In the office supply store in Ennistymon, I chanced upon a pack of sculpting, self-drying clay for one Euro. I brought it home and made anthropomorphic shapes out of it.
Then, while watching a Criminal Minds marathon on Netflix, I thought I’d offset all the dead bodies and paedophiles and psychopaths with some sketching.
I thought I’d have some fun with no regard for the consequences, all in the name of art. Thoughts?
As my day comes to a close, it feels not unlike the last days of summer camp. That wistful, “what a great experience” feeling, the weepiness that comes over you when you think of the friends you’ve reunited with as well as the new friends you’ve made, even the magical way the weather feels. Your senses become attuned to the smells, tastes, and sounds of your environment as you recount the weeks you’ve just spent in a wonderful place full of lovely people and, certainly, lots of personal growth.
It feels strange to be writing this on a Thursday night, as my residency doesn’t officially end until Saturday, (functionally tomorrow, as no one will be in the office on Saturday to help me tie up any loose ends) and I don’t actually fly out until Tuesday morning. But it feels like an end note, somehow. A positive one, to be sure.
The morning started in studio: I skipped my workout when I woke up today, and walked to the campus to pay off the art supplies I’ve been using on credit, essentially, as well as put the finishing touches on my last work. I ran out of money for canvas, so I yanked some old bed sheets off of Juddy: a blue 7′ by 8′ one, and a white, 6′ x 5′. The blue one was all beautiful whimsy; a sort of thank you to Jasper for being my youngest friend, a true-blue, sensitive, intuitive boy who loves nature as much as I did when I was his age, and still do. We had a date at the Soda Parlour one day and I spoiled him with scones with jam and cream and a vanilla milkshake. We tidied his room together and he made me laugh with all of his surprisingly precocious comments and facial expressions. I used to mind Jasper when he was only five, and seeing him at ten makes me love him even more, in this fierce, protective way that I’ve never felt for a child before. I live for this lad’s hugs and hope that if I ever become a mum, I have a boy as wonderful as him. So I made this homage:
After finishing up this piece, I felt that I had hit an ending point. I’m not wasting the white sheet though; it’s getting packed in with the rest of my work tomorrow. It’ll be great fodder for my first work at home. I packed up all of my supplies. As I was doing that, Tim, the dean, stopped in to my studio to collect images of my work from my laptop. He intends to use them for the college website, which is really exciting for me. He lingered a while and gave me some advice on my work. He told me I should focus on my process. My productivity is down pat (I laughed on the inside, since I have the work ethic of a high school stoner — two hours in the studio on average, then off to take a long walk and then eat food at my flat all afternoon), he said, and I’m making “all the right mistakes”. Yesterday, in Tim’s car, Katherine, one of my resident friends, and I were discussing what I should say in my graduate school applications. I stated all of my intentions for school very sincerely, and was worried that it wouldn’t be enough for an admissions panel, but even as I spoke, I realised, Hey, this actually doesn’t sound asinine. Tim mentioned the conversation today, and then asked me if I was thinking of applying to graduate school at BCA.
I can’t describe to you the strange and dissonant mix of emotions that were running through me in that moment: the utter and overwhelming happiness I felt at having a dean tell me he wanted me to apply to his school, and then the embarrassed sadness of explaining to him that my parents had no retirement, I had an empty bank account, and I was seventy-five thousand dollars in debt from my undergraduate education, so unless full funding was an option, I couldn’t apply to a school without declaring fiscal suicide. I e-mailed him later, reiterating how grateful I was for everything he had said to me. Essentially, the overwhelming opinion of colleagues and mentors is that I am ready for grad school. Now the only obstacle is not to get in my own way; and after I’ve accomplished that, actually getting into a program would be grand.
I coasted on that conversation coupled with some sincere words from Katherine for the entire afternoon. This evening I agreed to go for a standing Thursday night run with Katherine and some lads from the area. We did a lovely 5k, after which my blowhard and bravado male nature took over, and I agreed to the challenge of jumping off the pier with the guys. It was actually not as horrifying as I thought it would be, and the weather had been misty and oddly balmy all evening, so that getting out of the ocean was satisfying. It felt nice to just stand on the pier and look out at the darkening sky over the water, blurring the edges between sea and sky like a Japanese block print. I got a lift home and jumped straight into a hot shower.
It’s nearly half ten now and I’m listening to Iron and Wine in my fluffy bathrobe, thinking about home while sitting in the place I’ve come to call home once more, after a five-year lapse. I never forgot about this place and the magic it holds. I dreamed about County Clare back in Pittsburgh, I walked my old road and visited Joe and Gwen and stayed in their loft during a particularly drawn-out dream. I’ve gotten to realise my dreams, and I am grateful any and every time I can do that. It is a true blessing to have experienced this moment in my life. Sometimes my father, sensing my panic at the presence of good things, will send me an e-mail telling me I am worthy of the good that comes my way. Anna-Lena, my best friend, wrote a very similar thing in the letter she sent me weeks ago. It is an overwhelming sense of gratefulness to know there are people in my life who serve to remind me that I deserve good. I don’t even know if they know how important it is for me. I struggle with self-worth on a constant basis. But I am always, always thankful for the beauty that surrounds me.
I am thankful for this place, this space, this time. This has been a very important experience, and I could not have done without it. My wallet will be empty when I return home, but my heart is full. Those are the riches I’ll carry all of my life.
