The summer was mainly taken up with fieldsketching locally and I got first place in the plein air art competition at the Ennis street festival in July. I continued working on the Welsh art residency on Bardsey off the LLyn Peninsula in late September, adding to the growing number of fieldsketches done there. I hope to take the studio work that results from the field-sketching in an exhibition to Wales in 2013. The late summer and autumn were mostly spent getting ready for the Florence Biennale and for next year's exhibitions in Ennistymon and hopefully, in Ennis. I took part in the Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland's exhibition in Dublin in November.
2009 was very busy. In the spring I recorded my cd, 'Tobartaoscan' (tobar=well; taoscan=draught of water), at Limerick songwriter and musician Denis Allen's studio. The cd was launched at a variety of venues in the autumn, including Cois na hAbhna in Ennis, the Roscommon Singers Festival and Feile Amhranaiochta an Chlair in Spanish Point in west Clare. My thanks to Denis for his endless patience and infallible ear for the right (or wrong!) note.
I had two exhibitions in the autumn of 2009. The first was at the Dalkey Castle gallery in October. This 34-picture show contained a mix of themes, with a lot of Burren watercolours. The second exhibition was at my favoured haunt at the Temple Gate great hall in Ennis. This show had 38 paintings, all on the theme of 'Shorelines'. I'd been working on this run of paintings since May 2008. The show marked a return to wildlife, wild seas and the wanderings of rivers.
I spent late April/early May on Bardsey, an island off the coast of Wales and continued to add to my collection of fieldsketches done there over seven visits since 1999. I'm returning in April 2011 for a second art residency stint, with a view to putting an exhibition together that I can bring to Wales.
At present I am working in the studio on a new collection that I hope to exhibit in late 2011. There is a very big variety in the pictures so far with some new directions being explored. No venues yet on this one, but Ennis will probably feature.
I've been invited to show some pictures in Italy at the Florence Biennale exhibition of contemporary art in December 2011. The Biennale shows work by over 600 artists from around the world. Usually two or three Irish artists feature.
I've also been invited to show at the Ennistymon Courthouse Gallery in Clare with Dublin artist Cliona Fox in August 2012.
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