from online to paper

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art, books, Dublin Book Festival, Ireland, literary magazines, Magazines and their Makers, publications, reading, writing

After spending my Saturday in the world of blogging my Sunday afternoon was filled with the written word on paper. The Dublin Book Festival was hosting the event Magazines and their Makers, a session with editors and publishers of five of the leading literary magazines in Ireland.

As an avid reader and an attempting writer it was interesting to hear from those who take the chance and publish less mainstream works. It seems that Ireland is experiencing somewhat of a ‘golden-age’ of literary journals and magazines as over the past few years several new ones have joined the more established names.

Most of the magazines on the panel, like Gorse, Crannog, Cyphers and Winter Pages, all focus on fiction writing, poetry and other forms of artistic collaborations The Dublin Review also focuses on non-fiction writing in the form of essays, reportage, travel writing and memoir writing. 

When asked why choose print over online all the panel seemed to be of one mind. They expressed their love for the published form as an object, something tangible and long-lasting. They spoke about how our ‘instant age’ has the desire to ‘slow down’ and ‘concentrate’ on what is in our hands.

And while all are more or less are classified as magazines they saw their literary collections as ‘artisanal’, nothing that would be quickly disposed of but would be an item to collect and take pleasure in time and time again. Of course each magazine is of its time, but like a time capsule it conserves it and gives insight into the years gone by.

Another thing that all of the editors and publishers on the panel agreed on was that the magazines were not created for the writers but for the readers. That no matter what form they decided on, what pieces they chose for publication, how well constructed something is or how experimental a writer goes, if the reader isn’t included, isn’t able to partake it will not work.

All in all it was refreshing to experience people who invest so much time and effort into the literary form even if financial success is very unlikely.  There truly is something inspiring about people who do things because they love it.

the power of words the force behind this train

a book turned into sculpture, the words brought to life

bookish week

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All We Shall Know, books, Donal Ryan, Emma Donoghu, readings, Rick O'Shea, Rick O'Shea's Book Club, The Wonder, writing

As Autumn settles over Dublin I’ve spent the week indulging in one of my favourite pastimes – books. I listened to Emma Donoghue talk about her latest book The Wonder and enjoyed hearing Donal Ryan chat with Rick O’Shea about his newly published book All We Shall Know.

One of the things that I found particularly interesting was how differently both authors talked about how they write. While Emma Donoghue explained that she was ‘hopeless at plot’ and thus needed to plan out her story, Donal Ryan seemed to take more of an organic approach to where the story would go by allowing his characters to find their own way on the page.

Both authors are full time writers but while Emma Donoghue enjoys the freedom this provides her, while trying to find the time to work between picking up her kids and drop them off again, Donal Ryan is planning on returning to his old job because he prefers the security of knowing where his next paycheck will be coming from.

‘I use to be a civil servant who longed to be a writer, now I may be the only writer who longs to be  civil servant’ was how he put it in his own words. And the reason for this is his belief that he will be more disciplined with his writing: ‘Now it takes all morning to go to the post office, but when I was working I was religious about spending three hours every night writing. I had to be.’

Now the week is coming to an end I can’t wait to spend an afternoon escaping into the worlds these writers have created and with the weather inviting me to stay indoors wearing woolly socks, drinking cups of tea I think my plans for Sunday are now made.

 

can’t wait to know whats hidden behind this cover

the latest book by Emma Donoghue

making magic

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arts and crafts, crafts, fairies, fairy, fairy door, hand made, magic, make-believe, wonder

For the past few days I have been staying with my brother and his family. This means that I have been playing with a two and nearly five year old – games filled with make believe and books riddled with rhymes.

To add a little bit of magic to my stay I decided it was time my niece and nephew had there own little fairy door. So last night, as the sun set and the children slept, I painted a door and my brother attached it to a wooden backdrop at the bottom of their garden.

Now I can’t wait until the little ones arrive back from the dentist and find (hopefully) the door and the magic can unfold.

wondering what fairy lives here

it’s all Russian to me

Tags

books, Dublin, Dublin literary festival, ILFD, Ireland, literary festival, Nobel Prize Winner 2015, Svetlána Alexiévich

Last night I sat on the most uncomfortable chairs for and hour and a half to listen to Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich talk about her work. The event was billed as a conversion but it ended up being more like a lecture – Irish journalist Conor O’Clery  would ask a question and off she’d go, only interrupted by her interpreter to allow us to catch up with what she was saying in Russian.