I stared at my Klonopin bottle this morning when I was brushing my teeth and thought, Maybe I should toss that in my purse. I didn’t, but that moment of pause was the biggest piece of foreshadowing for the day.
Today should have been a trip to Connemara, but it failed. We (Juddy and I) made it as far as Galway, which in itself was not a bad thing: I visited my favourite salon and got some beauty treatment done for the hot weather I’m expecting when I touch down in Pittsburgh next week (can’t show myself in public with hairy legs, obviously), and I got to show Juddy one of the best spots for breakfast food, Pura Vida.
Beyond that it was a nightmare. For some reason the city — the static, the noise, the bustle, the queues — freaked me out and put me on edge so badly, that, when coupled with my sudden horror at realising my expenses for my final week were higher than I thought, sent me into a full-blown anxiety attack.
It was all I could do to keep the hyperventilating at bay. Juddy stopped at a hardware store and I stayed in the truck with my eyes closed, taking calming breaths. I don’t know what it is about the city. I used to love it, especially when it comes to a comparatively small city like Galway. Just enough people to make me happy; just enough interesting shops and good food smells and street performers to put me in a genuinely positive state of mind. Today, it yielded the complete opposite.
I’ve been in the country too long, I think. I hate to say that, since “too” implies an excess; it makes one think that what I’m getting too much of will slowly kill me, or affect me negatively in some way, and somehow I fail to see how the countryside could give me anything but good. Were it not for my mountain of school debt and the fact that I want, one day, to see my parents again, I might be persuaded to find a waitress or farm job and stay here forever.
My mind has gone quiet here, except for when I think of the city and all its problems. All the static; oh my God! The close proximity of so many people with all of their hopes and anxieties and irritation and to-do lists; it seeps into my space and sets off my mind and it starts to rotate faster and faster until I want to scream.
I wanted to scream in the truck, as I sat waiting for my friend to roll his fag and light it before starting up the car. A Polish child was banging toy cymbals and carrying on in the backseat of the car parked next to us, and its mother was giving out to it; I could pluck out the meanings of several words but was mostly set off by the cross tones, her frustration and her child’s insolence.
And the city has other things, too: traffic, construction noises, car horns, in general, the sudden, blaring, mechanised noises mixed in with the shouting of adults who know better and children who don’t. In the city you queue up for everything and everyone is just impatient and distracted. In the city I have my mobile phone and I am obsessed with Instagram, Facebook, and text messages; I must always have my finger on the trigger — I’m sorry, I meant pulse — and so, queued up at the pharmacy or the grocery store I scroll madly with one thumb and crane my neck and jut my stomach in that horrible pose that inevitably happens when hanging a shopping basket from one hand and leaning in closely to an LCD screen in your free, cupped palm.
There’s more self-loathing in the city, I think. I never check my make-up here. I put it on, sure; I’ll never deny that the cows and dogs and swallows see my made-up eyes more than humans do, six out of seven days of the week to be sure. But I never check it. I never once shove my hand into my purse and whip out my compact. I focus on one thought at a time here, or okay, maybe two, but never ten. Never twelve or thirteen.
At the end of a yoga practice you retreat into shivasana, the corpse pose. You relax your limbs, un-clench your fingers, loosen your jaw, and let your eyeballs sink into your skull. The point is to seal a practice, and to absorb it. Every instructor I’ve ever had tells the room to absorb that day’s practice and take it with all of us, out into the stressful and terrifying world. And when I roll onto my side, regaining my sense of body, I cling so desperately to my practice that I could cry, praying with fervor that somehow, this time, I can just carry it with me for the rest of time and never let it go.
Inevitably, in a day’s time, with a frustrating customer at work, on the phone with my mum, when I drop a raw egg onto my kitchen floor, hell, even when I bolt out of the studio and someone in front of me is just walking too goddamn slow, poof! Off it goes — the experience flutters away and I’m left defeated, watching the balloon bob in the air and fly up, higher and higher, until it’s out of sight.
Absorb your practice. I can absorb everyone else’s moods, feelings, and emotions. Why can’t I hold onto something innately and wholly good for once?
I found myself fatigued by the time we got to my flat. I had bought a box of assorted Lindt chocolates and we ate half of the box together with zero concern for our figures. (Not that Juddy ever cares; it’s really me that I’m talking about; me and my brash and appalling sugar-fast-cheating.) Anxiety does that though; it wears you out so that you can barely move to make a positive change. I considered napping. I checked my e-mail. I found a project that needed revising, so I worked on that and re-submitted it a few hours later. Gradually, I was able to convince myself to work out, so I looked up an abdominal workout online with a difficulty level of three, and I kicked the shit out of my core, because I was so terribly naughty with the European chocolate.
As I write this, I’ve paused to stand up and throw the rest of the box into the freezer. No more indulging until Sunday. It’s common knowledge that God forgives calories on His Day.
As I near the end of my night — it’s definitely an early bedtime kind of night — I am too tired to come up with solutions for my city anxiety. How will I cope in my own city when I return to the chaos of major human population? If I was going home to New York I would be slitting my wrists in the shower stall by now. I’ve become completely susceptible to the world.
The one shining beacon at the end of my dark tunnel of pending unemployment in Olga’s Real Life: I don’t have to talk to anyone. I can hole up in my flat and work on art projects. I can sing. I can run. Or I can be perfectly still.
