stone walls    Two amazing days on Innishmaan in May of 2012 led to a dozen painting ideas.  I thought I had seen stone walls before, but noooooo. 
 

   On our walk through the empty village the first afternoon we came across an old woman who was tottering along with a cane and was having difficulty filling a pail of water for her cow; I offered to help and after we had together filled the bucket the old woman thanked me and, as we walked away, called out a blessing to me, twice, in English and again in Irish.

   That evening at the hotel pub, I struck up a conversation with the Innishmaan Postmistress who was seated next to me at the bar. I told her about the meeting with the old woman and she asked, "What did she look like?" I described her and she rolled her eyes, "That was my mother. She didn't need to be watering that cow. My brother takes care of that." Only in Ireland.  Innismaan is Ireland in it's purest form.

   I decided to put the old woman in a painting and so here she is bringing water, not to her cow, but to this beautiful Connemara Pony.

"The Beautiful is as useful as the useful.  Perhaps more so."

Victor Hugo in Les Miserables

2012 Quilt Festival in Galway   Last summer, I painted, “The Lesson” for Jim West and the 2012 International Quilt Festival of Ireland.  The festival was held in Galway, Ireland, in early June.  Its theme was “Passing on the art of Quilting” and my painting shows an older woman (Mom? Auntie?) giving a quilting lesson to a pre-teen family member.  We attended the festival and this image was everywhere, from commemorative posters and prints to huge banners at the top of Shop Street in Galway... not to mention refrigerator magnets and mouse pads!  It was an amazing experience, the crowds were huge with attendees from all over the world… and the quilts -- my God! -- were mind-blowing!

At the opening reception we sat at a table with the oldest and the youngest quilters in Ireland.  When the darling 7-year old child, Maeve, from Limerick, was introduced to the audience she was gracious and composed.  When asked, “How long have you been quilting?” she answered, “All my life.”  The crowd went wild.  Then the oldest quilter, a charming 94 year old from Donegal, was helped to the stage.  She was introduced and asked, “What advice do you have for Maeve?”  She said, “When you start something, finish it.”  Now those are words to live by. I’ve got them taped up on the wall next to my easel.
 

 

The original Man-cave   This new painting is of the dungeon cells in Killmainham Gaol in Dublin.  Here the captured rebels of the 1916 Easter Rising were held before many of them were executed.  Their deaths turned Irish public opinion once and for all against the Queen and towards the rebels who had been considered extremists by many of the Irish population. Five years later Ireland had "independence" although on terms that divided the country and led to the bloody two-year Irish Civil war.  In 1936, twenty years after being locked up in Killmainham, Éamon de Valera became president of Ireland. 

St Brendan's Cove  -  I just can't resist rust these days. This rusty winch sits at the top of the concrete ramp at St. Brendan's Cove, on the north shore of the Dingle Peninsula.   From this tiny protected cove, St. Brendan sailed on his 6th century voyage of discovery to among other places (dare I say it?) North America.  There's a nice monument to St. Brendan, the Patron Saint of Mariners, at the top of the windy narrow road that winds down to the lonely little pier.

Okie  -  Okay, this isn't exactly Irish in nature, but it's got a nice story behind it.  Karen and I were hiking up near our Echo Lake cottage in October of 2010 and came across this rusted 1950 Ford truck parked in the woods.  The word "FARM" on the license really spoke to me... and I took several photos of it.  Last summer I did this painting.

A few days ago I entered it in a juried art show at "Studio B" a hip little gallery in Boyertown, PA, a few miles from the family farm that I'd been going to since I was a small child. The show was entitled "Farm" so I knew I had to enter "Okie."  Well, at the opening last Friday I found out that the painting had won "Best in Show." 

John Buck, our friend at Echo Lake who had owned the truck, told me some stories about this truck, which they had named "Okie," and I asked him to write down his recollections.  Read on...

John Buck's memories of Okie


I think Okie was a 1950 Ford F-600 with a gray steel van body when I first saw her in about 1978. The main chassis was quite sound for such an old vehicle -- she had never seen a NY road-salt winter -- and she ran well. The engine was a flathead straight-six displacing 300 cubic inches and the transmission was a 5-speed with no synchromesh. There were no power steering or brakes, so driving was work. 
 

