Until I let them go, I didn't realise I was holding on . . . .

Nude in Repose, charcoal on paper

Until I let them go, I didn't realise I was holding on to what I considered 'precious pieces'. And now, I am glad to say, that they are precious to some of you, too. Thank you all for your warm and generous response to my experimental first Virtual Open Studio. The opening time of this Virtual Exhibition has been extended because of Covid Lockdown. In Ireland this country is in the highest level of alert and restrictions so as long as it lasts, you can enjoy my virtual studio visit. 

 The Hidden Gems were precious to me for a variety of reasons . . . the portraits and life drawings reveal what a little piece of charcoal. . . combined with a sheet of paper, a putty rubber (and endless hours of effort) can do. Even though I had done life drawing in art college, and I could see my all fellow students manipulating, rubbing and and pulsing the eraser in their non-dominant hand, I never really knew why. I thought it was some kind of nervous tick that enveloped everybody (except me) when they started to draw from life. What they were doing with the eraser was making it malleable and soft and and when it is soft it is the most perfect tool for doing the most delicate work. 

 It has been a busy time, wrapping and posting off paintings to far flung places from California to Ballina, Thurles to New South Wales. In between times I cut my own hair, and signed some paintings. What paintings were left, I stacked unwrapped in the back of my car and delivered myself. This was after I reckoned it was easier to do this than queuing outside the post office (in the rain). Delivering them myself was a pleasure. Some of you said it looked better in reality, than online. Many of you who bought had bought previously from me, and you told me how much you loved that painting and how much it has been cherished. 

So many gave me gifts of honey and jam, poetry and pottery. Here is a link to the poem that Brendan printed for me Margaret told me how much she loved my painting of Wexford. After more than 10 years …she still sits gazing at it. It seems I was close to the mark in my video when I promised that good a painting is a companion for lifetime. She told me that in particular, she loves that all my work is so different, and that she reckons I am "a real artist" that many artists churn out the same painting over and over again but mine all so different. 

 I have to admit that I have felt a bit challenged by my wide and varied interest in different materials and methods of applying paint over the years. What I am learning after all this time is that that it's okay. Margaret says it is better than okay. That it is, in her view, actually a good thing. She says she knows it's not a popular move for an artist, but for real, live, breathing human being - changing, evolving and doing things differently is normal, and anything else is frankly a bit strange (even if it is better for an artist’s bank balance). If you are interested, we can take up this subject, and many others (like the obsession with signing a painting), on Zoom,m please sign up for my newsletter

On Missing You

As I start to write this it is Sunday morning and not yet bright. I'm full of ideas, resolve and determination as I put the kettle on, illuminating my kitchen with an unearthly blue light. This unworldly glow allows me to glance at the clock, telling me it's not yet 5 am. Devoted and all as I am to writing these blogs, it has been a while since I've been up this early. The clock is wrong. It must have stopped, because I know that it is coming up to 7 am. I turn on the radio to hear the news. As I drink my tea and listen in the predawn light, I see the geese in the field. And I recall over two years ago trying to look forward to November 2020, and writing that the cackling of the geese made me think then that by now, 2020, the geese would know that the world is ending. 

As I continue to write I get distracted because my mouse won’t behave properly. It takes me ages to realise that the mouse mat is moving with the mouse because it is enabled by the pile of papers that are strewn across my desk. I am so proud of these piles. I recently did all my accounts. It has been haunting me for many months. . . Ever since I completed them the last time I promised myself never again. Never again would I abandon this task of crunching numbers and the multitude of spiked invoices and receipts… As you know I have a talent for complicating things. Anyway that job is done now and it's time to move on to the next difficult task. Nothing is easy or effortless anymore. 

This next task has been causing me a lot of thinking without resolution. This is unusual for me. As you know, I am usually full of good ideas. I think, in truth, I must be missing you. At this time of year I can usually look forward to my traditional open studio, some good company, mulled wine (warmed cranberry juice for the drivers) and a general sense of the year coming to an end and a job well done. This year of course, is nothing like that. There's been nothing but Covid and Chaos. The studio remains unfinished. I am unreasonably hopeful that it will be finished by Christmas. Despite the lack of finish (I have no electricity yet), I have moved in. The big new windows are fabulous and provide a lot of steady northern light. The floor is freezing and as I potter around in the November frost, my feet want to fall off. 