Tomorrow I’ll devise a survival plan/coping mechanism/to-do list. Tonight, I make a cup of lavender white tea and finish my May issue of Vogue. Tonight I feel sorry for myself. Tomorrow I’ll try to fix it.
Today, with some level of minor panic, I came to realise that next week is my last week in residence. I fly out on the following Tuesday, giving me a few days to tie up loose ends, go to the pubs, and say my goodbyes. (Just typing that word put a lump in my throat.) With a sense of urgency and inspiration, after spending a week ruminating, I flew into the studio this morning and accomplished a self-portrait. Generally, I’ve decided to take my own (and others’) advice and mostly avoid discussing my work when I’m in process, but I can talk a little about the things I’ve been thinking about, and what led to making this work.
Since last weekend in Limerick, I’ve been actively thinking about self-portraiture and its implications. Five years ago, in this place, my entire body of work surrounded this concept I came up with, of being this delirious character who thought she was turning into a bird. All of my work was avian, with self-portraiture woven into most of it. I thought, earlier last week, that perhaps it was time to do a proper self-portrait, right after I made the double-self portrait with competing animal natures as my shadows. (As you can tell, none of the works I’ve made have titles yet. That’ll come later.) But for some reason I felt like it would be a regression — how could I return to this beautiful place that gives me such inspiration, just to do the same exact work as before? What a waste that would be.
After viewing the show about artists’ responses to self-portraits in Limerick, I felt encouraged to continue in that vein. I thought about it for a long time — obviously, throughout art history, people have been making self-portraits. All of your famous artists have them; some made a whole career of being autobiographical (see: Frida Kahlo). I wondered what it was I had to say with mine.
As always, I was over-thinking it, drowning my intuition and inspiration in a sea of doubt and fear. Cue my life.
Once I forgot about thinking what meaning it would have, the ideas flowed again. More animal shadows? Straight-forward? Nude? And then I was thinking about what a self-portrait captures: a moment in time. A speck of your life that is unique in that moment, and will never, ever be the same exact moment, even half an hour later. People are always saying, “You look so different in all of your photographs!” In fits of vanity (and/or crippling self-loathing), when I look through photos of myself over time, I am often surprised that sometimes I don’t recognise myself. Other times, I am pleased to see that a photo captured me accurately. And more often than not, I cringe at the very same thing — a photo has captured me too well; this is the aspect of myself I dislike; I don’t want anyone to see me like this.
I took a bunch of photos this morning, trying to capture different facets of myself, and on campus, I printed them all out, leading to the work you (sort of) see here. Just an experiment, really, but I’m generally happy with it. I’m sure it will morph into something else conceptually as I think more about it. My musings here on self-portraiture are not what I would call my most eloquent, but bear with me as I use this blog as a doodle pad, in order to flesh out my thoughts. I’m actually eager to hear what other artists think of when they do self-portraits.
On one of Kate’s last nights here, Kate and Victoria and I had a really stimulating conversation about art in O’Loclainn’s pub, during which we discussed the merit of autobiographical work. As always, we referred back to our own work as a point of reference. Victoria stated confidently that even though she was photographing other people, all of her work was autobiographical. I had to agree for myself as well, and as we sat, alternately talking and musing into our wine glasses, I thought about that concept.
“Can art be un-autobiographical?” I asked.
For myself, at least, my work has always been autobiographical, self-referential, personal, emotional. My personal challenge is determining whether the kinds of things I experience and endure and subsequently depict in my work are universal enough, or at least empathetic enough, that a wider audience who doesn’t know me can be intrigued and moved by it. Since I’ve come here, I’ve conjured up the word “haunted” as the go-to for what I want my work to do. It may not sound like much, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a stated purpose in what I hope to achieve in the mind and eye of my viewer. I decided, week one, after looking at the swell of work I had created in my first few days, I want people to be haunted by this. That is my personal mark of success.
I’m sure grad school will want more than that, but I’ll have time to expand on that later. At the root of my feeling, that is the goal.
In real-world news, I’ve completely run out of money for art supplies, so I’m borrowing (read: not returning) bed sheets and scraps of fabric and using those to make work. I will probably have to shell out for a tub of gesso, though, because there’s really no effective way to manipulate dry media on a tacked-up sheet; at least, not in the way I’d like. This last piece was made on a thin fitted mattress sheet, which is kind of ironic because when I come home, I have this idea to work strictly on bed clothes. Fortunately, I have an abundance of ink and charcoal so it’s only a matter of finding a surface to work on that’s been hindering me. I should really call this last series The Gift of the Magi.
Oh, and my week as a performance artist? You can see that here, and here. There’s one more to go, but I have to work up the nerve to do it. Stay tuned.
The countdown starts here: eight days until the end of my residency.
On Friday night, my lady love, Xenia, arrived in Ireland for the last leg of a tour of Europe. We had dinner and a drink, staying pretty tame for a Friday. I took her to the whiskey bar, where we had Irish coffees and she regaled me with tales from Paris and Barcelona. It felt so strange that it didn’t feel strange at ALL having her here, since our only context of each other is home (Pittsburgh).
SATURDAY
We met first thing in the morning, Xenia and I, and decided to drive to Limerick in her rented car.
For me, Limerick has its own set of mixed memories, mostly happy ones, for the last time I spent weekends there was while I was dating Julien. In the States, those stories start as, “My Irish boyfriend…” I’ve always adored Limerick. It makes me think of an Irish version of Pittsburgh — low-key, not covered in or catering to tourists, a little bit gritty, with the River Shannon running through it in lieu of my Three Rivers. It’s also just about as rainy and foggy as what a Pittsburgher is used to.