     A friend at work told me he knew of a woman who had driven non-stop from Oklahoma to Dryden, NY, with all the family's worldly possessions in a truck, the whole fatherless family riding in the cab. The woman needed cash badly and sold the truck to me for $235 cash. 

     I drove it to Echo Lake with the Oklahoma plates still on it and learned what a non-synchromesh transmission meant (you have to double clutch every time you change a gear and it was a heavy, strong clutch). I immediately informed my brother-in-law, John Buchholz, that he had become half owner of Okie for a contribution of $117.50. He didn’t seem unhappy.

      The first project I remember was using Okie to pickup firewood blocks on our land across the Lake near the log cabin hunting lodge. It was a Thanksgiving Holiday weekend with sloppy snow on the ground. Okie immediately got stuck and I walked back through the woods to get some help. Larry Buchholz (maybe 12-13 years old?) and some number of his younger brothers (and probably Andy Shaffner too) came over and we used the 8-N tractor, a cumalong, chains, and back power to get Okie out of the roadside ditch. I learned that Okie was too grand a lady to do mundane chores like a pickup truck would do.   

     Another of Okie’s early projects was to pickup some rough-cut lumber down at Beardsley Brothers’ Sawmill by the Genegantslet Creek. John B. and I and his young sons went down and loaded the very heavy hemlock lumber that Raymond Beardsley had sawn for us. It was very hard work getting it loaded, but the van body was large and easily accommodated the load. The trip up the hill to Echo Lake was another matter. I had difficulty learning the double-clutching required to shift and the truck was under-powered for that load. (it was a very heavy load) Somewhere between Burr Harrington’s farm and Miss Nettie Clark’s farm, Okie ran out of gears and power and stopped on a small grade. I coasted backward to a less steep grade, found the lowest gear, and restarted with the engine wound up. The transmission whined, but she made it. 

     After that episode I removed the big heavy steel van body and installed a homemade flatbed to lighten the truck. The flatbed was made from some old military trusses that Tom Griffin had, that had been left in his camp by Dr. Wood. When the van body was removed, the section that had been directly behind the cab (and thus concealed), said “Sooners” in faint outline that is still visible today. 

     With the new flatbed, the truck started a new life at Echo Lake. I dug an earth landing ramp in the side of the field at Echo Lake and Okie proceeded to take many loads of logs down to Beardsley sawmill. Logs were rolled on sideways by hand and rolled off (with some care and apprehension) at Beardsleys’. When I logged off the red pine from the Echo Lake East Hill farm, Okie drove right into the red pine woods and took the logs down to Beardsleys. Tom Griffin’s walls in his cottage are all red pine from those logs that were taken to the mill on Okie. 

     When I was teaching I had summers off and my friend Pat Hartigan and I made a deal. He would help me build a chimney in our house in Cortland from the basement, through the living room, through a second story closet, through a third story loft apartment with 12’ ceiling and up on the high hip roof. (chimney blocks are very heavy) In return, I promised to bring Okie and her companion 1949 Ford 8-N Ford tractor over to his house near Newark Valley to log his back woods. (I never determined who got the best of that deal…). I loaded the 8-N up on two railroad ties on Okie and chained it down tightly and drove the whole assembly to Newark Valley trying to stay on the back roads. All went well and she made several log trips to a local sawmill over that way.
      One adventure that Chris and I still talk about was when I went to Les Strong’s auction at the Whitney Point gravel pit. I bought a lot of stuff including a 1948 Ford F-600 with a fuel tank (like a home heating oil truck) for $15. It did not run and did not have brakes, but the engine turned over (i.e., was not seized). I talked Chris and Phil Shaffner into coming with me to Les Strong’s. Chris drove her Pontiac GTO and Phil and I drove Okie. Okie had no exhaust system past the header pipe and roared very loudly. We chained up the two similar trucks, Chris followed behind with flashing lights and we started down the road. Phil drove Okie and I sat in the fuel truck to steer (no brakes). I kept the transmission in 3rd gear and whenever we had to slow up, I would let the clutch out to get the braking effect from turning the engine over. If you are an optimist, you could say that it worked to some extent, but there were a few bumped bumpers and jarred spinal columns by the time we made it to Echo Lake. As we came up South Street hill from Rt 79, Okie was roaring in a deafening cacophony with occasional bursts of flame and particulate blowing out from underneath as she pulled both trucks up the hill. We passed an older woman a few feet off the road who was stooped over tending her flowers. I thought she was sure to die from fright or have her ear drums burst, but she never moved or looked up as the parade of 3 vehicles moved slowly past! Chris and I recall that story every time we go by her house.
      There are other stories, and certainly she had a grand old life before coming to Echo Lake.
      Eventually Okie began to sit longer and longer and had a little trouble getting started (6 volt battery). Eventually, she just stayed at her loading area above Buck Pond and seemed comfortable resting in her well-earned retirement. Okie was a good old girl!

