Maireadholohan's Blog

Demo done on Monday  in Borris….Textures and stuff….

Some work done by the Active Retirement in Borris….

		Borris Acrylics VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Some felting and sewing  of painted synthetic felt in Ferrybank….

		Tuesday group Felting and sewing VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Here is a tutorial of sorts on how to paint a horses head from a photograph

		Horses head step by step..watercolour VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Both Ferrybank groups are up and running and I am starting to get quite exited about the eventual outcomes. We will possibly be exhibiting in Christchurch Cathedral in the heart of Waterford in December, the venue that we are using for inspiration! The venue of Aoife and Strongbows wedding. This group is like a meeting of the UN we have so many nationalities, it is fantastic and this exhibition will present collaborative work on the theme of Christchurch Cathedral. As far as possible the people in the workshops are designing the finished pieces from start to finish, with as little direction from me as I can get away with.

		Ferrybank week three VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The idea is that the participants have total ownership of the work. They are not just doing what I want them to do as in many of these Community Arts Projects. Obviously as the group did not form themselves some ground lines had to be drawn before we began. I choose the venue for research and we are limited to the media that we have access to, but after that the only real direction they are given is inspirational and practical. These are the kind of discussions we have, and discussion is an essential element of Community Education. Questions such as ‘does it have to of use?’. What is art? Where will it be seen? Will it fit? Does everyone feel listened to in the planning and preparation?

Any way time will tell and materials have to gathered and tests done. Some of the group are new and also have to do some skill learning, they will be busy!

Borris Active retirement are doing six weeks of acrylic painting. Week one we did glazes

Week two working with a palette knife

Simple exercises to give ideas!

I started back with Borris Active Retirement this week for six weeks. We will do a combination of skills based and free for all workshops. I will give  a demo and the group will try it and then they can do whatever they wish. This week we looked at simple glazing using water. Next week we will look at the use of a palette knife to paint with.

		Introduction to Glazing with Acrylic VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This was an exercise using acrylics transparently to allow the under- painting to show through. This technique has many uses.

The Ferrybank groups are coming together nicely, tuesday is for Fetac and Wednsday is for Community Art Project

		some Of Eniko’s work and our newest participants learning felting!! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

		Work from last term by the tuesday group. Some stunning lampshades using the Batiks! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Some examples of the introduction to painting and embossing on fabric….Lovely and inspired work again!!!

If you are on Facebook you are probably aware that I have been awarded first class honours in my MA in Education. Apparently I may start to use all my letters….now here is a silly question, ‘how do I fit them all after my name?

Mairead Holohan, Diploma Visual Communication ANCD; H. Dip Community Arts and Education (Honours); MA Education ( First Class Honours)…….takes up a lot of space, doesn’t it?

I left college the first time not feeling very good about myself, my results or my abilities. This coloured my thinking about myself for a very long time. That period of time is another story altogether. Then In 2006 I went back to college to do an HDip in Community Arts and education mainly to work out what it was that I did, how I did it and to improve it, I was terrified and did way better than my first time.

As an adult I felt that I was in charge of my learning and a lot of what I learnt was about adults and how and why they learn. I agreed with most of it, e.g. self directed, making our own meaning and all that. I told myself that I knew what I had learnt and that the marks did not matter, however when I got my marks I was happy enough but there was a niggling feeling of ‘could I have done better?’. This taught me that we all like our efforts to be acknowledged and recognised at some level.

What dawned on me was that apart from being the oldest there I had not understood the game. One particular girl who already had an MA and missed many of the tutorials got a distinction, I wondered how that was. I do not claim to be the quickest thinker sometimes, so I pondered it and the conclusion I came to was apart from her obvious intelligence and ideas, she had an approach that enabled her to work out what was wanted. It was not that she went that extra mile, she obviously gave them what was required to tick their boxes.

When I decided to do this MA In Education in WIT last year I thought perhaps a plan of some sort was in order, a very fluid, vague plan, as I will always be me! The plan was simple; do the work in time, review it again and again; really look at the brief and mirror it in the assignments; be open to ideas and ask for help; don’t talk too much…..this will never happen!

That is my big story today.

My workshops started back this week and I will post the work done this week later on today.

The pictures with fire were taken from the path up to the studio. The others next day from the Rock road, behind our neighbours..they were really lucky!

Each year at this time we have  new students and I try to make things interesting and organised….as organised as I can be. It is a time for getting to know each other, a time for catching up and refreshing our ideas as to what we hope to achieve. The workshops in Ferrybank started this week and we hope to have work ready for and Exhibition by the end of November or perhaps for Xmas? The other group will be preparing for their level 3 Fetac as an intro to the system…their work is really cool anyway, so no problems there.