We decided to go see the Limerick City Gallery of Art first, which is a great little space, and is currently showing a “responding to” show: fourteen artists look through the archives of the gallery, in this case specifically self-portraits, and respond to them in their own work. The place was covered in artist’s statements, each of which I took the time to read.
It’s kind of a funny bit of synchronicity that this type of show would be up, as just earlier in the week, I had been lamenting my desire to return to self-portraiture, thinking, What am I on about? All I did five years ago when I was at Burren College was self-portraiture; this would just be a return to the same stage I’ve already passed. I was concerned about regression, particularly during a moment in this residency where I felt tapped out on what I had been doing for the first six weeks. This show, however, reignited my spark for self-portrait, and I realised something that seems so obvious now: self-portrait is never a regression because you’re never the same person twice. It captures the current stage of your internal world, your outward appearance, and your artistic skill set.
Feeling revived artistically, we walked to the Milk Market, which has been in existence in one form or another since the 1840’s. Food markets and bazaars are one of my greatest loves. Even before we walked into the covered square, I could smell a mix of bread baking, fresh vegetables and fruits, and the aroma of meat cooking on an open grill; coupled with this were the sounds of people hawking their products, the din of hundreds of conversations going on at once, and weaving through it, the intermittent music of an Irish flute and a hand drum. I almost forgot myself as we perused stands of apples, rhubarb, and cabbage, tables sampling jams, relishes, and chutneys, a fresh hot dog vendor (that is to say, the hot dogs were fresh, not the vendor) with a queue slowly forming at the grill, and then we were stood between a table boasting a handsome variety of cheeses and a stand selling handmade soaps and essential oils. The mix of smells was at once jarring and pleasant.
Xenia and I got caught up at a charcuterie, with a handsome guy with a blonde ponytail, who flirted with us by offering us multiple cured meat samples. We walked away with smoked mackerel, seaweed salami, and Irish chorizo, as well as a link to his blog — he was an artist studying in the city at the moment.
Then, the cheese counter. I think, no matter where I am in the world, if I can find a suitable cheese counter, my quality of life is immediately improved. No matter the ills of the world: war, famine, strife, arguments with loved ones, lost personal items — all of these, I’m convinced, can be solved with a brilliant smoked gouda, sharp cheddar, or a particularly complex edam. The smoothness of Irish sheep’s cheese and the bitey, gamey aspects of Stilton bleu pair effortlessly with green apple and walnuts and lead to nothing less than an all-day glow on my face.
In reverie, I wandered up and down every aisle of tables and stands. At a fish counter, I watched a large haddock effortlessly gutted and filleted, experienced quince jam for the first time at a lively nut and dried fruit stand, observed a goat with a red dog collar lurch forward for a bit of parsley from his owner’s hand as children looked on, giggling. For lunch, we broke our anti-hot-dog views for a real hot dog served in a natural Italian bun; sampled and then bought whisky marmalade; and I fell over myself when I discovered a round table selling nothing but pickled herring in a variety of flavours. Needless to say, I went home with a tub of that as well.
On the way out of the Milk Market, as Xenia and I recounted every counter we had stopped at, we were amused that we had not come across any actual milk. Then, just outside the square, on the wet, rainy pavement, we found a small white river that flowed between the cobblestones. Spilled milk.
Our experience was complete, sans tears.
In the afternoon, we drove to Bunratty, a place just outside of Limerick with a famously well-preserved castle boasting hundreds of tours through both the castle and the “grounds,” a folk village preserved to give one a taste of local life hundreds of years ago. We traipsed up and down the stairs of the castle, which was bustling with a brazen Spanish touring group, as well as a few Germans dotted here and there. Most of our tour of carvings, tapestries, and murder holes consisted of running desperately away from the Spanish and pretending we weren’t American when an obnoxious exchange occurred with two whining children and their reprimanding mother. It’s very hard to pretend not to listen to an awkward family dispute when you’re jammed between a wall and a barred-off bedroom at the top of a spiral staircase, with five other people you don’t know crammed around you.
Though the castle was really quite lovely, and we experienced a spectacular view of the river and the land surrounding it, we were eager to get out into the folk village and tour the little houses on the property. I heard my first Cork accent in real, actual life: a man explaining to his son how dwellers of a tiny cottage would pull a ladder over to the loft to turn in at night. It was sing-song and lovely, made even better by the fact that he was speaking to his young child and therefore was more gentle in his tone. I don’t know why other Irish tease Cork for its accent; I think the song and cadence is immensely lovable.
In the village I nearly wet myself with joy: a buttercup-covered field was inhabited by two Shetland miniature ponies. Xenia could barely pull me away. Then we followed signs to the piggery, which boasted one large, handsome, ginger pig with pointed, dog-like ears and a long curled tail. It was Xenia’s turn to squeal with joy, which made me feel considerably less silly (as though I’ve ever cared about that sort of thing when it comes to animals).
In a separate coop, apart from other chickens and roosters, sat a little orange hen with her chicks. She was huddled, we at first thought, from the cold, but as we watched her closely, a little black eye appeared under her wing. Slowly, we could make out a tiny beak as well. As we realised she had tucked a baby under her wing, another one emerged from her other wing. Xenia and I agreed we had never seen anything like it.
