Late last years and early this years spate of rejections prompted me to write a rant- now much edited- seen above in May/June edition of Visual Artist Ireland News sheet. Delighted to have a piece published for VAI. Ask, or rather proffer, and you shall be rewarded. Not always, but sometimes. As rastamouse would say, by publishing my latent despair over manifold rejections, I was able to make a bad ting good.
Alongside this, a large part of my brain is occupied with Ringfenced, upcoming afternoon of new work showing and a performance. Many flyers were made until I was happy with this one below. 
Ive been busy painting, in my studio space on O Connell, St, above the street, crouched on the floor til my feet go numb, adding bit by bit. Glorious escapism. Womblike. The paintings are based on skewed photos of my form. Reckonings. They are to me a kind of confrontation of the self. None are finished yet but some are close. I don’t like them but I like the composition of them. I like how they take up the space on the canvas. I like the skewed aspect, as this feels the most authentic as a depiction. They are all monochrome and 16 x 16”. They are part of a process and are a series. I would like to have about 15 but so far have 10 good enough to show. They are performative material as they are utlising the body as process and are another outcome of the bodily process. Performance itself will involve concrete blocks, and a sort of ringfort enclosure. I have purchased 4 concrete blocks as warm up/prep material. Said blocks sit solemnly outside my house. I need to speak to B tomorrow re renting more for the day. It is B’s wonderful attitude which is allowing this to happen. We applied for funding to do a solo show for me at The Old Schoolhouse and got.. none (see beginning of this post for context) B spoke to Mountshannon arts who were happy to open their festival with my performance. So we are doing it anyway. Mountshannon Arts are a small but discerning high quality arts festival which I am proud to be associated with. And the lack of funding, the lack of needing to please anyone, the lack of beholdenness, has resulted in my doing exactly what I have felt like and was compelled to do without having to consider anyone else. Such an opportunity. I feel hugely fortunate.
grimace- WIP- unfinished
All this stuff going on I have generated myself and acknowledge that. But I am increasingly conscious of my situation, of audacious good fortune compared to so many many people in the world right now. I have a place to live. My kids are pretty well. I have enough money to pay bills and look after my kids. I am healthy and strong most of the time. I have a good, kind partner. So yes I generated these work opportunities myself but thats because I inhabit a world that allows me the scope to do this. I turn off social media so as not to see the small limp dusty torn bodies of the children in Gaza. To see the blank despairing faces of mothers in Sudan. I say this as I cannot bear to view these horrors in such a casual way, a way that allows me to move past them with an upward miniscule gesture of my finger. The world is more awful, dystopian, unforgiving than ever. I donate money, I repost, I do my small acts of drawing attention to these situations. I look after my kids, I work, I carry on. I have that privilege. I cant just write a blog celebrating my actions without acknowledging that I am one of the very very lucky ones.
