issue 10 by Art Dogs

ISSUE 10 JUNE 2016

Photographer

Rita Wilson

first became interested in photography whilst I was out exploring the great outdoors with my dogs. I wanted to capture those moments of joy with the dogs, when they ran across the beach, through the long grass and then to the sea where they bathed themselves in the afternoon light. Dogs can be challenging subjects to photograph and I believe they are the reason I was able to develop and progress my photogrpahy skills over the years. Aside from the dogs, I have a love for the night sky. Night-time sky photography is a consuming passion of mine, the passion of the unknown and the cosmic wonder of the night sky. Doing photography at night opens up a whole new world of possibilities; I love the challenge and discovery with this type of photography I use my trusty Nikon D4 for my astrophotography and my D800 for my landscapes. In my camera bag, for my seascape photography, I use a range of filters from Nisi. My prized filter in my bag is my reverse 0.9GND for my seascapes. It holds the sun back on the horizon just before it sets and helps me balance my exposure better. I photograph the Rosguill and Fanad peninsula mostly. I love nothing more than to capture the movement of the sea and the light hitting the rocky coastline. With its bay, inlets and often deserted golden beaches this area has so much to offer in terms of landscape photography. I can visit the same scene many times and always end up with a different shot. Above all else I enjoy photography. I do it because it gives me a feeling of creative achievement. It makes me feel like I am living in the present. I am not thinking of the stresses of life, I am in that moment listening to the wind and the sea crashing against the coastline. Later, when I look at my photographs I am transported back to the way I felt at that time. It really is about capturing a moment that you can have forever.

Visual Artist

Frank Hicks

I have always loved what is often considered lowart,

you know the stuff trashy pulp comics and horror movies are famous for. I remember seeing those kinds of things as a child and thinking to myself “That’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. I’ll never be able to do that.” I am glad to find out how wrong I was. I took to doodling in the empty spaces of almost any book or copy I could find. It angered my Mother to no end. To draw feels peaceful. There is an excitement there too, like you get when you wake up and know you have a great day ahead of you. Cheesey as it all sounds I find myself zoning out when I work a lot and I have been told I make faces too. It is always draining though, sometimes I will finish something and just flop onto a chair like I have just run a mile. There is a lot of me in my work and I know that might make me sound scary if you have ever seen it. In all honesty, I have never much bothered with the why of it. It makes me think of what I may be like if I had to stop. I think I would lose my marbles. I guess the reasonable answer is that it helps me sort out my issues. I need time more that anything. I hate to be rushed. I will sketch a few times to get the idea of what I want. Once I know, I do a hard copy in smaller scale than the final image, then I simply duplicate that and paint it. Mostly I prefer to work on small scale images since they can be done quickly and are easy to transport though I have started to work on bigger projects and I am enjoying that as well. I do it anywhere I can. Mostly, I work at home but I never leave home without carrying a small sketchbook of some kind with me. I will sit in a bar or a coffee place and lose a few hours working on something suitably gross or unsettling until I feel I have done enough or I find I have lost track of time and they close up on me.

Visual Artist

Clara Jean Curran

I think I remember starting to draw when I was a child.

I always loved when we got to do art instead of science or math at school. I have a baby book that I absolutely destroyed with scribbles when I was around three or four. The book is full of random lines and strange looking animals created from my head. Looking back on it now, the drawings seem very creepy but they add character and encapsulate a bit of my childhood I think. Even though I always enjoyed it, it was not until I was around sixteen that I became confident with my skills, and believed I could push myself to create things. Drawing feels like a great reliever of stress. When I have not drawn in a while or done anything creative, I become very unmotivated in all aspects of my life. I get caught in an awful circle where I am not doing something I enjoy and find it extremely hard to get back into creating things. When I am drawing or painting it helps me feel positive. My mum told me recently I should be using my art to express any negative feelings I have. I find it difficult to showcase my emotions if I am struggling, where as I could paint a skull or draw a picture and release everything onto those pages and by doing that also help myself feel better. It also provides me with a sense of control. In daily life, not everything that happens is up to us, except perhaps a few of our own choices, everything else is unscripted; whereas with the things I create, I can choose where each line or dot goes. I like to plan out what I am going to do, so I mainly do it in my room with a lot of little sketches beforehand so I know my proportions. Ideas for paintings or drawings will come to me, so I always write them down on whatever paper is closest to me to make sure I do not forget. My room is full of quick sketches and ideas that I am just waiting to get onto paper and canvas once I have the time.

Visual Artist

Jim Osborne

am a visual artist, I think that is the easiest way to explain what I do. I work with oils and acrylics as well as sculptures. I was as part of the Gaeltacht Artists’ Collective An Cosán Glas. We exhibited nighttime sculpture trails in the Letterkenny town park as part of Culture night. I have always been drawing, ever since I could hold a pencil. I don’t know really know how to describe what it feels like, I just have great enjoyment when I draw, I feel like I am in the zone, as if nothing else matters. The Steamy Windows collection I have been currently doing originated one time when I did a quick drawing for my brothers birthday, it was on the condensation on my window with my finger, it was to be a joke, but it back fired on me. As a result my work is now with Saatchiart. com and Fineartamerica.com. My steamy windows collection was also shortlisted for inclusion in the 2014 Royal Ulster Academy summer exhibition. At the moment I am also in discussions with two galleries in New York and LA regarding solo exhibitions. My kitchen window has only single glazing, so it steams up every morning. I started to do these drawings all the time, but the magic happens outside, it is something that I stumbled on. There is no need for photoshopping or anything, each image you see is real and is created at that exact point in time, they are the result of the time of day, and what the weather is like. Of course they have a short life due to the nature of the canvas. I photograph it to capture it. I enjoy Creating pleasure why do I

bringing pleasure to others through my work. is a huge part of my life, it is such a great to do, thinking about why I do it is like asking breathe.

