Art, Irish culture and music, travel, Guinness!
Cheers!
Sketching the Spaniard Pub, Kinsale. March, 2006
"Lamb on the Mountain" Beara, pastel 8 x 10"
"Two Old Nags" Dingle, Kerry, pastel, 20 x 36"
"Spanish Rose" Kinsale, P&I w/Guinness Stout wash, 14 x 11" $250
I'd like to meet:
Irish musicians and visual artists and anyone who appreciates art inspired by Irish landscape and culture.
I’m passionate about the deep meaning expressed in a glance, how voluptuous open spaces and the effects of atmosphere color emotions, and the attempt to communicate these moments through art. I’m influenced by the paradox of tragic joy in Irish landscape, history, music, dance and spirituality.
Soon after my first trip to Ireland, a ten-dollar garage sale vintage mirror frame inspired my first Irish landscape. I chose a composition and subject that would suit the unusually shaped frame. I now spend quality time in Ireland and in antique shops and thrift stores, hunting for inspiration. There is an affinity between my artistic style, the timeless Irish subject matter and these shabby chic frames.
I enjoy the feeling of being in touch with the work, and use my fingers to “paint†the pure pigments of pastels over my entire paper surface. I choose to depict the reality of people and places here and now, but my goal is to use skill and imagination to produce works that portray the more enduring qualities of the world and of the human condition.
My studio in downtown Chicago. Hours by appointment.
My nephew, Dave McMahon, is in the US Navy, following in Gramps Ed McMahon's footsteps.
A video of traditional Irish music and dance, circa 1963.
"The Fiddler."
He cozies it under the chin
or there about,
like a favorite scarf
from college days.
The music already forming in
his mind’s eye
he’s played this air a thousand times
yet each time it surges from
a different notion.
The horse hair bow
gallops a few times in practice
for the main event.
The listeners young and old
heed the waltz with arms
out-stretched,
he rests on the waltz.
‘Give me your hand’
the dancers glide in perfect
sway to the fiddler’s tune.
Like a shaman he leads them
to another time when music
filled the night air under stars
His ears on alert, just watching
for one wrong beat.
The dancers care not,
lost in the music of the fiddler.
The poem "The Fiddler" was first published in La Luciole Magazine, all rights belong to Aine MacAodha
Many thanks for giving your permission to use this lovely poem, Aine! My Gramps would approve. :)
"Ring of Light on the Edge of the World at Daybreak"
pastel, 60 x 24"
"Ancient of Days" pastel in antique frame, 36 x 28"
"Evergreen Lasses" pastel, 32 x 18"
CURRENT MOON moon phase info
Music:
Traditional Irish Session music (I fumble a bit with a tipper myself), The Chieftains, Liz Carroll, Van Morrison, the list goes on...
"The Jolly Tinkers" Kerry, pastel 18 x 24"
"Boys From Mayo" P&I w/Guinness Stout wash
Movies:
Waking Ned Devine
Television:
I'd rather be walking the coast of Ireland.
"The Coast of Dingle" Kerry, pastel 8 x 10"
"Full Force Gale" Blasket Islands, pastel in gold frame, 8 x 10"
Books:
Anam Cara, a book of Celtic Wisdom by John O'Donohue, 'Round Ireland With a Fridge, McCarthy's Bar
ANAM CARA: SOUL FRIEND
AT THE HEART OF CELTIC SOCIETY IS THE NOTION OF RELATIONSHIP EMBODIED IN THE GAELIC PHRASE ANAM CARA. ANAM IS AN IRISH WORD FOR SOUL, AND CARA MEANS FRIEND. ANAM CARA, MEANS A SOUL FRIEND. CELTIC TRADITION TEACHES THAT THE HUMAN SOUL HOVERS AROUND THE BODY LIKE A VIBRANT HALO; ANAM CARA IS WHAT RESULTS WHEN TWO SOULS FLOW TOGETHER. IT IS BELIEVED THAT THE POTENTIAL FOR SUCH A RELATIONSHIP EXISTS BEFORE TIME AND IS AROUSED WHEN KINDRED SPIRITS FIND EACH OTHER. ONCE THIS FRIENDSHIP IS AWAKENED BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE, IT CANNOT BE BROKEN BY TIME OR SPACE. AN ANAM CARA ACCEPTS YOU FOR WHO YOU ARE AND, IN DOING SO, HELPS YOU GIVE BIRTH TO YOUR OWN SOUL.
"Newgrange Spirals" pastel 20 x 20"
Heroes:
Captain Francis O'Neill and St. Patrick
"Captain Francis O'Neill" graphite and coffee wash/vintage frame
Captain O'Neill was the General Superintendent of Police in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century. He was born in County Cork and there he learned to play the flute. At the age of sixteen, he was given a letter of introduction to the local bishop. His family sent him off to a life as a priest but he had a change of mind and ran away to sea. He circumnavigated the globe and was later shipwrecked in the Pacific. He was rescued and landed in San Francisco. He married a young lady, Anna Rogers, whom he had met when she was an outbound passenger on one of his voyages from Ireland. He and his wife moved to Chicago in 1870, shortly before the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. The Captain ended up as a patrolman on the Chicago Police force. He was on the force less than a month when he was shot by a burglar. He carried the the bullet, lodged near his spine, till his death. Even though he was wounded in the shoot-out he still managed to arrest the felon and bring him into the station.
The Captain gathered many of Chicago's Irish musicians in an organization that they called the Irish Music Club. With the help of the Club and James O'Neill, his nephew, he began to collect and publish Irish Music. He also became a champion for the music as revisionists started to make claims that the music might be of origins other than Irish. His response to the suggestion that the English dancing master, Playford, was responsible for writing some Irish tunes was impressive.
He published his collections of tunes in a series of books in the early part of this century. Some of them have been in print ever since.
"St. Patrick of Ireland" P&I with watercolor 20 x 16"
St. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland
Patrick was born around 385 in Scotland, probably Kilpatrick. His parents were Calpurnius and Conchessa, who were Romans living in Britian in charge of the colonies.
As a boy of fourteen or so, he was captured during a raiding party and taken to Ireland as a slave to herd and tend sheep. Ireland at this time was a land of Druids and pagans. He learned the language and practices of the people who held him.
During his captivity, he turned to God in prayer. Patrick's captivity lasted until he was twenty, when he escaped after having a dream from God in which he was told to leave Ireland by going to the coast. There he found some sailors who took him back to Britian, where he reunited with his family.
He had another dream in which the people of Ireland were calling out to him "We beg you, holy youth, to come and walk among us once more."
He began his studies for the priesthood. Later, Patrick was ordained a bishop, and was sent to take the Gospel to Ireland. He arrived in Ireland March 25, 433, at Slane.
Patrick began preaching the Gospel throughout Ireland, converting many. He and his disciples preached and converted thousands and began building churches all over the country. Kings, their families, and entire kingdoms converted to Christianity when hearing Patrick's message.
Patrick preached and converted all of Ireland for 40 years. He worked many miracles and wrote of his love for God in Confessions. After years of living in poverty, traveling and enduring much suffering he died March 17, 461.
Why a shamrock?
Patrick used the shamrock to explain the Trinity, and has been associated with him and the Irish since that time.