However, all is well. It was a terrible job moving back in. I saw my life flash before me, All these paintings, frames and ‘substrates’ (a fancy catch all for surfaces I paint on). There are many paintings that were finished and forgotten. And frames. I have tonnes of frames that don't fit paintings and lots of paintings without frames. Of these many are portraits and I have endless charcoal drawings of naked men and women. Some of these I shredded. I kept some. Mostly because I remember the thrill of discovery. I even have a charcoal drawing of the foot of a Roman or Greek statute that I laboured over for so long, I had to frame it afterwards because I wanted to remember how impossible it seemed when I started and how the process of drawing is one that is frankly a mechanical skill and one that can be learned. 

I discovered many beautiful paintings that never found their way out into the world. The first bit of light they saw was when they had to be moved out of my old studio, carefully carted over to fill my house for the last nine months, only to be carefully carried back and to be stacked again. Each one is special because as a painter for me the joy is in the moment of painting and once that is finished and it gets stacked away to dry, sometimes as the moment passes, it gets left there, perhaps forever unloved, unseen, maybe forgotten. It is quite a sight and very challenging. 

The question for me now is how can I live with knowing that they are there? The traditional way to deal with this is to have a studio sale. I am trying to cook up an idea that would allow me to offer them to you and re-create the feeling of the open studio in a virtual world. I cannot quite get it right in my head. I have all kinds of complicated notions involving Zoom and virtual exhibitions that would probably take me until next Christmas to make real . . . And perhaps you are not interested in anything more complicated than an email? 

I don't think I ever asked you to buy a painting from me in the decade I have been writing this blog, so this feels a bit strange to me, would you be interested and willing to buy a painting before the end of this year? I curious to know if there are any people interested in an online event to make up for my lack of an Open Studio this peculiar year. Before I got down the rabbit hole of creating a hidden gallery and all the work involving numbers that entails ;-) If you have read this far, thank you. Please answer my question by simply replying to me below. For now, for me, it's time for breakfast,

When Being Direct is a Daring Concept

I am a bit of a party pooper, as I can regularly be found in bed on a Saturday night early. There are a few reasons for this. … and the main one is that I dedicate my Saturday nights to listening to the marvellous Messy Studio podcasts. A few weeks ago, one made me sit bolt upright in bed … I just couldn't believe my ears… The podcast was about artists fielding questions about their work and it was really very interesting. I learned that the one question that artists most frequently get asked is “How long did it take you to do that ?” I admit my regular answer to that question is “half a life time”. It just never occurred to me that other artists are asked this same question. All along, I thought I was the only one. Evidently not. 

Having thought about it, I realise it is closely aligned to other questions I get asked. People seem interested in knowing just how ‘long’ it took me to ‘learn’ to do something like peel a banana. It seems to surprise most when I say it took me "just about as long as it took you". This is not a ‘smart’ answer, it is simply the truth . . . just like them, I didn't ‘practice’ how to do it. I just wanted the banana and peeled it for myself (in my own unique way) before I learned to walk. 

But going back to that podcast …. I really don't think people are all that interested in how "long" it takes anyone to paint a picture or to ‘learn’ how to peel a banana… I know that what people want is to make a connection and start a conversation. 

And if the conversation is about art, difference or disability, it can be intimidating, even challenging to get it off on the right foot. This is especially so if one gets the impression that this artist might be especially prickly and easily offended. I am neither prickly nor easily offended, but I am very direct. I know that this worries people witless in a world where directness is a daring concept and “expert nuancing” is the guideline for successful social encounters. 

 Needless to say, "nuancing" is not my strong point. 

Anyway, going back to the art of conversing about difficult subjects. Another of The Messy Studio podcast hosted by Rebecca Crowell and her son Ross is about awkward moments and yet another about preserving and minding one's reputation . . . (that one had me firmly under the covers). 

I think it is hard to talk about art and find something to say that cannot be interpreted as offensive, unintelligent, or unintelligible? 

