issue 9 by Art Dogs

ISSUE 9 DECEMBER 2015

Artist

John Ruddy

have been drawing for as long as I can remember. I was always the one in class people would go to ask to draw pictures. I was always inventing stories and characters based on whichever films and computer games I was interested in at the time, and I suppose that never stopped. History has also been a huge influence on me. A bobble eyed character named Manny Man began gracing the pages of my school books. He stayed with me all the way through college, forever the doodle in the corner or at the back of the refill. Over the past few years he took on a whole life of his own online through the “Manny Man Does History” videos on YouTube. To draw is to create life on a page. Sometimes when planning an illustration I will send my hand into a frenzy on the page, twitches, impulses, emotions, the back of my mind channelling it into a rough image. From there I can transfer that raw energy into a refined composition. There is nothing more satisfying than spending hours on a piece and watching it take form in front of you; a face beginning to look like who you are drawing, a complex machine beginning to make sense on the page. I draw because I can or because I want to relax. I will copy an image and I will create an image to express my mind. With regards to history, I love being able to bring previously not depicted scenes to life, especially in my home town of Letterkenny. Recently I did some illustrations for Kieran Kelly’s Letterkenny: Where the Winding Swilly Flows. I have a bit of a workstation at home where I can work on my illustrations comfortably but on occasion I draw in friends’ houses, or even in the pub. My Avengers 8 sheet image began in Voodoo, spent time in two different friends’ houses during movie nights, a night in McGinleys and finished in my house during a Lord of the Rings marathon. For Manny Man and some illustration work I use ink liners and ProMarkers. Otherwise it is graded pencils or my trusty ballpoint pens. Art is all about feeling. If it is not got any, it is not art. It is the process of getting what is inside your head out into the real world, the physical space, through whichever medium is your weapon of choice.

Visual Artist

Marie Carr

was a ‘make and do’ child, always creating something, so I have always had that need to create. I remember taking pictures using a Kodak Instamatic when I was a child. My journey with photography started with a film manual camera called a Phenix DC 303, it was a cheap cameran with a crap 50mm lens, but some of my favourite photos were shot with this. That was in 2003 and I was living in Dublin at the time. I soon joined the Dublin Photography Club on Camden street and did a short course on the basics of operating an SLR. Later I took up a course at St. Kevin’s College and completed a Diploma in Digital Imaging. I now have a crappy film camera collection as well as pinhole cameras and digital cameras. I also dabble in lino and stencil printing. I love the solitude when I am shooting outdoors; the sound of the sea and being surrounded by nature in general makes me feel alive and happy, especially when I think I have captured something good. I am very critical of my own work and find I have to let photos sit for a while before I decide which ones I like, but I think that is important for your growth as a creative because it forces you to improve. I find that photography is a great medium for self expression, my work is largely intuitive and I try to take pictures that can convey a mood, are emotional or have a story in one frame, leaving it open to interpretation. There is a slight panic between when you get an idea and making it come to fruitition. If an idea is not acted on, it can be forgotten, so it is better to act right away. Some of my favourite photographs have been unscripted though. I just end up somewhere with nothing planned and just made the most of what was there when I arrived. Dusk is when I tend to be more active creatively, that is also when I get my best ideas. I prefer to shoot using natural light or existing light so most of the time I shoot outdoors. I use pinhole cameras, crappy film cameras like the Diana F+ and also digital cameras to achieve a particular look. When you achieve the result you want, it is the most rewarding feeling you can have.