By the time we were ready to go, the soft day had turned even softer, with the misty drizzle of rain turning from intermittent to constant. We were both tired and ready to catch a bite to eat on our way home. I had been a faithful driving assistant on the way there, making sense of the Hertz rental car map to move from country roads to motorway to get us into the city. On the way back, I rattled some quick instruction off to Xenia and promptly fell asleep.
When I woke up, Xenia pulled off onto the side of the road. “What’s up?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said.. “I think I missed the turn I needed. We’re in Galway County.”
“WHAT!” I was suddenly wide awake. “Right. Let me figure this out.” I studied the map, instructed her to get back onto the road, worked out an action plan — “We’ll take this road to this road; it’ll be a right turn; then, after we hit such and such village, there should be signs for this road.” A conversation like that happened every half hour, as our drive back home became riddled with inconsistencies on the roads, country and side roads that weren’t indicated on the inferior Hertz map, which only showed the big picture, and every time I thought we were going west, we were actually going north, or south, until I completely lost my sense of spacial reasoning.
I began to have a small fight with my Ego. I know how to read a map. I haven’t owned a GPS device for that long back home, and due to the weird, hilly pockets lacking service in the Pennsylvania woods, I generally almost never rely on it, preferring instead to consult a map. I can get myself out of any bizarre side-road country mess by studying a map for five minutes and coming up with a list of directions for myself. My father taught me how to read maps when I was nine and I have fared well enough to be able to brag about it. I am so proudly analog that my future children will know how to read a map, damn it, if I have any say about it.
We must have been on the road for over two hours; certainly twice as long as it should have taken us. Finally, we followed signs to The Burren, which led us to signs toward Ballyvaughan. I stared at the map until it began to make sense again. “Aha! So if we followed this road,” I began, “It must be at this intersection on the map that we turned.” Finally, I was sure where we were. We turned left toward the village and we could see the coast. Everything was making sense, as I finally recognised my surroundings. Until this moment: “Wait… how is the ocean on our RIGHT?” I had been convinced we were moving east. It turned out I was completely wrong. I looked at Xenia. She looked at me. I threw up my hands and tossed the map onto the dashboard. She burst out laughing. “Right. FINE. You win, Ireland,” I said, too tired to be upset anymore.
That evening, after our Narnia-like experience on the winding roads of Ireland, we were definitely due for drinks. We headed out with Juddy and Dominic, and I had way too many drinks (and by this I mean, because I’ve been on an insane workout and diet kick for the last week and a half, I had three glasses of wine — one sheet for each drink, if you get me), until we went round in our circle, singing songs. I belted out Regina Spektor and Xenia did a lovely rendition of a jazz song I didn’t know. From what I was told in the morning, I did stay in key, so I wasn’t too drunk to be good, thank God.
SUNDAY
After a lovely breakfast of cheeses, meats, pickled herring, tea and coffee, Juddy had offered to take me and Xenia out on a sea-side walk, as Xenia was unsure what to do and the boat tour of the Cliffs seemed too expensive for our skint financial state. We suited up for another soft day and drove down to Doolin. Our walk took nearly five hours, and as we walked along the shore we watched the seaside landscape change from smooth stone beaches to enormous limestone pavements, and steps that looked as though they were carved by giants hundreds of years ago. In several places I lost myself as I was pulled to high rocks to watch the sea swell and undulate before curling into a perfect blue foam wave and beat relentlessly against the black cliffs of the shore. My heart pounded nearly out of my chest in fear and exhilaration, the way I’ve felt only when I’ve been faced with divine visions.
You can hear God in a place like this. In the city, the static of living drowns out the sound. Part of what makes this place so meaningful to me is that here, I never lose track of who I am and my connection with the universe.
We ambled up and down the hills, nearing the shore and making our way away from it through fields of high grass and hundreds-year-old stone boundary walls. At one point, we came across a nearly full skeleton of a feral goat. When I lived here five years ago, one of my missions was to find an animal skull to take home with me. I had been told that feral goats lived in the mountains, so I climbed Cappanawalla on my own and walked across ghostly peaks of loose limestone, which rattled like bones under my feet. It was an amazing experience, but I came across no animal, living or dead. Admitting defeat, I went home that May with no bones. This time round, I’ve found a brilliant skull. I’m in the process of soaking it in bleach water. Hopefully it will ship home with no problem. (My parents are going to think I’m such a weirdo. However, I suppose if they don’t know me by now, there’s really no excuse.)
We came across so many snails, walking, as well! We decided to have a bit of fun and put a bunch of them in a row and place gentleman’s bets on who the winner of the snail race would be. “I suppose this is what people do without internet, huh?” I said to Xenia and Michael.
“Look! Mine is kicking ass!” responded Xenia.
We discovered a few sea caves with Juddy’s help, all with their own names. Mermaids is a little semi-circular groove cut out of the cliff of the shore, with platforms and rocks jutting from the mini-bay it forms, not unlike a place where mermaids would hang out and compare sailor-drowning notes. It’s lovely and inviting, but also kind of haunting, like someone was just there before you stepped down from the shore into it.
