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,

Hanging Myself at the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Irish Academy

This weekend, my self-portrait

has been selected for the Royal Hibernian Academy Summer Exhibition and that will run from May 25th right through the summer until early August.

Desert island essentials - what would they be?

A few weeks ago, I was asked a series of questions by Prudence magazine, and it began by asking me "what does your work involve?"

 I create paintings, mostly working outdoors. In addition, I maintain my website and write a regular email newsletter and this irregular blog.  I am also engaged in selling my art work through art fairs and on the Internet.  

 Typical day?

Most days, I start early, with a  mug of tea, and a period of gazing out the window.  I need half an hour of silence in the morning before I can function. After tea I can achieve a lot before breakfast. However, while I am staring into space my brain never stops: scheduling, scheming ways to be more efficient. I seem to need this “gazing space” as I have an embarrassment of ideas, and capturing the good ones and making them a reality is the challenge. 

 How do you inspire other women?

If one is described as being an “inspiration” as often as I am, it can be quite a heavy burden if taken seriously. I don’t take it seriously .  In a world where everything is hard and times are tough, people are inspired by the fact that I haven’t curled up in a corner, lain down and died (yet), because of the “hand“ I have been dealt. 

My "shoeval" aclever way to avoid toe blis

That I drive a car (too fast), and before that cycled for years in Dublin city,  that I learned to scuba dive,  keep hens, am a keen gardener and love to cook, can leave others in jaw dropping wonderment.  That I have held down several jobs as well, sometimes at once, and have had a wide and varied career, from school teacher to agony aunt, from project manager to radio producer, at a time when discrimiation against disabled people was rampant, and educational and employment opportunities were rare, heartens many.

But the fact that I climb ditches, carry canvases across windy bogs, like working in wide open spaces, being a painter the hard way, surprises even myself.   Being on the road less traveled is not my choice. It is simply who I am.

If someone was to ask you what’s the one thing they could do in the morning, just one thing to change their life what would you say?

Be present in this moment.  I have learned to ask myself a simple question: is there anything happening right now, in this moment, that I can’t handle (pedal!)? And the answer has always been “No”. There has never been anything that I have not been able to cope with.  So, I deal with it, one breath at a time. 

Who or what inspires you?

My life time companion, Denis Buckley and my best friend for more than 30 years, Ger Wilson, inspire me. These two people have walked with me for a very long time - they’ve chosen to share my load.  They can both be confrontational and challenging at times.  I like that. I find it inspiring. I wouldn’t be who I am today without them.

Desert island essentials - what would they be?

I have a shocking, searing, independent streak.  On a desert island I don’t want anything. Experience has taught me that focussing on “essentials” can be a pointless activity. For instance, I worked in a job which involved a practice called “hot desking”, which meant I was assigned to a different desk everyday (and often times I had to share it with a colleague as well).  I really longed for what I thought was essential for me (as someone without arms in an armed world) - a desk of my own. I argued my case well. But I wasn’t specific enough, and when it was assigned to me, the much longed for and much coveted desk was one that didn’t include either a computer or a telephone (what I really did need to do the job).  I had to laugh. If I didn’t, I’d have cried, and probably never stopped.

So, tell me what you think I need, and I'll tell you how I’ll get by without it.

Silver lining moment - if you have a challenging situation/problem, what positive thing do you take out of it or how do you handle it?

Challenges keep me sharp.  I have been in a few difficult situations- mostly involving toilets, door knobs,  the odd time a camel or bullocks, and once for five hours, being stuck in a hotel bath (trying to float out, having stuffed the overflow with mashed up soap, didn’t work, by the way). 

I generally believe whatever the problem is, it can usuaull be re-named as a nice problem to have.  

For example, my ten year old car is giving me a quite a bit of bother of late.  The Beetle is like a thing possessed with doors locking automatically and the alarm going off and for no reason any mechanic has been able to determine. It is discomforting and awkward, and often curtails my in-car lunch break, but isn’t it nice to have a beautiful blue car that moves (like myself) with all the elegance and speed of a turbo engine? 

Artwork can be seen:

Caviston’s, Greystones, Co. Wicklow

Cong Art Gallery, Co Mayo

            Kilternan Art Gallery Co Dublin

Forthcoming exhibitions,

Stand 47 near top of Kildare St St  Stephen’s Green

  19, 20, 21 August 2011    

23, 24, 25 September 2011

For more check www.maryduffy.ie 

 info@maryduffy.ie