Post Sabbatical Journal

HOME STUDIO: SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2009

Complete Pencil Rough Layout of "The Rynn Shoreline"

Above is the completed compositional pencil rough done on layout paper for the new piece that is now referred to as “The Rynn Shoreline”. Yesterday I was able to complete this and start on the final drawing. The final drawing is being drawn on heavier drawing paper and shows more detail than this rough version. If you look closely at the image above you will be able to see where I had to “tape” two pieces of layout paper together in order to draw the pencil rough in the correct format. Today I will continue to work on the final version.

How the compositional rough looked on Saturday morning.

Post Sabbatical Journal

HOME STUDIO: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2009

In-progress study of the shoreline of The Rynn.

Detail of the study.

 

Shoreline of The Rynn

I’ve been able to get back in the studio to start on a new landscape. The subject is The Rynn which is a section of the Galway Bay shoreline southwest of Ballyvaughan. I have spent countless hours walking this shoreline, sitting on its limestone pavement and wading in its warm shallows when the tide is in.

I’m currently working on rough drawings to develop the composition and fine tune the value distribution. I hope to do 3 or 4  shoreline drawings and digital paintings of this area of County Clare.

It is hard to find the words to describe the beauty and peacefulness of this landscape and its shoreline. During my first few visits to the Burren I often walked by the narrow road that lead to The Rynn on the way to Gleninagh. In my mind it was like “the road not taken” – it was like I was saving the experience of this place for later  ”for a special time”. During my visit to the Burren in 2006 I visited here for the first time. The Midwest Institute students had left Ireland and I was staying on in Ballyvaughan alone for a week waiting for my husband and our friends, Joanie and Phil Carey to join me. We were going to stay in Ballyvaughan for another week and then drive along the southern coast of Ireland and up into Wicklow. We were to end our journey in Dublin. Below are two of my journal entries about visits to The Rynn during that time:

Tuesday, June 6, 2006

. . . I headed back on the path to the coastal road. The sun was quite hot – so to cool myself off I rolled up the legs of my jeans. There was a nice breeze from the sea that also helped to keep me cool on the road. I stopped for a few minutes at the Pinnacle Well and climbed down to cool off my hands.

I continued down the road a bit to the narrow road that lead to The Rynn, climbed over the stile and walked the dirt road down to the shore. I came upon a dune area with dune grasses and a sandy shoreline. To my left were piles of bleached boulders that had been thrown there by the sea. To my right was a dune peninsula with bleached boulders and limestone pavement reaching down into the sea. The shoreline startled me for it resembled a place in a reaccurring dream that I have.

I took my hiking boots and socks off and walked the wet sandy shoreline and waded in the incoming tide. The water was warm enough to be comfortable but cool enough to be refreshing. I had a sense of being welcomed by this place. There were cattle and a horse grazing on the peninsula. They raised their heads when I first arrived but gave me no other notice during my stay.

 

Friday, June 16, 2006

We had our last dinner in Ballyvaughan at Monks with a large table at a window overlooking the sea. It was a beautiful evening with a still sea. We ended the night with a car ride to The Rynn. Les parked the car on the side of the coastal road, we climbed over the stile and walked the dirt road to the sea. It was so quiet there – we walked the sandy top of the dunes out on the thin peninsula. We then climbed down on the rocks on the shoreline. Joanie and I enjoyed the beauty by sitting on the rocks and watching the sea water gently move over the shoreline stones. We stayed there until night fell.

Post Sabbatical Journal

HOME STUDIO: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2009

 

 

Sabbatical Exhibit Drawings CNM's Lower South Gallery

 

Sabbatical Exhibit

The opening reception of my Sabbatical Exhibit was Friday, October 2, 2009 in the Center for New Media’s “Lower South Gallery” and “Arcus Gallery” at Kalamazoo Valley Community College’s Arcadia Commons Campus. The exhibit opening ran from  5:30 p.m. to  8:30 p.m.

The opening was well attended – partly due to the fact that it was on the schedule of the Art Council of Greater Kalamazoo’s extended Art Hop. Rain was predicted but it turned out to be a beautiful autumn evening with only a slight misty rain falling occasionally.