Hell was a beautiful one — a giant chasm in the raised platform shoreline, about ten or twelve feet long and four feet wide, with a twenty-foot drop into it. Looking directly into it, you can see the white foaming ocean water rush into it, hold, then rush back out, revealing angled rectangular rocks, like pillars from an ancient structure, coated in slippery pink algae. Further along, I discovered a point where you can stand on the pavement and beneath your feet, it sounds like the massive hull of a subterranean ship, with water knocking about in the empty spaces, now and then a wave breaking inside of it, causing a deep rumble. You can feel it in your feet, and then in each and every one of your bones. It was one of the single most exhilarating moments of my life, to stand there and listen. A part of the rock has a crack through it that’s called the Blowhole. If you place your hand against it the feeling convinces you that the stone is a massive creature, sucking in and blowing out a warm breath.
After hours of walking, with a short picnic break in between, we were exhausted, but seeing that Xenia was to leave on Monday morning, we decided she needed to experience a 99 before she left. We stopped at a shop in Fanore and I got all three of us one.
A 99 is a soft-serve vanilla ice cream in a waffle cone with a “flake,” or long rectangular chunk of chocolate, tucked into it. There is a debate about why it’s called a 99. Some people say it used to cost 99 pence, before inflation made it a Euro forty. Others say the flakes come in packs of 99 in the box, giving it its name. There is no real confirmation, however, and I find it’s a fun and lively conversation to strike up with shop owners and others enjoying a cone.
Every person has their own way of enjoying the flake, too: some sink it deep into the cone so that they can experience it until the ice cream is spent, others pull it out and use it as a scoop. I just let it jut out and eat round it before growing impatient and biting off a hunk of it in order to enjoy the chocolate taste.
All in all, it was the perfect end to a day of adventuring. I’m glad Xenia stopped by on her way home to the States; it was one of the best weekends I’ve experienced since arriving.
[“Will we have another snail race?” asks Xenia. “Actually, I kind of want to re-enact the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene here,” I reply.]
[Two classy motherfuckers outside of a smoke shop in Limerick. Here, Xenia holds an imaginary teacup as proof of said class.]
[Throwing shapes; making important faces: Brindy and Juddy.]
Once upon a time there was a girl with a hundred thousand things to say. She tried first to stay quiet and talk to the sky and the trees instead of with others. Then, in her teens, the words came rushing out like a torrent which raged for six years. And one day she began to understand how to balance the words with patches of silence. And the struggle maintains to the day.
A picture is worth a thousand words, they tell you, a familiar cliche plucked from earliest memory. When did words begin to fail us; words, which made so much sense up to now? Really they’re just symbols, aren’t they, for the things we fail to grasp fully. So we whittle it down with language, fitting things that are too unruly for yokes and stables, once broken into letters, neatly into pens.
And my pictures tell you everything and they tell you nothing. I stand in a crooked hallway and think about the space that I occupy in the universe. Or maybe I’m just documenting my moments, choosing carefully what I’d like to remember thirty years from now. Maybe I’ll have a child to remember with me. Maybe I won’t. You can’t really choose your memories, though, whether or not you take a photograph. I’ll never forget watching my father cry in a Soviet graveyard. I’ll remember forever the sound of Tibetan instruments echoing through a Himalayan valley at ten thousand feet.
We are bound by our memories. They shape us, they give us sadness and joy, they imbue objects and spaces with meaning, and make a mere glimpse or a scent on the breeze cause for anguish or laughter. Take a picture. It doesn’t matter. It’s with you anyway.
Three years ago, I had my first proper solo show. It was called On The Threshold (you can see images of it on my website, under Shows), and I explored the in-between spaces of dream, sleep, and death. There was a series in it called Little Deaths. That summer, Habibi, my six-pound terror-cat, brought me a fresh kill at least three or four times a week. Not really knowing why, I began documenting them. They were almost invariably birds, though every once in a while I’d get a shrew, a few field mice; once, a pile of large moths.
It was only after the show opened and friends of the family, who had known me since I had emigrated to the States, approached me to offer their sympathy, that I realised fully what the show was: I had put the grieving of my mother’s terminal diagnosis on display.
When she was diagnosed, I stopped eating and began to sleep eleven, twelve, sometimes fourteen hours a night. A month or two later, concerned over my severe fatigue, which WebMD had diagnosed as HIV (cue a horrid panic attack on my bed with my laptop), I went to the doctor and discovered my thyroid had suddenly become slow. With low doses of synthroid, I gradually brought it back up to normal, but during those months I slipped into states of deep sleep, where I dreamed vividly and vibrantly almost every single night.
I’ve had vivid dreams since I was very small (I still have clear memories of complicated dreams I experienced as early as four or five years old), but they never came in such frequency. And they were brilliant, these dreams: each one more beautiful than the last. Prehistoric horses began to pay me visits, with rudimentary three-toed hooves and dark brown stripes on their backs. Their large, donkey-like heads pressed close to my face and their gentle black eyes gazed right through me.
Other nights I had strong recollections of past lives. I had a recurring dream that took different shapes, wherein I had had two children that had died in a fire of some kind. I cried over their small, doll-sized bodies as I buried them in sand in a ruined greenhouse; it was on a Victorian estate. There was a cruel, cold man who owned the property; he was related to me and the children were born of incest. Another night, I dreamed that I had had a baby who died, and it was a rainy day in the city as I walked to a bus stop, crying. My old friend Jason was at the corner, and he brushed off my sadness like it was nothing important.
Both of those times I woke up crying, and walked around in a catatonic state for half the day.