I know just enough to know that unconscious non-verbal cues give us easily away and I recall hearing the writer John McGahern talking about this when called upon to respond to other writers whose work was sent unsolicited to him for review, he responded by saying that the work had “a lot of energy”. He reasoned that no-one could take offence, and if I recall correctly, that neither did the comment amount to much, in terms of feedback. 

I admit that I have used that very phrase myself and so, when I stumbled across this tongue in cheek, Gentleman’s Guide to Modern Art, I could not but agree that there is "this whole language around art which is extremely hard to understand. But you can decode it because there's a tiny bag of words and phrases that are used again and again.” So, after reading it and smiling a lot as I recognised past conversations, I made sure to cut and paste it into my electronic notebook and have kept it for years.

And since you ask about the artwork, how is it going? The painting above is one from the September page of my two year calendar. That's about all I got left to remind me of what once was a thriving art working space. My home is still stuffed with the contents of my studio and it is hard to find a hammer or a nail. I am experimenting with Tech 7 glue at the moment, trying to finish a painting that requires a lot of technical know-how because it has three dimnensions. Oh for simpler days, when all I needed was the open fields and my guerrilla artist's kit (photo below). 

My new website on the other hand, is thriving and bringing in a lot of enquiries and a few sales in the last few months. 

Apart from that, there is precious little going on. My career as my own "Buildings Project Manager" staggers on as the build grinds to a complete halt. While the studio is very nearly finished, it has been like that for weeks and it is just not quite there . . And so, I spend my days negotiating the return of unused underlays, talking about soffits and flashing, roofs and rebates. 

In between times I am grappling with the challenges of offering free shipping (worldwide) on artwork on my website. This is quite a terrifying subject as it is very complex and it involves lots of numbers. My attempts at fixing it so far have only caused chaos. International subscribers to my email newsletters will have a free pass for the moment do contact me soon if you wish to acquire your very own Mary Duffy artwork. 

And you thought being an artist was easy, relaxing even? If you listen to the Messy Studio Podcasts you get a window on this complex world of working artists and while I listen regularly I am fascinated with all the subjects and considerations that pop up regularly and how contemporary they all are, like this one on place . . . we artists love our "places". 

Please do listen to at least one of these on a rainy day (or night) and be sure to let them know what you think because all this writing, podcasting and reaching out is art work too. 

For the moment, it is back to the list of To Dos, and while I love this place, I am almost despairing of ever taking up a paint brush inside a studio again, I still push on and on and on to the next thing, knowing that I will get there, one slow step at a time. 

 For now, that next big hurdle is breakfast. 

 With warmest regards to you and yours, in these peculiar times, 

 

View in a Room

My new website has a useful tool that allows viewers to observe their chosen image in a room, and to also change the colour of the background walls. For me, it is curious to see the transformative effect of a change in the colour or to zoom in on a painting's detail. Happy hours can be lost in the pursuit of idleness by the press of a button.

The zoom in feature allows viewers "to zoom in" and see the images close up. Especially revealing for smaller paintings. Because they are most interesting close up, much of the detail can be lost on a website.

On Chillblains

I am inclined to believe I have done nothing in months except be increasingly impatient with the slow progress of my studio refurbishment. . . Slowly, very slowly, it is coming into its own. It is taking an awful long time. Much longer than I anticipated when it was the germ of an idea at the end of last year.. 

However, while I have been waiting for transformation, I have not been idle. I have spent weeks, months even, working on a new website . . . it has some really snazzy new features. 

Back to the studio where things have been all topsy turvey for a long time now, since the end of January, in fact. At first (before Covid), I had hoped that the renovation could be completed by the middle of May, then it was stretched to the end of June, then the end of July. Now I am hoping for Christmas. I know that I need to add "Christmas 2020", because this thing is inclined to run away from me unless I pin it down. It has demanded most of my attention . . . There is precious little painting going on. 

Instead I am engaging with all sorts of problems mostly got to do with measurements and sums and things that bring me out in a rash. These are tough times for everyone and luckily so far for us, and our loved ones, Covid has just been an inconvenience keeping us home and tied to this small bit of heaven we call home. It is not all peaceful, though. 

