Stone Circle

Today was a fun day.

We started with a talk about issues related to land art with Tim Jones. He spoke about how after one artist created a doma (?) on the Burren, many other people imitated it. Everyone is an artist... rather everyone has the potential to be... everyone has a creative spirit inside and it is expressed in many different ways. The "stone pavement" wound up with over 200 of these imitation sculptures- were they art? Should they stay or go?  Were they hurting the landscape or allowing for creative expression? The people of the Burren decided they didn't want this creative expression on their land at their expense, so they gathered local school children to dismantle all of the rock sculptures.  We visited this location today, and I have to agree- they really do harm the landscape when rocks are pulled up from the earth exposing the dirt beneath. The sculptures that were recently rebuilt did create visual interest and couldn't really be seen from a distance.  I think maybe the area should be sectioned off into to a creative zone... and give people the opportunity to play.  There is so much damn rock in the Burren- one area for humans to spread joy can't be all bad.

We went to see Richard Long's "Stone Circle" near the Cliffs of Moher.  The walk was pretty incredible. I am always amazed at how powerful the ocean is. Surfers come here to surf the regular rouge 50 foot wave into cliffs that are 650 ft. high!  Rose and I decided to postpone are surf lessons til we get to LBI. lol I almost walked right past the circle. The landscape has major gaps that go down I don't know how many feet. One really could break a leg there. Gives new meaning to the expressions "Step on a crack break your mother's back" and "It's bad luck to step on a crack".  The circle itself was in a sheltered location, away from the howling winds and crashing waves. It was a meditative space. Smaller tahn expected and I thought it was chisled into the ground from the photo we saw, it was nice to see how simple it was and how it didn't harm the landscape. I am very grateful we were able to see such a rare and beautiful piece of land art. Tim even showed us where to stand and told us they used a 100 mm telephoto lens to compress the space and make the cliffs seem larger. My attempt (Sans Photoshop) above. Oh, I just got a sick feeling in my stomach as I uploaded this image. It looks PIXELATED. My memory card filled up right before we got there and I borrowed a small card from one of the visiting artists. I will have to look at these in greater detail. Cross your fingers.

Laura and  I were a little too close to the edge where the waves were breaking. I saw a big wave coming and told Laura to turn around because I knew her  camera was about to get wet. She said I was            saving her from seeing her own death coming.  Either way we got the heck out of there. Tim says the ocean sucks several people off of those cliffs every year and that the Cliffs of Moher are the #1 place in the world to commit suicide. Somehow, I'm sure there must be a sadistic website where people ask about that. The Northeastern students took a tour to the Cliffs and we're jealous. It is very difficult not having a car here. We are going to try to coordinate a trip next week. It would be a shame to miss it.

Scot gave us some readings that are more applicable to this area. He couldn't get the xerox machine or scanner to work today, so he gave us a book to read a few chapter out of.  We read and deciphered it together as a group which was very helpful. I think we all comprehended the ideas regarding site specific vs. land art and how art is definitely becoming more nomadic, moving from the galleries to cyberspace. It was a challenging and engaging read. We're happy Scot adjusted the readings to better suit our needs in this new and unusual environment. Our dinner classes have been very insightful and helpful. We have another class tomorrow night.

I'm excited and happy to spend time in the studio. I feel like I need my work to come off the wall now. There's so much to think about and consider. I can really feel my mind opening up and growing in a good way.

We encountered 2 big bull(ocks) on our usually peaceful walk home today! No where to go!  Would you rather be killed by a cow or a truck on your walk home from school?  I think death by cow is way cooler for artists.  It was so strange, everything was different. Lupus didn't want to go with us, cows in one field and not the other, people Hurling in the school field, no cows in the field across from the Whiskey bar... it must've been because we had 3 men with us this time. We showed Scot and two boys from NE.  We joked and said it's like there's two worlds and we weren't in the magical/ imaginary one today. We love Lulu!

 Laura and I had another adrenaline rush when we went into a field to sketch the cows... and then one them stood up!  We ran out of there so fast we didn't touch the ground! But that's another story ;^)

Here we are 2 nights ago.  Happy 4th of July America! It's 107 degrees at home and Christmas weather here. Go figure!