Occasionally I woke up sure I had seen into someone else’s life; someone I didn’t know and would probably never know. I dreamed once that I was an opera singer, young and beautiful, with long, curly red hair. Me and my choir were traveling different cities, and on this occasion, all slept in one room on the floor. I got up in the middle of the night and found a pair of scissors. I flicked on the bathroom light and began to chop at my hair, the locks filling the sink. One of the choir members woke; he shouted at me to stop, as others began to wake. “What are you doing?” he shouted, “Your beautiful hair!”
“I don’t want to be known for my hair! None of you know who I am; all you see is my beauty and I can’t live like this anymore,” I shouted back, enraged. After that I woke, my hands in fists gripping the blanket.
I spent so much time in hospitals that year; I would put on a brave face and come in to see my mother, inevitably start crying, and eventually pull myself together to have a conversation, just in time for my mother to receive her dose of morphine, after which she would send me away, knowing she would drift quickly off to sleep. I would traverse the labyrinth halls of Jefferson Hills Hospital or Magee Women’s, wherever she happened to be at the time, and at the parking lot I would crumple into my lap and cry into my elbows.
But at night — at night I went so far away. I sat in a moonlit room, as a jackal and a lion silently padded in and lay on either side of me. I drove through empty, snowy streets to find herds of horses downtown, waiting quietly for me. I had holy visions, once or twice. My dreams protected me and provided padding for the reality that faced me when I woke. Of course my work reflected that; how could it not?
And in fact, that first solo show was my first foray in conceptual work. Prior to that, having spent four years in a conceptually-based art school, I never had anything to say. I lived for beauty; I still do. I thought my duty as an artist was to show beauty. But back then there was no substance. I could never fully commit to being a student, as I had to work to support myself. My saving grace and the reason I was able to develop a portfolio at all was that I worked exceptionally fast, and I continue to work at a frenetic pace today. But I digested slowly — when I received feedback or criticism, I wrote it down, I thought on it, I tried to find a way to react quickly to it, but it was like my brain was filled with molasses. I could only fully internalise and put into practice the feedback I was given months after the semester was over and the grade had been given. I spent four years trying to figure out what the administration and the faculty wanted to hear, worried that what I actually said wouldn’t be good enough.
Then my mother got sick, and suddenly I was struck with the most difficult thing I’ve ever faced. I had something to say. I just didn’t say it with my intellect. I didn’t even realise I was saying it until it was out on paper and became its own show, a full-fledged body of work.
Now my work is a continuation of those themes I started three years ago; the problem is, because I’m in the midst of it, its hard for me to talk about it, much less write about it. I only now understand that the growling dogs I dreamed of were the Welsh hounds of the hunt, a sign of ill portent. The reason I dreamed of them is the same reason I drew dead birds: it’s how I face the idea of mortality, of impending expiration. The strange thing is, in my dreams I’m always alert but never terrified of them. And now they knock about in the dark as I’m going to sleep, and since, in the words of my friend Sam, they seem to “just wanna nuzzle,” I tell them to behave and fall asleep easily. I could argue that this is me coming to terms with death, making it a fellow traveler I can play chess with, not to run away from through the countryside (thank you, Bergman). But how do I write about that and make it important to a graduate admissions panel? How am I reinventing my medium or making my mark in the greater context of contemporary art and art history? I don’t want to bullshit and lie anymore, I don’t want to trump up my words and phrasing so I can sound like my work is more important than it is. It’s important to me. It’s important to people who look at it and are moved by it.
I just know I want to be sincere.
I got an early start this morning with my 7 am jog, followed by a half-hearted breakfast. I simply didn’t have much of an appetite, what with all the anxiety and frustration that’s nearly consumed me lately. On the upside I didn’t feel nearly as dreadful about a day in the studio as I did at the outset of yesterday. Lucky, my yellow lab friend, walked me up to the school and then proceeded to spend some time with me in the courtyard before I bought materials and started working.
Yesterday, Tim Jones told me my work was too illustrative. I’m sure I’m oversimplifying the criticism, but he basically told me he’d love it if I returned to my love of the medium — the gestural qualities of charcoal in all its forms and the painterly expressiveness of ink are two facets of my love affair with the material, but I guess I have been taking a little too much control.
So I tried to give up control today. I really did. I was going to post some of wolves I drew today — I did a total of four, spending my entire morning wholeheartedly throwing myself into the medium — but they’re B- work and thus far I’ve only made A+ work, and frankly, I’m a little embarrassed.
Truly, I believe that making bad work is all part of the process of making good work. I really do. Did I share this already? It’s an Ira Glass quote and I think it’s wonderful (forgive the errors; I didn’t make this graphic but it’s easier to post this than to retype the entire thing):
Put simply, the good stuff is buried at the bottom of your brain-pile. You gotta keep sifting through the pile — making mediocre work — in order to get to the brilliance that’s hiding there, just out of sight. Just keep going.
Though I really must admit, I HATE these kinds of days. I’ve been spoiled by my recent successes in the studio. I’m honestly proud of the work I’ve been doing, and even when I look back at some things and at the moment I’m not sure where they fit, thematically, at least visually it’s work on which to hang my hat. It’s work to build on, and that’s a good thing. Also, even when I’ve had a rough start in this studio, I’ve always managed to pull it out by the end of the day. Today was not one of those days. I fought and fought and it just wasn’t happening.
Which is why I ended up saying hang it all and going to the beach in Fanore. It’s also where I made this, just as the tide was coming in:
Friend Michael built himself a fortress. “Look at this,” he said. “I’m taking the day off from being a builder, and what do I do? I build something.”