Many of the visitor’s were interested in the process of the artwork creation and others asked whether the artwork was for sale. I have addressed the selling of the artwork by the addition of a page to this blog: Artwork Purchase Information.

The two galleries were continually busy from 5:30 until 8:00 when the traffic started slowing down a bit. Susan and Caitlin Brooks provided the musical entertainment in the Lower South Gallery  from 7:00 until 8:30. We closed the doors at 8:30 and looked for a place to have dinner. Friends, Joanie and Phil Carey joined Les and I, and Susan, Caitlin and Tom Brooks at Ouzos for dinner and beverages. I had been so busy preparing for the opening exhibit I had only been able to scarf down a small bag of potato chips earlier in the day, so by 9:00 p.m. I was very hungry.

Ouzos proved to be the right place to end the evening. A relaxing, friendly atmosphere, good friends, good food, and wonderful conversation. We left near to 11:00 p.m. – a very light mist was falling – perfect Irish weather in Kalamazoo.

Closer view of drawings

Five of the nine digital paintings in CNM’s South Gallery

The drawings “An Rath” and “Witnesses Suddenly Wait”

Posing for the camera with some of the digital painting work.

With “Gorse Before Cappanawalla”

Leszek Rzoska in the South Gallery at CNM

Exhibit View in Arcus Gallery at CNM - Photo 1

Exhibit View in Arcus Gallery at CNM - Photo 2

Exhibit View in Arcus Gallery at CNM - Photo 3

Exhibit View in Arcus Gallery at CNM - Photo 4

Exhibit View in Arcus Gallery at CNM - Photo 5

Exhibit View in Arcus Gallery at CNM - Photo 6

 

Post Sabbatical Journal

HOME STUDIO: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2009

I believe it is safe to say that now all my obligations regarding the outcomes of my sabbatical have been documented and presented. Last night, October 2, was the exhibit opening to showcase the work created and accomplished during my sabbatical leave as well as a display of some of the artwork shown in my solo shows in The Netherlands and Ireland. The exhibit is hanging in the Center for New Media’s “Lower South” gallery and its “Arcus” gallery. Besides the artwork displayed in the Arcus gallery there are six movies showing on the plasma screens that I created. These were put together to document and present the objectives, outcomes, activities and processes of my sabbatical.

Today, I have added a new category to the blog “Post Sabbatical Journal”. I intend to continue using this blog to record, document and display my ongoing work and study of the subjects, themes and philosophy that was my focus during the sabbatical leave. I truly believe that doing this will help me stay in touch with what I was able to discover and fully realize while living and working on the west coast of Ireland this last spring.

Preparing for Sabbatical Exhibit

HOME STUDIO: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2009

Vistaprint to the Rescue

My 500 Shutterfly prints of my exhibit invitation/information card arrived on Wednesday of this week and although the image of the artwork looked great, the printing of the text was totally unacceptable. Thursday, I was told by my colleague, Aubrey Hardaway, that she has used Vistaprint and she has been very happy with the results. So I spent a couple of hours redesigning the card to match the Vistaprint specs and uploaded the file. I had to pay extra to expedite the shipping so they would arrive in a timely fashion.

 

Front and Back of my Vistaprint invitation/information card

I ordered more hanging hardware – and was concerned when there was no choice to expedite the shipping. If the hardware doesn’t arrive on time I may look for a local source in Kalamazoo. When I was in The Netherlands I did find a brick and mortar retail outlet in Leeuwarden – so I figure that either “Hobby Lobby” or “Michaels”  should carry what I will need.

I spent most of Thursday evening formating the 30 + pieces of artwork to match the specs of Superior Imaging Services - they will be imaging the work for this exhibit. Friday at 1:00 p.m. I had completed the formating and started opening the files to check them over before burning them to CD’s for Superior. I was surprised to find that the files wouldn’t open – the error message stated that Photoshop could not parse the .eps files. Larry Sandt, a CNM IT specialist, looked into it for me – he found that CS4 can corrupt .eps files. So I had to start over, I re-formated all the artwork – this time I used Photoshop CS3 to be safe. Today I will go into CNM and burn the formated files to CD’s so the files can be delivered to Superior on Monday, September 28th.