Craftivist

Yarnbomb Donegal

started yarn bombing in the summer of 2012. I had heard about this phenomenon previously and it intrigued me, also I just had quit smoking and needed desperately to find something to do for my restless hands. Images of a tank wrapped in an enormous pink patchwork blanket really got me enthusiastic about using wool in an activist way. Activism is in my bones, yarn bombing is a public, creative way of sharing my thoughts and feelings on issues through the pieces I make. I want to stimulate, challenge and engage people with the topics. It is a way of drawing people in, as from a distance it looks pretty, colourful and innocent. Obviously a lot of pieces have taken many hours to make, so people are curious why one would do it. I often have an image or an idea for a piece, sparked off by a strong feeling on an issue, like on social justice, feminism or love for the planet. Then I sketch a rough plan and start knitting or crocheting. The techniques are pretty basic, I never mastered complicated stitches, but for me that is not relevant; it is what the pieces represent, it the message that matters. I work on them at home, on the bus, in waiting rooms, while babysitting; anywhere I have some spare time. I hang them in public spaces, like on public squares, statues, railings, lampposts, gates, bridges, fences, on tanks and guns. I also put them in activistsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; camps, gatherings and events, anti-Monsanto events, anti-G8 demonstrations, antifracking protests, Palestine solidarity events, feminist issues, LGBT issues, peace demonstrations, Shannon Airport, the Swell Festival, climate change gatherings and antiausterity marches. Some have been exhibited in exhibitions in various locations. Sometimes pieces are temporarily stitched onto a shawl or poncho which I will wear at a demonstration. I have also taken part in a number of global collaborative projects by submitting some pieces together with many others, including a banner on climate change in New Zealand in 2015, a 7 mile long peace scarf connecting two nuclear weapons sites in the UK in 2014, a quilt representing the lack of care for women in the Irish maternity services in 2016 and a quilt on child sexual abuse in the USA in 2013. It is so much fun to do, but in a my feelings on issues I care about. quirky way. It is also a meditative pieces and I think about the issues

different way to express It feels subversive in a and slow process to make as I work on something.

WRITER

Peter Breen

started creative writing about 12 years ago as a release for a particularly boring office job. Just writing down more interesting scenarios than the one that I was experiencing. A paragraph here and there. When I write it feels like a release, like a kind of self imposed psychotherapy. The options are endless and the exploration is very engaging. Good or bad as the work may be, the process is always beneficial. I can organise my thoughts from a confused mess to a singular point and then take that point and expand on it further. We, none of us can cease to think. It is what we do with our every waking moment. It is up to the individual to focus on what thoughts are best for him or her. For some it is a pop idol, for others it is Plato. The most successful writing that I have done has always been a little autonomous like someone else is driving the vehicle. There has to be a cognisant idea to begin with but once in place it is nice to let the character take it to places that you personally might not go. But the character can act, think and process his or her thoughts in a wider field than you can allow yourself. I write on a computer consul because my spelling is atrocious and my writing not much better. Some people cannot get the organic flow of creativity with out actually the process of putting pen to paper, I have never had this problem. I find the keyboard the most efficient way of putting an idea out there.

Featured Art Form

Prose

Creativity is an energy. It is not born, it does not die, it only transforms. The sixth artist featured in each issue will be a writer. Writers craft images, words which inspire images within us. The visual form is deeply connected with all other forms of creativity, it grows from the same tree, is rooted in the same terra and gains energy from the same earth. It reminds us how everything we create is inspired from the art that we adulate, the art that we revile, the art that is imprinted and the art that we forget.

Peter Breen has composed a short piece of creative prose inspired by Frank Hicks image from this issueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s submissions.

Kelpie “All hands on deck” the Captain cried “for there will be no Birkenhead drill on my ship. We are in Kelpie waters and she will find no distinction tween women, man or child” The craft had been lurching in the waves and would capsize. The lady drew her children to the safety of her embrace but the younger and more adventurous of the two (as is always the case) tried to pull away. He had heard tales of the Kelpie at his granddads home back in Plymouth. Aye The Kelpie and The Argyle, the old man was obsessed by both. “And would she eat me?” the younger of the two inquired. Aye she would replied the grandfather she would take you deeper and deeper into the abyss before she would dispatch you. But before this she would keep you alive by blowing her foul sea stench breath into your body as you descended far below the surface. Like a cat toying with her prey, “But why granddad” the younger of the two asked? “Why? Well to keep you fresh for her minnows, Kelpie minnows will only eat the freshest of children didn’t you know?” The ship had taken some damage. “She’ll not stay afloat much longer Captain” the first mate explained “the hull has been ripped to shreds”. “That’ll be her” said the Captain “no other explanation, we are above the trench of the mariners there is nothing beneath this hull for five miles.” As the ship swung wildly from side to side taking on water the crew and passengers started to panic and rush for the lifeboats, the younger of the two succeeded in breaking his mother’s grip and rush headlong towards the port side rail. With full abandon he flung himself overboard and into the waves, where he was instantly engulfed and disappeared. As he descended into the deep he looked for her. In the distance he had seen what looked like the headlights of an auto-mobile. Impossible he thought even though he was the younger of the two, he was smart enough to realize that auto-mobiles do not function under water. As the lights grew brighter he could see that they were eyes, bioluminescence eyes. She grabbed at him, the younger of the two and drove home her foul sea stench breath into his lungs and he gasped as she sped into the deep abyss. Down and down they went mile after mile after mile after mile after mile …