There are copious debates about floors and shelves and stuff. I am constantly reminded about the important things in life like. . . . like underfloor heating. Himself reminds me that it is essential. Absolutely. I longingly remember my acres of cardboard that did me for insulation for years. 

In case you are inclined to think that it is a long way from underfloor heating I was reared, now he (and others) remind me that I have complained bitterly (for more than a decade) about working barefoot and about how the floor temperature can undermine the progress of any painting during the winter months. In fact, my old studio was so cold that in winter that I frequently opted to paint outdoors in preference to my studio). I reckon with the winter sun, it was often warmer outside. 

 Of course, now in the summer heat it is easy to forgot the frostbite cold of February.

Since you ask, my Christmas tree finally got the chop yesterday . . . . It was just as in these parts we are feeling the summer close, and the autumnal chill in the evening air.

The Art of Waffling on Zoom

Well, it hardly needs to be said that the Christmas tree still stands, mocking me as we head into summer.  I did struggle through 49 pages of colour theory and when it came to the bit to do the first practice, I stalled.  My materials are all lined up in a row, but I have not yet been able to lift a brush, not even to do a single stroke. 

That's how things are in these strange times. Like everyone else, I am adjusting to this new life. I am grateful to be able to do my bit by staying put, Fan sa Bhaile (if this is not  immediately understood by you, please see note below).

Of course, I would have imagined a situation like this would have provided me with masses of energy to write novels or paint massive pictures. But in reality, I can't even be bothered de-cluttering. I am however, enjoying the cleanliness of my desk.  Every day it is clean and bright.  It was a bit mystifying that this little nook, this cubby-hole I call my office, usually looks like a disaster zone, but for weeks now is nice and clean and orderly . . . all the time. Eventually it has dawned on my that this is because I am not using it. Beautiful.  

Donald Teskey and myself, during our talk at
The Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray in 2017.

To break the monotony, one of my favourite supporters suggested I should have an online exhibition.  How would that work?  I asked. I imagined, I confess something rather dull, like sprucing up my website (again).  Nooo she wrote . . . We could do it on Zoom, and we could all gather round our screens and  have a glass of wine and look at your paintings.  She had me at the glass of wine. . . . I was very, very interested then.  But it still seemed a bit odd, as it's not like I can hope that you'll actually buy any paintings, given that the world we now live in values one roll of toilet paper higher than a barrel of oil . . .In this new reality, I should be paying you to take them away. In fact, I briefly considered it as I am sequestered for the period with the contents of my studio cramming up this small house . . . (my old studio is being repaired and work has stalled).

So, I thought I'd offer to share with you one of my arty talks . . . I have done a few in my time . . . most recently at The Mermaid, in Bray . . .   about where I came from as an artist and how I got to be here.  

It was very well received. Apparently its entertaining and funny in places.  I love artist's talks myself, but as an attendee. Last time I was talking with Donald Teskey, and people asked if out had been recorded and it wasn't. There was time for loads of interesting questions about the process and the getting to this point as a painter.

I don't want to give too big a lead in as I am not at all sure what I am at . . .  but it is an experiment.  I am technically competent so I can promise you a shortish 20 minute talk with pictures . . .in the comfort of your own home. There will be a chance to chat and meet others if you want.  Bring a glass of wine and put your feet up.  If you want to ask questions, now is your opportunity . . . . If you are new to Zoom and want to join in, but are a bit intimidated, feel free to contact me first for a trial run. I'd love the practice. 

If you are a total techno phobe and don't want to know about Zoom or PCs or tablets, but would love to earwig in with what's going on, even you can join us using old technology, too. Using an ordinary landline you can hear the whole thing. 

Yes, even the pictures will be better (they'll be in your head). This is all possible and easy. 

With warmest regards to you and yours in these strange and difficult times,

Fan sa Bhaile (pron. fan sa wall-ya) means Stay at Home in Irish

Evidence of Extreme Tardiness or an Art Installation?

In spite of the challenge to floor space, the Christmas tree is still standing proudly in the corner, bedecked with twinkling lights. A visitor in late February commented that he thought it was an "art installation" (I thought it was fairly obviously a severe case of procrastination). 

But it is true that the tree is quite charming. It is a substantial, beautifully formed, bare limb of a lovely apple tree that was over-hanging the vegetable garden. 

