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A Brush with the Light
One grey March day when I was depressed, not working, and living on
the east coast of Ireland, I set myself a simple task: I would go to
the beach. I would record, as exactly as I could, three colors: sky,
water, sand. I then set out with my oil-paints, brushes, turpentine,
linseed oil and an oil-paper pad.
I felt I could succeed in the task I had set for myself, and would be
satisfied with that...but Nature wouldn't let me get off so lightly!
While the sky had been grey where I lived about two miles inland - but
by the time I got to the beach, the sky was a riot of ever-changing
pastels, while the movements of the sea complicated the multitude of
hues I'd never looked at so closely before. Despite my initial
ambition of recording only the colors I'd see (and I'd vastly
underestimated their number), in the end, it was as if the sky, sea and
sand wanted to be 'in the picture'...
I am very conscious of its imperfection, but comfortable with it. Even
more than what it so imperfectly represents, it is testament to a sense
of time lost in near reverie, through attention paid to something as
simple as three colors in nature. Emboldened by this modest success, I
felt drawn to the mountains which were only a few miles inland from the
beach.
I didn't have a particular scene in mind beforehand, but soon stopped
at a farm gate, and with more delight than deliberation, I took out a
palatte knife, and began to spread the quickly-mixed paint in a
ten-minute bout of recording the Wicklow Mountains ... again,
imperfectly, but at one with the scene, the place and myself. the place
and the playful act of painting spontaneously, which felt more like
buttering bread.
I must try to paint in this way more often, see where it takes me, be
aware of how doing it makes me feel. On this occasion, you could say
that the tip of my brush lifted my heart.
©Eileen O'Brien
Flaw as Feature
I had seen this scene before, in magazines, but never in real life, let alone in winter, or
dusted in snow. I came upon it quite unexpectedly when driving through Conamara in the west of Ireland,
one March. At first, the broken, withered rushes annoyed me, but when I saw their compositional and linear
possibilities, how they could form an interesting foreground - all was forgiven… and they got their
1/250 sec. of fame!
It was a lovely scene to me… but I wasn't telling the whole truth… I was careful not to include another
element I had judged ugly… but which kept challenging me…
I cursed the 'ignoramus' who had erected what I had initially seen as an ugly heap of wood and corrugated
iron, with its geranium red doors, drunkenly hanging off their hinges. Something deeper, however, forced me
to look at it afresh, non-judgementally, sympathetically, acceptingly…to dare to look at it in the context
of its magnificent setting, to dare to look at the lovely setting, and include the 'blighted' shed.
Indeed I can still look at it and feel the protests and objections gathering steam… I like both pictures… but the one with the shed challenges me more, is more exciting in some way I cannot define, and don't even know if I want to…
It reminds me of a story about a mason in Dublin, who, on having a flaw in his work pointed out, retorted: 'That's not a flaw, it's a feature!
I'm beginning to feel like I'm delivering a homily… but as the quizmaster used to say: 'I've started, so I'll finish!':
The shed now brings me to thinking about having Bi-Polar Disorder… flaw or feature, flawed feature, 'Here comes Eileen, featuring a flaw'? sLike the shed, I'll do what I can with it. I came from one period of mania a more strategic driver, and it seems to have stayed with me. I wrote down a few of the Niagara of ideas that came to me, and must now see if I can realize them as stories in this less hectic period. I value the memories I just about manage to salvage from my last depression so that they will act as an aversion if I find myself sliding again… I have known and experienced the awfulness that I want to avoid at all costs. A few ideas survived too, of how I might have helped myself during that period, of services that might have helped, of things perhaps I could have ready, should such a dreaded time come again, as well it might.
So maybe even ugly red sheds have a place at the foot of mountains or lakesides, and maybe I will find a way to be in the world as a card-carrying manic-depressive, where I can somehow manage to incorporate it into my life as an integrated if embattled feature.
Eileen O'Brien
3/16/'05
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