I should get my final results for my MA Education next week, I am trying to stay positive as I have not heard a word since I submitted my Dissertation/Educational Product…here’s hoping no news is good news!

I am actually this minute taking a break from cleaning up and clearing out my studio as I need to be able to use it again for myself as well as run some workshops to make a living and also it had become soooo untidy, even Bacon would be shocked!

		Studio Cleanup VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This is after 4 hours of sorting and moving tables…..nowhere near finished…actually enjoying it though. Finding things like the photo at the top of the page from the hill fire about 6 years ago. We woke in the middle of the night to the sound of engines….turned out to be fire engines, the hill behind us was ablaze!

When in the UK I went to a life drawing class, courtesy of my sister in Law the lovely Linee Hill, Ceramic artist and other. It was in the beautiful town of Stroud.

http://www.stroudlifedrawing.com/september.html 

So as I did so badly I am considering running a similar set up, self directed in my studio for artists. Watch this space! 

Very rusty Conte on black

		Autumn VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

You know it is autumn when the spiders webs are like glittering lace collars abandoned on gates and the hedgerows are wrapped in them. The blackberries are on the wane, the apples are weighing down the boughs and the elderberries would need to hurry up. There is a certain comfort to all of this, paving the way for cosy nights by the fire, chilly mornings, hopefully not too much rain.

		Natures fashion VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The swallows are still flitting about, they do not seem in any hurry to leave, is this a good sign?

It is a sad time for us and many others, the cycle of life, has never been more evident and a timely reminder of the brevity of our time on earth.

It makes me try to enjoy the now, live in the moment as Eshart Tole would tell us. Here is a question. They tell us to live in the moment, the past is behind us and the future is never but it seems to me that a lot of what we as humans do is to reflect and learn from the past, how can we do this if we are totally in the moment? How do you live in the now, as well as reflecting on your experiences in order to learn from them to make meaning of your life?

		Misty Autumn Morning VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

A feather found and sketched with watercolour into my journal.

Does anyone else find reality hard to grasp sometimes? For most of us we live life in a certain manner until some life changing experience happens such as the death of our parents. Then the reality we took for granted is gone. What do we do then? The theorists tell us that we make our our meanings, some of us do not do that until we have to and then we have to make our own reality. For some this is easy they have set their lives up so well that it just keeps going, for others it takes some adjustment and critical reflection, whether we like it or not.

For most people life is hap-hazard, we make it up as we go. We do our best to do what is right. I remember my mother saying to me when I had my son ‘you do your best and after that you can do no more’. A friend recently told me that feathers hold a special meaning for her, so now when I see them I pick them up and try to find time to paint them. Why? It makes me feel connected to her and her life. I paint and make to feel alive, to feel real

I believe in the power of the arts to heal and aid in reflection and this helps us to make new meanings in life, to make sense of things, maybe even help us to understand ourselves a bit? We can find making things helps us to reflect on and put things in perspective. On a very simple basic level we learn that we ‘can do’ things that we did not realise we could. We can regain a sense of being human and just being and making. We get back to simple basics, whether we do it communally or alone, there is a great satisfaction in starting a piece of art or craft from the very beginning, designing it and making something that is exclusively yours. It is both liberating and scary because we do invest a lot in these things and we have to learn that they do not always turn out exactly as we expected, quite often they are even better. Sometimes they have to be done again as it did not work but perseverance will bring an item of great personal value.

In this world of intended learning outcomes it is very hard to be truly creative. We can all follow a pattern and make a specific item, but what about putting ourselves into the work, take a leap into the unknown, have an unintended outcome…that is creativity.

Failure in the creative process is not the end but a very important part of the process and not something to be afraid of, it is often the start of true creativity. If you are totally in control of what you are doing how can it be creative?

This piece is a piece in the middle of the creative process, the negative image was done in 1979 and has been printed onto cotton using the process of cyanotype. Watch this space!

This was  a fantastic week.

Joan, Sheila and me, we facilitated and participated in this brilliant week with a fantastic group of women. Some fell by the wayside but that does not mean they will be back! Life happens and we cannot all do everything we want, but we must not let that stop  us trying again.  Anyway  I am going to have that glass or two… so here are some pics from the last day….

Ferybank Community Arts VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Community Arts VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Great first day @ Ferrybank. great turnout and a lovely bunch. We should get on really well. No time to write now.