It was threatening to topple onto the brassicas last summer, and against my better judgment, and behind my back, one day the limb was lopped off. 

The vegetable garden last summer

The tree survived, the brassicas thrived and this lop-sided limb was retrieved from under the hedge very later on Christmas Eve. 

Within seconds it was propped up in an old chimney pot, where it remains, to this day (one hundred days later). 

 But as the days get longer, and the more we are squeezed, tighter and tighter by the detritus of my studio life, I am looking longingly at the space this tree occupies. And as I stroke fondly my latest big garden purchase . . . a rechargeable and cute, small and efficient, recently sharpened chainsaw, I think the days of that twinkling 'art installation' are indeed, numbered. 

 

On SInging Happy Birthday to Myself...

I can't think of any reasonable excuse for not blogging for a very long time.  But the rot set in some time ago. I know that it began with the announcement of the GDPR. There was something terribly draconian about those requirements that has stifled my creativity in writing these missives from the studio.

Well, I have gritted my teeth this morning and decided to write one anyway, even if it is about nothing in particular. 

Of course, there is lots going on. A lot of banging and shouting and inexplicable holes in the ceiling. My studio is being renovated and I am deranged. I am so discombobulated that I pressed "send" on this email Monday morning last, just before I had my breakfast. It took me until now to realise that I hadn't actually sent it. 

Two days of silence. Usually my missives get a response of some kind, but this time I didn't take your lack of response personally, I just thought it's been so long since I last wrote that you have all moved on. 

It was only when realised that I forgot to include information about forthcoming annual exhibition of the Dublin Painting & Sketching Club, that was due to open at the weekend, that I realised my error. In the meantime, the event has been postponed (as a result of the Corona Virus).

Back to Monday morning . . . .

Yesterday (Sunday), I went on a walk. Himself and myself hit out about midday to a nearby spot known as The Breaches. It is not very far, but as we are both getting a tad slow, so we felt it important to have the mantra, "The Breeches or Bust".

Bust it turned out to be. It was a sunny day. Warm, spring-like with buds shooting up and birds twittering ("like car alarms", he said).

Heading off in sunshine, with neither hats nor coats, we made our destination easily enough, and as we turned back homeward, only then, we began to notice the change. . . The sky, once warm and blue, was now deep and dark and purple and thundering towards us. Before long the temperature dropped significantly and we were being pelted with hailstones. They were really sharp and very hard and more than a few hurt, quite a bit. I found it a challenge to keep moving, in the strong wind on uneven ground. 

The day had changed. We hardly recognised the place as we first sought shelter under a blowy piece of rusted corrugated iron, hanging on a willowy stick, loosely secured behind a fence post.

We took shelter under this rusty bit of iron

Even though my head was frozen, the rusted corrugated iron offered about as much shelter as a (folded) broadsheet newspaper, it was good, very good, to be even a little bit out of the bombardment. However, I was afraid that in that wind, our meagre cover would in time, decapitate both of us.

And so we pushed on.

The world around us once very familiar, had turned icy and hostile. We doubted this perception. We felt a very long way from home. We wondered how could this be? We pushed on, and eventually we turned away from the wind as we reached the shelter of the public road. A short time later (with a lift from a fellow walker), we were home and getting dry. But the experience has changed us. We were somewhere very different. We entered a different world.

I can't help feeling that the world has shifted off its axis. There is nothing new except The Virus. We are busily singing Happy Birthday* to ourselves as we soap up and sud up against impending doom.

And yet, I remember a quite similar (but very, very different) experience after which I painted this painting below, near the same spot where the world shimmied on its axis for us. The cold and hailstones were there, but it was without that extra edge of menace that we both felt on Sunday.

Rainbow double

And, as we dried our underwear and shoes (and everything else in between), we were treated to this double rainbow. 

And so, the old order is restored, confidence renewed, and we carry on regardless. ...

*Singing Happy Birthday twice is advice we are getting in these parts as being just long enough to wash "our hands". In
the spirit of community protection, I am busily washing my feet as many friends and neighbours are "toe-touching" in greeting and I am wondering if my scrubbing efforts are for nought?