Painter

Cornelius Browne

was both an early starter and a late starter. As a child I drew constantly; as a teenager I painted obsessively, using anything I could get my hands on, from expensive oils to household paints, canvas to driftwood. I studied painting at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. After graduating, I stopped painting. Two decades went by, during which time I lived in Dublin and worked at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Returning to Donegal and embarking on fatherhood led me back to my painterly roots. Slow walks along country lanes with my children, my eyes wandering over fields and ocean as they examined hedgerows, my thoughts drifting among cloudscapes, reawakened the urge to paint. My subject is the small coastal area of West Donegal where I grew up, and where my family have lived for generations. These forebears worked these fields, drew sustenance from the sea, lived their lives. Now I follow their trails, with paintbrush in lieu of spade; a familiar presence with my easel trekking across hills and along shoreline. One thing I cannot imagine now is painting under a roof. The idea of walls is unbearably constrictive. Visual stimulus alone is not enough for me to paint my landscapes. I feed off the sounds, from birds to waves to wind in the trees; I feed off the elements, sapping my energy, freeing me from thinking and pondering in the way I did whilst working in comfortable studios. Thinking is a shallow pool from which to draw from. This place, my subject, is elementally exposed, mercurial, the light and atmosphere shifting rapidly, creating a sense of urgency as I unfold my easel. Gales rise from the quietest of mornings, and more than anything my style has been shaped by wind and rain. Some of my most exhilarating days of painting have been those when each mark made by the brush is a struggle against the powers of nature. Here, I believe, lies a short cut to the subconscious. In musical terms I would liken my paintings to live performances rather than studio recordings. I use no preliminary drawings, as I believe there is no way to foretell the drama of the coming hours. I paint wet-on-wet, the only way to guarantee vitality of surface. The power of painting is in the making of the painting. As Bach, at the piano, explained to an admiring pupil: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a matter of striking the notes at exactly the right moment.â&#x20AC;? Gradually it has dawned on me: I do not paint landscape, I paint experience.

Painter

Paula Corcoran

y painting life has been marked by an ongoing distillation of technique and approach. As a student at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, my net was flung wide. As well as large-scale representational paintings, I explored printmaking, sculpture and photography. What linked these divergent paths was the collecting of objects, ranging from antiques to trinkets, everyday items to sprigs from the natural world. And it is nature to which I am now most drawn, my present approach mirroring my interests as a child. From as soon as I could hold a crayon or pencil my mother discovered that drawing kept me solidly occupied. I filled drawing books and covered the backs of envelopes. Creating a piece of art is an utterly absorbing struggle. I enjoy concentrating in a fully focused way, really observing the subject. Choosing what to edit is as important as what is put in. Economy of vision is a learnt skill. With every new painting you are always learning more. I paint because I like the feel of it, mixing oil paint with my pallet knife is strangely satisfying. I am a particularly keen colourist and pay close attention to colour and tone. Lifting the paint onto a brush, shaping the wand just the right way, being relaxed yet highly alert - it is work, very hard work. I work directly from life these days. I used to work from photographic collages. Now things are more pared down. My subject matter is raw - plants gathered from rural lanes and ditches. I paint under the pressure that once the plant is cut down it is already dying. This means that I am in a hurry, but it must not affect my concentration in a negative way. Actually the race can enrich my painting, making it more guttural. As does working from life. I am now producing much richer work than previously. The first steps I take to start a painting is to go for a walk and see what is growing outside. I spend days, maybe weeks, lining up in my head what I should paint next, which plant for which container. It is important to me that the containers are handmade ceramics; this is because they are simply clay. Therefore everything I am painting is natural. I like to paint weathered berries, leaves which insects have bitten into, imperfect foliage, all of which describe the passing of the seasons, autumn into winter. Likewise exuberant colours, brighter light, indicate summer. I paint in a log cabin using only natural light.

Photographer

Gary Loveridge

have been based in Donegal for eleven years where I live with my partner and two children. I grew up in the coastal city of Plymouth in the South West of England and have spent twelve years on ships travelling the oceans. I have been lucky enough to visit some pretty extreme locations and weather that accompanies them. I have had a love of photography for many years and over the last ten years I have taken it a little more seriously. I enjoy trying to catch moments through photography on our local coastlines. For me photography can be used to show not only the beauty of our surroundings but the conditions that it can offer. Living in Donegal and having a job and hobby that has given me the chance to travel means I get to see a lot of Donegalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coastline. I enjoy all types of photography but landscapes, seascape, moonscapes and wildlife are my favourite along with the challenge of taking these images in the weather the county has to offer. Lightning is the most satisfying and most challenging, especially during daytime, with the stormy weather that normally accompanies it. The Aurora Borealis is another personal favourite; patience and a hot flask is needed and being an ex-seaman, I have seen it on many occasions in the past. Donegal gave me my first chance I have ever had to photograph it from the land. I have taken images all over Donegal and I love being out and about, day or night. The different extremes in the weather can bring some excellent opportunities to get a different type of shot and getting a good image is challenging not only with equipment but physically to. If I am going to do a night time shoot, I always visit the sites in the daytime so I can try and take in some visual markers, such as street lights or marker boys. This gives me some kind of reference point for when I am composing the shot later at night. It also aids me in getting about. We live on a fantastic county with great coastline. When I am photographing it, I get great pleasure in getting an image that I want. I always try to achieve what I am looking for with camera and I try to capture a shot as I see it through the naked eye. In a way, I like to capture natures art and feel the freedom of the outside. Doing it keeps me in tune with the elements, I try to be at one with my surroundings, no matter what time or day of the year, it is very liberating.