“Look at me,” I said without missing a beat. “I’m playing hooky from my studio for the afternoon and I’m making art.”
Once the tide came in, quickly, I may add, Michael insisted on going down with his ship.
After that we laid out for a bit and went home. God, it feels good to get sun here. And the nice thing is, the ozone layer hasn’t been completely raped by man in this part of the world, so I didn’t even burn. But I won’t be that naive next time. I’m investing in some sunscreen in short order. It’s just …. gosh, I mean, I would have packed it if I thought the sun would pay me a visit while I was here. Ireland, you tricky girl. I’m onto you.
I’ll hit the studio on Sunday. I’m sure this block will work itself out. I just have to stop thinking, for once. How did I manage to do this in my first five weeks? I’m back at square one and I hardly know how it happened. But making art is accepting defeat, I guess. It’s the most difficult and the most rewarding lover you’ll ever have. The fights have to happen if you want to make up sweetly.
I had my first criticism today, and I hated the feeling. I’m out of practice, you see — eight years in art school (high school and university) with a four year break since the last time I stood in a classroom and got ripped to shreds. It’s character-building, they tell you. You have to have your work ripped apart so you know you’re tough enough to make it. I don’t know, friends. I think I’ll always be sensitive. And I’ve finally made peace with that. It is my identity, to feel.
I took the criticism, and it stung, the way it stings if you haven’t been pricked by a bramble-bush in a while, and the shock of the sharpness and, imagine, the very boldness of that fucking bush! and you’re left bleeding and a little depressed. You may even indulge in a bit of self-pity, maybe you’ll walk home more slowly, or cry out a little more loudly when it happens, you’ll tell someone about it so they can fuss over you. And in a week, maybe two, you’ll be out on the same path and another bush will prick you, and you’ll be annoyed, but you’ll have been prepared for it, mentally. Even if you didn’t leave the house thinking, “Today I may run into a bush and cut myself again,” the experience you had recently has subconsciously steeled you for the next time. And that’s what it all boils down to, for me. Steeling myself against it.
I want to go to grad school, don’t I? And if I don’t learn to talk about my work and defend my work verbally, they’ll cut me down until there’s nothing left. I’m the king of my castle when it comes to managing a store, developing people. I am so much confidence and brazenness and alpha. Grad school is just business; just more of the same but with better vocabulary. Even if my work is intensely personal and introspective and autobiographical, it’s just words, right? There will be those who are constructive and there will be bullies. And I’ve had my fair share of both.
I finished a drawing today and had it panned as illustrative. Well, no. Maybe it wasn’t panned; truly, I’m being too sensitive. (So it begins!) But Tim made a reference to De Kooning’s “Women” series. De Kooning really loved the physicality of the paint. I should be doing the same with my charcoal, with my ink. I thought to myself, I’ve finally done it: I am such a control freak that I’ve learned to harness a medium that is largely water. For fuck’s sake.
And the worst part is, I’m out of ideas as of today. I kind of dreaded walking to the studio this morning because this drawing was such a struggle in its first few hours yesterday that I contemplated starting over. I made it work today, though. I was very happy with it. I guess I still am happy with it, I just want to go back to the studio and keep going with my next endeavour. But I have to wait until tomorrow to buy more material, and I’m physically exhausted already, even though my mind will absolutely not stop buzzing, despite my most desperate pleas.
I have so much on my mind, in fact, that I’m starting to have trouble falling to sleep at night, something that normally never bothers me. I ran for the first time in several months yesterday evening, and I ran again this morning before studio. If anything will clear my mind and force me into self-discipline on a creative level (get into your fucking studio, Olga, and stay there — I was good about that today though, with over six productive hours), it will be running.
The running started because I am actually horrified at how much I’ve let my body go. Since last night I’ve given myself a very strict set of rules for the food I eat, and my daily workout. From now until the end of June, I will be running down to the coast road and back, at minimum, every day (that’s about two miles). Then I will do 150 crunches or equivalent. For me, that basically means any set of reps that require core work: obliques, deep core muscles, lower abs, upper abs, and so forth. In order to keep myself motivated, I’m also taking a photograph of my torso in the mirror every single day until I’m happy with what I see. No denying a photograph, right? Especially since the camera adds ten pounds, which ensures I’ll be extra mean to myself about it.
I’ll be honest with you: I already miss chocolate so goddamn bad.
I’m coming into the home stretch now, rounding the bend of my last three weeks in the studio proper (my residency ends on Saturday the 29th; I fly out on Tuesday the 2nd). I need to make it count, so I need to find ways to hold myself accountable. Tomorrow I’ll buy a giant stretch of canvas (I’m thinking ten feet) and prime it. I’ll also buy six or seven sheets of large heavy paper and get some really expressive drawings in. How do I make my large, “finished” work as energetic and medium-adoring as my sketches? I can’t believe I’m dealing with the same dilemma I dealt with eight years ago. It’s a little embarrassing, if I’m honest. Maybe a lot embarrassing. Even though this is irrational, it makes me feel like my work hasn’t improved at all in the last eight years.
I’ll stop here before this turns into more of a self-deprecating entry than I intended. More updates tomorrow on social life in the village, creative work at home, and maybe, just for fun, a list of all the things I fell in love with since I got here. The night is mine to relax into now.
Some recent pages from my sketchbook.
People/portraits
Animals
Things I made up
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