Her stories were long and winding, circling around questions she asks herself and answers she is trying to find. Fascinated by stories she has made it her life’s work to listen to the stories of those who are usually not asked. She likes to go beyond the expected and find the mundane that is tinted with the extraordinary.

When asked if her international success and her Nobel Prize have changed the way she is viewed in her own country, she lives in Belarus, she sighed and said ‘being in opposition to the authorities is a long held tradition by writers where I am from, but now we are also in opposition to our own people, this is new and much harder.’ She went on to say that during the fall of the Soviet Union there was so much hope but that ‘freedom doesn’t come over night, freedom is a long, long way.’

‘We didn’t really know our people, we worshiped an ideal of what we believed the people to be- but they weren’t. So we built bridges to go over rivers, but the rivers then went another way.’

Chernobyl is of particular interest to Alexievich ‘there was no precedence’, that made the stories the people told so unique and surreal. ‘Soldiers were on rooftops washing the them, and scrubbing firewood – it was like in science fiction. As physical beings we could not grasp the unseen, what we could not smell, touch or see.’

After an hour and a half shifting around on my seat, a dance everyone in the audience was occupied with, it was time to join the long queue to have my copy of Chernobly prayer signed. And I have to say that was the only point in the evening where I was somewhat disappointed – Alexievich signed my copy but her attention was elsewhere. A Russian speaking woman was monopolizing her attention, not very considerate to the rest of us who waited in line. And it was clear that Alexievich was very tired and maybe I should have just let the opportunity slide- but then how often does one get to ‘meet’ a Nobel Prize winner?

An added bonus of the night – I met two wonderful women in the queue and we ended the evening over wine, olives and lots of chat – in English.

Svetlana Alexievich (courtesy of Headstuff.org)

cement, clay and sunburn

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cement, clay, community garden, crafting, flowers, photography, photos, plants, sculpture, workshop

This weekend I spent my time getting my hands dirty in Mudisland Community garden. But I wasn’t digging up dirt or planting spring greens, I was mixing cement and forming clay at a sculpture workshop.

It was all about getting to know the material – as our wonderful teacher Vivian told us- and I have to admit I think cement and I have stayed somewhat strangers. Unlike clay you can’t mold it, you cant make it hold it’s own weight, unless you create a mesh backing or a mold.

After the first day of spending time elbow deep in cement in the sunshine I went home somewhat disappointed in what I had created – nothing of that would last or I really liked. But yesterday I think I may have made a tile I’ll be able to use and work further with, and I think the hanging balls I made do have potential.

But somehow it wasn’t really about the outcome, it was about the work itself. Instead of sitting at my desk for hours and wearing the keys on my keyboard thin, being out in the sunshine, using my hands, was what this weekend was all about.

The only downside to the beautiful sunny weekend was that got a little bit sun burnt, not much, a patch on my leg and two bits on my arms, and of course my nose. But since bad weather seems to be on its way I will just enjoy the sun as much as I can while it lasts.

bowls

chicken wire

some mini clay men

hanging cement ghosts

in full bloom

pods

late Easter parcel – perfect timing

Tags

art, crafts, drawing, late Easter, parcel, post

This morning a parcel arrived filled with Easter treats – my brother and his family had sent me some sweet reminders that they were thinking of me. But the nicest thing hidden in between the marzipan eggs and other delicious German sweets was a hand drawn me an Easter Egg.

He is four-and-a-half years old (a half is really important at that age) and he is quite the little artist. I have a few of his creations and was delighted to add another work of art to my kitchen gallery.

And I have to admit it was a lovely way to start the day – week even. Especially since I feel quite stressed with the work load I am currently carrying. In a few weeks time I have to hand in so much work for my Masters and since the semester is coming to an end there is a lot of grading piling up. So the sweet pick-me-up was greatly appreciated and  made me smile.

So even if it was a little late for Easter the parcel arrived at the perfect time !

my nephews art work

a date with art

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186th Annual Exhibition, art, Dublin, Fergus A. Ryan, Ireland, paintings, RHA, Royal Hibernian Academy

Today is varnishing day at the RHA (Royal Hibernian Academy) – the precursor to the  186th Annual Exhibition that shows hundreds of works of art by known and unknown artist living in Ireland. This year the exhibition is running at an earlier than usual date to coincide with the 1916 Exhibition that was burnt during the 1919 Easter rising.