                                                                       John H. Buck, June 2011

RUST  Here's another self-congratulatory video featuring six new paintings, all with the general theme of Rust. I'm not sure which I like doing more, painting or putting together videos. 

Kylemore Lough

Innocents abroad  --  this painting came at the expense of some very unhappy people. 

     We had driven out from Oughterard last November to visit Kylemore Abbey, deep in Connemara.  After an hour or so at the Abbey, we set out headed East on Rt. 59 towards Lennane, and quickly came to short queue of cars waiting at a red temporary traffic light.  Road work ahead.  Of course in Ireland the roads are so narrow that any construction means single lane traffic and the flow of traffic is controlled by traffic lights at each end of the construction zone.  It was a Sunday and no work was being done but the system is automated -- they have some device which counts the cars that have entered the zone and communicates that to the traffic light at the other end.  After the same number of cars emerge at the other end, the light turns green allowing cars to move in the opposite direction.  

     Fortunately the light turned green just as we pulled up behind the car in front of us and we were able to drive on, soon finding us beside the gorgeous Kylemore Lough. I was entranced by the twisted, leafless trees on the near shore and the green/orange mountain directly across the water.  As is my habit I pulled well off the road, jumped out of the car and began photographing the scene, walking up and down the way to look for better views.  After I had my fill, we headed off again down the road.  Luckily there were no cars behind us so I was able to drive slowly and soak up the beauty. After a mile or two I came around a bend and to my horror saw a long line of cars facing me, all queued up behind a traffic light, wondering why in hell the light hadn't turned green by now!  I passed them, eyes straight ahead, not glancing to see the expressions on the faces of the drivers.  Thank God I would never see any of them again.  But I did get a pretty nice painting out of it.

  

Ireland in November  When we spent last November in the west of Ireland we found a totally different aspect, one which has great appeal to an arteeste such as Himself.  Yes, it can be a rainy month, but the hills and bogs are smeared with orange.  And there's just enough green to remind you why they call it the Emerald Isle.  We spent a week each in Kerry (stayed in Dingle), Connemara (stayed in Oughterard), and S.W. Donegal near Ardara.  Through it all I shot some video with my little Canon digital camera and put it together with a haunting aire I stumbled across.  Here it is... view it in hi-def and full page size if your broadband is broad enough! 

"Bird Song" in Dublin  When we were in Dublin last November we could see this sculpture from the window of our room at Staunton's on the Green.  I talked my way through the offices of the John Newman Center, next door, and into the back yard to get a closer look. I'm wild about it... a young priest distracted from his scripture readings by a bird call, a different "word of God."  The sculptor is Bob Quinn, who lives in County Dublin and who, like me, spent decades in the advertising-graphic design-newspaper illustration game before jumping into his art full time.  
     
As it happens, my granddaughter Kellie, visiting Dublin over Spring Break from her semester abroad in London, came across another wonderful sculpture in a Dublin public garden and posted a photo of it on her blog. I knew at first glance that it had to be a Bob Quinn piece.  This one is called, "Best Night Ever," and when I wrote a fan letter to him he told me: ...the title comes from something my wife's Uncle always used to say back in the 60's when all the country female cousins would come down to breakfast after the dance the night before, "and did ye have the best night ye ever had?"  I suppose the sculpture is  meant as a monument to everyone's right to have fun-- you don't know what problems/difficulties those girls might be going through.

Bob's website is http://www.bobquinn.ie