WRITER

Mary Johnson

have always been an avid reader with a love of words and writer of lists and things to do. More recently after reading some amazing writing by an author from the UK, whose writing is very descriptive and thought provoking, I felt inspired to try my hand at creative writing. So I took the first step and enrolled on a creative writing course at NWRC in Derry in 2014. At first, I was on a steep learning curve. Creative writing was new to me but I took down every piece of advice I heard at the evening classes. I felt that writing was meant to be for me and just wished I had discovered this about myself earlier in life. Maybe being in the environment that I live in now helped the creative process to unfold easier with such a wonderful landscape around me and many other talented and creative people to support and encourage me. It was as if I had found a meaning for myself that nobody could take away from me, the words and stories are in my head and no-one but me can get in there. I can then commit the words to paper for others to enjoy. I gain inspiration from life going on all around me and thoughts in my mind. It could be one word that opens up a whole idea of what to write about. Ideas come flowing in when I am out walking which can be a nuisance at times as I have to then remember them all to write down when I get back home. I do it because my head hurts sometimes with sheer purpose when I write but I love the feeling and satisfaction of creating a unique piece of writing full of description, emotion and passion. Life is good at procrastinating for me but writing is always in my periphery even when I am ironing or cooking dinner. To physically write, I need isolation and solitude to work. I have a writing desk set up in the main part of our house. Classical music playing seems to be a key factor, as does a beautiful view. At times I am struck with an idea and just have to get it down on paper. Normally this involves a lot of scribbling with a pad and pencil. Notepads and pens are in most places around the house, car or bag. Other times I might revisit a piece of writing and rework it. Writing will always be with me now. At the moment I have a plethora of ideas strewn all around just waiting for their turn to be in the spotlight. I write mostly short intense pieces and hope to expand some of my ideas into longer pieces of writing as I learn to master my art of writing. I am me when I write. It is good for my soul.

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.

Mary Johnson has composed a short piece of creative prose inspired by Marie Carrâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s image from this issueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s submissions.

Whispers Dappled damson leaves, silk and shine, abundant all around me. Berries gathered together, poison beauties, temptation on display. I am standing still with you a while, feel me touch you with my naked hands. Your trunk true and strong, roots unseen deep underground. My own human being lives on alongside you, the earth conceals no fragment of me. I see others like you in the distance, alive just as you and I are today. If I can see them they must be able to view me. What is it they see? I am not ashamed of what is contained in me, my arms, my eyes are open wide take a look into my soul. Whisper to me as I hold you near, whisper to me of others who have been here before. Compassion resides deep down in the heaving beat of my heart, yet outwardly to the world my body exhibits calm. I will close my eyes now, visualise the images conjured up by your rustling leaves, as the breeze rises and falls, free and uncontained. I can only see what you show me, you are the watcher of private lives, yesterday, last week, summer time, spring time, any time. Viewing unknown, capturing moments of intimacy, tears of loss, love or pain. Did they sense your presence? Could they feel you watching? Did they hear you breathe as I do now? I will always be gentle with you as you are gentle with me. If there is to be pain we can share that pain you and I, mend and heal. We may grieve together the loss of your leaves as they fall from your arms to the troubled earth below. Memories remain intact deep inside your body of the stories that each leaf once held. The season transforms into the future untold. Stay strong for you will blossom anew as our lives advance on. Watch on and wait for me. I promise to return again one day when the damson leaves are plentiful on you once more.