with hopeful purpose to focus my head toward the telling of stories, particularly that of our dear friend emily, i'm going to give myself a weekly deadline to post some form of comic/graphic story. there are no real specifics, it may be a single panel or series of pages, with or without text, they mightn't even have anything to do with emily, or bear any relevence to the over-lying story of hers that i'd like to tell, they just have to have something that resembles a narrative. i'm not good with structure or communications, so its really just for my own sake to train my brain towards embracing the idea of beginnings and endings. main problem with telling emily's story is that she does very little. a great deal of sitting, waiting, remembering. of course some days are more memorable than others...
(obviously this merely hints at the intense emotional opera magna to come...)
while we're on the subject.... thanks to a new graphic novel section in monaghan library, recently been reading stories by adrian tomine and guy delisle, and skim by mariko and jillian tamaki. adrian's books, "shortcomings" and "sleepwalk", i would especially recommend, whether you're a fan of graphic novels or not. "sleepwalk" is full of these short stories that are really simple on the surface but packed with meaning. he has an amazing way of dealing with the more sober anxieties and idiosynchracies of human relationships.
and from a regular source of inspiration, fallen fliers.
I'll be in the Crafty Market in Shebeen Chic this Sunday, 24th. Will have a few new things (might bring this fella along) and been printing and sowing me some little Invert This Space comics too in preparation for Independents Day.
new pic, acrylic on paper, a4. super pleased with this one (though i'm not too sure if i'm happy with her mouth...may need fixing). she's a little less weighted than usual, but sure everyone needs a break every now and than. i had a pair of blue and white gloves like these from oxfam. but i lost them. its getting colder out too. and i'm slightly paranoid about the cold. a craft market friend, emma mcmanus, makes jewellery out of random things. i got a lovely clock pendant off her for my sister. it had the back exposed to show all the cogs and inner workings. it looked nicer than emily's. the key is just a key. for a house. sinking in the sand.
the details;
and some progress pics;
its not without a sense of irony that this is my favourite mug. (its not without stupidity i often leave my tea dangerously close to my paint water...)
Taking part in Independents Day 2010, an independent zines, and records fair on Sunday Nov 7th, in Newmarket Square. will have a stall and taking part in an art exhibition on the day. should be pretty cool!
also, if you haven't come across them before, check out Herakut. i think their work is amazing;
lost a few minutes earlier staring at patterns of paint on my desk. i'm tempted to cut it up into sections and frame it. i have actual fruits of producticiousness to share too, but, worryingly, i think these are possibly more interesting;
this one was only slightly edited
there's a mosaic of wood, tile and card spreading across my floor. will have lots of fun things to share soon.
here's one newbie i'm particularly fond of;
working on making my site neater. slowly, since i've actual work to do. at the minute what i have up is a bit all over the place, so going to have just a simple one page site, with links outbound and maybe just a seperate projects section that will pretty much be the old site. it'll look something like this;
happened upon her site via SwissMiss and i love it! the site itself is pretty sweet (cargocollective.com, they've such a great format, i'm tempted to go for one myself) and the sculpture featured on swissmiss (and above) is totally my sort of thing, but her drawings are awesome and her books look so nicely presented... i just can't help but be inspired! i love when you can see consistency in theme and quality in a persons work however diverse a medium they work in. anyway, enough nonsense, check out her stuff. i must now go make something.
This book was in a box of old things of my grandmother's. It holds a hundred or so pages of measurements for people, local people and family members that my granny would have knitted/sewn clothes for. the name has nothing to do with it, the book was originally used to keep kitty records for a band of my uncle's. But i like the idea of this bit of personal history, a snippet of these tiny seemingly trivial interactions of this person with hundreds of people. time has a way of adding weight to the most unassuming material. plus i'm always fascinated by fastidiously economical record-keeping, squeezing so much info into little pages (the book's about the size of a postcard).
and for my own brand of record-keeping;
strange beautiful 18cm x 27cm paint on reclaimed wood
A little late in the day, but here's latest donation to the Gulf Restoration Network. For a change, I'm putting in an oldie and a biggie. its an acrylic painting on canvas, 62cm x 90cm. i'll accept the highest offer (blog comment/facebook/mail - barryquinnart -at- gmail.com) within the next week, if there are no offers by Wednesday 13th, it will go to the first offer.
All money offered goes to aid recovery from the BP spill. This support is needed more than ever, since BP were allowed to deal with the disaster themselves. The use of dispersants creates a compound which, according to many sources, is more dangerous than the oil and dispersants individually, and they have turned the oil from a visible threat into one affecting marine life on a microscopic level, where it's believed it will have devastating effects on the seas food chain (and potentially humans), from the bottom up. But its not actually known what the effects will be in the long-term.
And info/ sources (they're a few months old, i might have posted some of them before, but they're still relevant);
doesn't seem like i've been updating the site as regular as i'd like. but then i haven't been getting much work done. i'd resolved to use as little motorised transport as possible at the beginning of the year but in the last few months i seem to be on bus journeys every third day. its sort of depressing me. and not cooking my own dinners, buying crap imported food in centras (how hard is it to grow a bloody apple in ireland...) and sleeping on people's couches. feel like hibernating for the winter. try and finish some projects piling up in my head. i've also let the Gulf fund slide. I wasn't getting much interest or feedback, but I haven't been giving it the attention it deserves, I'll put something up tomorrow for it. The Laboured Error series, I had hoped to exhibit somewhere and have half the proceeds go to the GRN, but knowing my usual artistical agoraphobia, i might just sell them through the site.
Excuse the dreary tone. I'm a little knarky this week. so here's some good things;
I had never heard of Lu Cong before. shame on me. Check out his stunning portraits. And some lovely line drawings on his Flickr page.
here's some sketchbook things from the weekend;
playing with Bouts in Twisted Pepper for HWCH on Saturday night. It's part of the festival, so for anyone planning on going, you'd need to get a ticket. practice is going well, should be a good night. can't remember last time i played on a stage...
i'm now going to do some painting to the sound of the new Threadpulls album.
There's always something bitter sweet about infographics. Aesthetically, done well, i find them beautiful. but the noteworthy ones more often than not tend to relate very disturbing statistics. Here's one, found on GOOD. I've lately been reducing my use of plastic, which for me is primarily with food packaging, for several reasons. This is just one;
Juka Araikawa, via booooooom. I find these paintings strangely beautiful. It's not a style I'd normally go for (though feel myself heading towards) but something feels very right with her work.
as with this. grizzly bear. continues it's rolling around my mind.
And here's a lovely project by Caitlin Parker, featured on the ever reliable My Love For You;
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