How Wings Work

I thought that something a bit more gentle might make a better start to the week.

this is gentle in execution and gentle in theme I think you will agree. Also when I took the photo the sun shone a ray across the picture and I liked it so i have left it in. I think it enhances the painting - it makes the central portion look slightly translucent, don't you think?

I had a bit of a struggle painting this all the same - but when don't I struggle - but in the end it came together very satisfactorily. With nice washes of colour to build up the flesh tones and then slightly stronger paint to make the wings.

This idea came to me one morning when I was lying in bed looking up at the ceiling and out the balcony door at the blue sky. i was half dozing and half dreaming I think and I jsut started thinking about how wings are held together. I seem to have some memory - it might be a bird wing actually - that some of the feathers are latched together by organic hook and eyes. So I decided to use this system for these metamoth wings too. I thought it was just one simple thought in a painting. Not too crowded like some of my others. Sometimes that simplicity is just very relaxing.

I like thinking about how things work; wings, crests on birds, lizard feet and those great long lizard tongues that shoot out to catch insects, insect feet on water, how seeds germinate and how they get from a to b, how fingers and toes bend and point and how chestnuts open and how they protect their seeds. The list is endless and as varied as the whole world. It gives me something to do in the early hours of the morning though.

Today being Monday I thought i would ease myself in to the week on moth wings.

Seed Flight 1

I made this medal first - before the other one that i posted yesterday.

I made this one before i left Ireland actually. i modelled it in wax and was down to limited resources at that time as most of my equipment and materials had already been removed to storage. But i did have an old bag of Plaster of Paris so could at least make plaster moulds of the two sides of it.

I brought these with me to Norway and have been guarding them carefully since then until a time that i was in a position to take an impression from the mould and make it into a medal. Which I have now done.

Now that this is a bit more permanent - made from Super Sculpey as it is - i feel a lot happier and it will go into my cache of medal models for future bronze casting.

I think you can see that this medal is a different style from the ones I have been making lately - there is less detail but perhaps more raw expressiveness. i like the sense that the little girl is being lifted off the ground by the great big dandelion fluff and is going to be carried away in the sky to land who knows where?

Good weather seems to have returned to Stavanger again - it was really warm today. The sun is full out now as well - I hope it lasts. Going for a cycle in the morning is much easier when the weather is good and i really do not like cycling when it is windy.

Once the frosts come in the winter I will try to sell my bike. It is hopeless trying to cycle when there is ice on the ground, especially with the hills here. I will not be able to take my bike to Spain with me, which is a pity as I am getting quite fond of her now. I try to remain aloof, but the more you cycle a bike, the more you grow into them. It is always the case and we are getting to know each other better and better every day - i will wake up one morning welded to the saddle I know it and what will become of me then!

Still I am getting ahead of myself - i am intent on enjoying the next few months here. I need to use the time as productively as possible and get as much art work done as possible, because when i get to Spain I will be very busy getting our house sorted there before i get the time to do any work. So for now it will be model, paint, cut and print and enjoy the Norway summer and the clear Norwegian air.

Seed flight 2

Phew!

Another busy, busy day!

But look, i promised you my newest medal. It is called 'Seed Flight 2' and that is what it is about.

It was really jsut an excuse to do a study of some beautiful flying seeds - they are not completely true to life, I took a few liberties, but real seeds are sometimes even stranger so i don't feel that I have really cheated - well maybe just a little bit.

It is raining again :-( just when I thought we were going to get the summer back for August at least.

I am also a little bit tired today as Vic took me out for an impromptu night out. He was very mysterious about it when he got home. He just said that we were going out a bit later on but would not tell me where we were going or why!

There was a concert on in 'The Ovenpaa' pub - where they have a blues club. It was an Irish singer/songwriter called Grainne Duffy. I had not heard of her before, but I have now. I thought she was very good, as was her band. It was really nice to hear Irish accents again too.

It is probably the latest we have been out in about 9 months!

I will try to be more awake and chatty tomorrow zzzzzz...........

The Woman with Seeds in Her Hair

Done!

I have finished my newest medal.

Since i photographed it and photoshopped it to get it ready to post I have noticed one or two little things that need to be corrected and adjusted. But for all intents and purposes this medal is ready to go to press - so to speak.

I am very satisfied with this medal - it took a lot of work and my eyes are falling out of my head to be honest, but I think that all the little intricacies work together in a very pleasing balance of composition.