And lucky me, I was invited to join my talented friend Fergus A. Ryan to get a sneak peek at the exhibition before it officially opens tomorrow. The oil painting he is showing is called Entwined and depicts my beautiful niece, the artists inspiration for his beautiful work.

I can’t wait to see my niece hanging in the gallery – which The Guardian recently named the best art space in Dublin – after all, as a proud aunt, I love spending time with her, even if it is only in picture form.  So with that in mind I’d better get ready for my date with art.

Entwined (Oil), by Fergus A. Ryan

Weekly Photo Challenge: Life Imitates Art

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art, Dragana Jurisic, Ireland, Life Imitates Art, My Own Unknown, photos, photos photography, Weekly Photo Challenge, Weekly Photo Challenge: Life Imitates Art, Wexford, Wexford Arts Centre

On Saturday I took the train down to Wexford to be at the opening of my friend’s Exhibition. For one month Dragana Jurisic will be showing the first chapter of her current work ‘My Own Unknown’ in Wexford Arts Centre.

It was well worth the trip – the work is thought provoking and beautiful. I traveled down with Dragana and we spent some time in the Gallery before the opening, I got a sneak peak at the work, she documented the exhibition.

I couldn’t resist when I saw the artist taking a photo of a portrait of herself to take a photo too – life imitating art in a very multidimensional way.

portrait of the artist taking a photo of a portrait of herself

planing a RHA visit

Tags

Amanda Coogan, art, I’ll sing you a song from around the town, performance art, photography, photos, RHA

As I sit over my calendar trying to figure when to do what my mind keeps drifting back to a gallery opening I went to on Thursday evening.

I’ll sing you a song from around the town is renowned performance artist Amanda Coogan’s latest work and combines live performances with sculptures. Over a series of six weeks the Irish artist will move from sculpture to sculpture and perform individually designed performance pieces. As she moves on a collaborator will take her place, in the end all six performance piece will run simultaneously.

I am looking forward to experiencing this exciting and unique living work of art, even if I am not quite sure that I will fully understand it. After all, even though I am interested in the Arts,  performance pieces often elude me.

So as I try and figure out how to fit everything in to my 168 hours this week I am trying to find a time slot that I can use to visit the RHA over the next six weeks – I want to see the domino effect of performances and experience this Irish Artist in the stunning setting that is the RHA.

So as I ponder performance art and wrestle with my calendar I can’t help but feel grateful for my first world problem.

stunning sculptures waiting their turn in Amanda Coogan’s six week performance piece

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photo-book – YU: The Lost Country

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art, Dragana Jurisic, Dragana Jurisic YU: The Lost Country, photo-book, photography, photos, YU: 'The Lost Country'

Photographs, like memories, are fleeting; they capture a moment in time and frame it forever. And like memories, photographs invite us to imagine, dream and conjure up stories to help form our identities.

The photo book YU: The Lost Country is Dragana Jurisic’s visual account of her search for her own identity. Born a Yugoslav she sees herself as an exile, a wanderer who has no roots since the destruction of the utopia that was Yugoslavia in 1991.

To help her find a path through a country that no longer exists Dragana Jurisic sought the guidance of the British writer Rebecca West. Published in 1941, West’s masterpiece Black Lamb and Grey Falcon weaves three separate trips through the Balkans into one complete memory of what the Yugoslav identity was about.

Following in West’s footsteps, Dragana Jurisic captures glimpses of these memories through her lens and recreates a fictional version of a modern day Atlantis. The muted palate of colours and hazy, sometimes a little out of focus, contours add to the sensation of memories once forgotten, now remembered, a dreamlike world just beyond our reach.

Punctuating these images with words, a combination of her own and West’s, Dragana Jurisic allows the viewer to enter into the images and gain an insight into a lost world. And while memories may be subjective, just as the creation of photographs is subjective to the viewfinder of the photographer, the memories become real, an objective representation of something nearly forgotten.

YU: The Lost Country challenges the idea of what defines identity and encourages the reader to rethink what they believe to be true, but it does this in a very delicate, subtle way. This understated approach is also reflected in the sophisticated exterior of the book, its canvas cover is pleasant to the touch, and the elegant design invites the eye to linger and revisit. A small issue is the closeness of the print to the edge of the pages; one or two millimetres would have saved the illusion of toppling off the edge.

Not only is YU: The Lost Country an unusual photo book, as it gives more than just imagery and frames the stunning photographs with words, memories and history, it also resembles a time-capsule that stores lost knowledge for generations to come.

YU:The Lost Country

YU:The Lost Country