This sabbatical exhibit will be in the south gallery and the Arcus gallery at the Center for New Media. The Arcus gallery has large format plasma screens to showcase artwork and its development. Today I will start working on creating After Effects movies for those screens. Fortunately, I don’t have to start from scratch – I can add to the movies I created for my Sabbatical Presentation that were shown to faculty during our Seminar Days.

 

Preparing for Sabbatical Exhibit

HOME STUDIO: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2009

 

Invitation/Information for my Sabbatical Exhibit

On Friday, October 2, 2009 my sabbatical exhibit will have its opening reception. The exhibit and reception will be at the Center for New Media’s “South Gallery” of Kalamazoo Valley Community College’s Arcadia Common’s Campus. The exhibit will run from October 2 through November 3, 2009.

I created the 4″ by 6″ invitation/information card by creating a .jpg image of the layout and then order 500 prints from Shutterfly.com at 15 cents a print.

This week I will schedule the imaging of the artwork for the exhibit. The company that imaged my artwork that I took to Europe for my shows there have, since, gone out of business. I need to find another source.  I, also, have to order more handing hardware. So much to do.

Journal Entry: Glenaraha Finishing Up

HOME STUDIO: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2009

 

 

I’m getting closer to having the drawing of the Glenaraha Guardian Tree complete. I have had to cut my studio time down even more – which allows for only a day and a half for studio work. The curriculum development and the writing of new course syllabi has taken up a lot of my time during the past two weeks. In order to finish this piece and finish a few more digital paintings for my sabbatical exhibit in October, I’ll have to start burning the “midnight oil”. I hope to have the drawing done and scanned by this afternoon – but I also have to make time to prep for my GRD 219 Portfolio Projects class that’s 9:00 am tomorrow morning. 

Journal Entry: Glenaraha Doorway

HOME STUDIO: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2009

Starting the doorway of the ruined church

Closer view of the doorway

 

Yesterday, I got a good start drawing the doorway of the ruined church – between preparing for Monday’s Portfolio class.

After looking at several of the reference photographs I had taken I realized that I will need to go back over the tree and darken the limbs and branches. I started darkening some of the branches on the right side of the tree – I see an improvement in the sense of depth already.

Journal Entry: Glenaraha In-Progress

HOME STUDIO: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2009

 

Tree at Glenaraha

Now that my sabbatical presentation is over I have time to finish some of the artwork I started while in my studio in County Clare, Ireland. This is an “in-progress” drawing of a place just south of the Burren College of Art at the foot of Cappanawalla Mountain. About a 15 minute walk from the college on the Burren Way road will lead you to a place known as Glenaraha. You’ll see an overgrown road to your left that leads you to the ruin of Glenaraha Parish Church (circa 1795). Today cattle graze here. I’ve visited this place many times, the first in 2002 when I was an artist in residence at the Burren College of Art.

During the 2008 Midwest Institute Study-Trip I brought my students to this place. The tree in my drawing was not fully grown in 2002, during the 2008 visit it stood before the entrance of the church like a “gate keeper” of sorts. I plan on adding part of the ruined church and its crumbling doorway behind the tree. I plan on including this drawing in my Sabbatical Exhibit that opens on October 2nd.

Closer View of the Glenaraha Tree

Something else was discovered at Glenaraha during the 2008 visit. As my students investigate the landscape around the ruin they came across a small ancient earthen ring fort not even 100 feet north of the church. It is a beautiful, peaceful place with many trees growing from its earthen banks. When I started this drawing, while in Ireland, I told Breada about coming across that “faerie fort” at Gleneraha. She knew the place, it is called “Dun Torpa”.

Journal Entry: Ballyallaban

HOME STUDIO: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2009

Students experiencing the "spirit of the land" at An Rath. Photo taken during the 2008 Midwest Institute Ireland Study-Trip.

I’ve just discovered that the earthen ring fort, “An Rath”  which is the subject of my studies and artwork also goes by the name of “Ballyallaban Ring Fort”. The Tim Robinson map of the Burren has the ring fort labeled only as “An Rath”.

Read excerpts from what these students wrote about their experience by clicking here.