Wilson's installation in the basement.  The room is filled with sump oil except for that small angular walkway.  Unfortunately the walkway is not open to the public, so viewing is from a balcony.  The reflections are pure and the room is so serene.

I also did a Placement© while we were waiting to check in, as we had arrived a bit early to Heathrow.

Bet on this!

I'll do another post on visiting museums & galleries in London later, but in the meantime I thought this was too funny/interesting to resist!  My Mum gets the Racing Post regularly as she bets on horse races, but there are plenty of other things to bet on!

London!

We were in London for Chinese New Year.  We missed the parade (which started at 10 am) as we didn't want to spend the whole day outside in the rain (it was non-stop).  It was very festive and crowded for the events in Trafalgar Square, and Chinatown was absolutely packed.  Lanterns all over the streets of Chinatown, this is the view from our restaurant window.  We were happy to be inside at Hung's, not outside!

While in London I also did a few new Placements.  This is outside Hamley's toy store near Oxford Circus, we spent a few hours inside with my daughter!

This gives some context for the Placement.

New Mortar and Pestle

Wow this is amazing! I have never used a mortar and pestle before, but yesterday I was making a quick salsa to go with our dinner and needed to crush the coriander seeds.  It worked like a charm and that salsa was pretty tasty too! James bought the marble set a few weeks ago but this was the first time for it to be useful.

Books & Back to Work!

I finally finished John Man's historical travelogue, Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection, which was a fascinating book. I was inspired to read it after reading Conn Iggulden's Conqueror Series (Wolf of the Plains, Lords of the Bow, Bones of the Hills, Empire of Silver, and Conqueror) -- historical fiction about Genghis Khan's rise and events down to the rise of Kublai Khan (Genghis' grandson). Some exciting books!  Now, as well as getting back to some other books I was reading (Kurt Vonnegut, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, to name a couple) I have also started Penguin's collection of Van Gogh's letters. I read Dear Theo when I was in art school, but that was a long time ago...

And what is this a picture of? I did some work today as I want to continue with my Moments series. I want to do some medium scale paintings, but don't want them on regular stretched canvas and don't want them on paper. So I have half stretched some canvas on old wood frames, and will just cut them to size when I am finished. Because they are half stretched they should have a bit of bounce while I am painting, and I will just cut them off the frames when finished.

The eggs are gone, so now I have been catching up on other stuff!  I finished reading The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (contemporary and friend of Charles Dickens), a whodunnit that I thoroughly enjoyed.  I have also just finished reading Steal Like an Artist  for the second time in 30 days!  I have been preparing images for the update of the lorjames art website, including the following:

The above is entitled Chicago Thumb Wars from the Moments series of paintings on raw canvas.  I started this body of work last year (for more details go to ART link on right bar).  Below is Auspices -- both of these paintings were inspired by our visit to Chicago in 2010.  I'll be starting back to work on this series next week.

Eggs Cartoned!

Before packing up the eggs today, James took some closeup details of my egg "Wild Roses".  Here are two of them:

James puts the last bit of tape on my egg box.

And I helped wrap his egg too. :)

The eggs are ready to go, and this is me now at the computer doing one of my favourite things -- that is, planning a vacation, hahaha.

Eggs over easy!

Well it wasn't actually easy.  It was a lot of work, but now it is done; it was also lots of fun to do and a great way to start the year off.  Here I am yesterday, almost finished!  I felt like I was painting continents and oceans...

Today James was taking proper shots of us with our finished eggs.  Here's me and mine!

James put images of the four sides altogether.

Eggs-austed!

So I have been very busy since last Tuesday, working on this egg.  A little more detail after blocking.

 With the blue background it is starting to give more of a sense of what it may look like when finished. 

Since I'm up in the attic (my studio garret) my working soundtrack is provided by the dvd player, which means one cd at a time.  I alternate between 2 cds all day long -- PJ Harvey's "Let England Shake" and Tindersticks's "The Something Rain".  They are both fantastic cds, energetic and thoughtful - perfect for painting to.

Eggs-citement!

Yesterday was a very exciting day as the giant eggs arrived...Okay, I will start at the beginning. Last Thursday night James (my husband) saw a facebook posting calling for artists to decorate eggs for The Big Egg Hunt in Dublin in aid of The Jack & Jill Foundation children's charity. We had been talking of getting more involved with things going on and saw this as an opportunity. Enquiries were made on Friday and by the end of the day we knew we were going to get eggs early this week, especially as there was a very short deadline involved (unknown to us, this event was launched in October last!).  So here I am after gessoing my  egg yesterday.

Today of course, I set to as soon as my daughter was off to school.  Here I am blocking in the flowers, leaves and the rosehips of my design (based on Irish wild roses). I always start a painting with a ground of quinacridone violet, and use yellow as a block. I will be very busy until this is finished, so just about everything else is on hold!

Ready, steady, go!

One of my xmas presents to my husband was Austin Kleon's book Steal Like an Artist (link in sidebar), which both of us read very quickly and were inspired by. For the new year I decided I would follow some of his recommendations. I have been making sketchbooks for friends and family for about 20 years, so finally decided to gift myself one I made a few years ago. I always find it daunting to start a new sketchbook, especially one which seems like a precious object, but I will start it this week! I have also started a point-form journal -- it's a French date book which was picked up in the local recycling centre. It has fabulous pictures from around the world and I am actually able to translate the textual blurbs with what French I have.

I am also getting myself more involved in the outside world (I'm a bit of a creative hermit) but more of that next posting!