As you can see - the woman is in profile with her hair flying behind her in the wind. Because of the edge of the medal her hair has to turn around the rim of it. On the reverse of the medal that is where the real magic takes place as her hair is whipped up into a bit of a frenzy and thus releases the seeds which were cunningly concealed within her tresses.

For me the reverse side also resembles a landscape - so you can see that the seeds will conveniently end up where they belong and where they can take root to start the whole life cycle again.

Once again the hair turns the corner to confront its owner once more - and the life cycle is complete.

Hair is a very powerful symbol - one often charged with sexuality. I do not pretend to know all its permutations but I know from personal experience how hair affects the way people perceive you. I used to have very long, strong hair - it is a long time ago now. It got to be long enough so that I could sit on it.

It worked for me for quite some time and I know that men in my life found it very sexy but after a time (and at a certain age) two things happened.

First of all it just got to be a pain because it took a lot of care to keep it clean and brushed. Also it became a pain because strangers sometimes felt at liberty to come up behind me and touch or even stroke my hair - which I just found plain creepy!

And secondly I began to notice the comments of some of my girlfriends about the matter of how old you should be and still have long hair, as it was obviously seen as something for young/sexy girls not a middle aged woman. I also noticed a certain tinge of jealousy in their voices.

Actually there was another reason it stopped working for me which I really disliked. I became my hair. I was no longer Mary, with various interests and beliefs and a distinct personality. I was Mary with the long hair. I was defined by my hair

So I decided to get it cut.

Well, I cannot tell you the reaction I got when I went into my hairdresser to get it done. First of all the Hairdresser asked me was I sure - then she wielded her scissors and I almost sensed a slight look of victory in her face as she took the first half of its length off in one fell swoop. it was almost like she was taking my very strength and attractiveness with it.

Also - as she performed the snip all eyes in the salon turned on us and there was an almost audible collective gasp at the moment of contact.

I admit that I have used the term 'snip' intentionally as hair is also considered a symbol for the phallus. Think of the great thick plait of Rapunzel in the fairytale or medusa and her hair of snakes. Rapunzel has her plait cut off too and Medusa loses her head completely. The castration/weakening of Samson by Delilah is performed by the act of cutting off his hair. The list goes on.

I find it quite fascinating - it has so many little avenues of thought and discussion. People have very strong associations and opinions about hair.

So when I made this medal I wanted the hair to be very strong - it becomes an entity in itself. And suddenly when the woman confronts her hair as it comes around the edge of the medal it has become something of a powerful adversary as well.

I learned that other women fear the sexual potency of hair and some men go weak for it - but do they notice the woman attached to it?

I hope I have planted a seed of thought for you as you go about your day's business.

Earth Goddess Planting Seeds

Gardening has always been a huge part of my life. My mother, as you know already, was a gardener and from a certain time in my life - sometime in my late teens - I started to become more interested in what she was doing.

She enjoyed nothing better than showing off her garden at the end of the day - showing me the little treasures that were sprouting and growing and the areas she had cleared for future sowing and planting - and I became her audience. After the 'Grand Tour' we would then pour ourselves a gimlet (Gin and Roses Lime) and sit in the garden and chat about life and gardening.

I don't know now if she went through the same performance for my sisters or brother. I think it might have been mainly during the period of time when the rest of my siblings had left home - as i was the last.

I think I would still be at home now if I had not become pregnant with my son. I was a completely unambitious and a totally unworldly sort of person. I was musical and was sort of flirting with a career in music, but I was so naive about the realities of the hard work, determination and general dangers of that world that I would definitely have been swallowed up and spat out again on the scrap heap before too long.

Becoming pregnant was obviously not the most obvious solution and certainly not one I would advocate for everyone, but it worked for me. Suddenly I had a purpose in life and something that took the focus off myself and my petty little problems. When my son was born he was the one that became the centre of my little world. I would go so far as to say that i was reborn on the same day that he was.

As I was a single mum for the first seven years of his life I had to finally start to learn about hard work and responsibility and the strange workings of the outside world.

This picture is about all of that. It is about the garden and it is about fertility. This towering Earth Goddess with her large, capable hands is planting seeds deep down in the loam. She is almost digging halfway down into the centre of the Earth. It is my mother and it is me and it is every mother that ever was. You can tell that she is bound with the earth by her large hands buried in the soil and feet that stand square on the ground. She is strong and she is is fertile, she is focussed and gentle all at the same time. She plants and she protects and nurtures her young as they grow.