So another John Hewitt Summer School has sadly come to an end and what a jam packed week of interesting talks, inspiring interviews and a great workshop to boot. This Festival of Literature, Arts & Politics is the annual event run by the John Hewitt Society. The Society promotes literature, arts, and culture inspired by…
This is a short piece I wrote and read at the John Hewitt International Summer School in Armagh in July 2023. I was one of three participants in the Memoir workshop, led by poet/memoirist Maureen Boyle, invited to read at the Creative Writing Showcase on the final day. I will write a post later about…
Absolutely thrilled to be one of 37 writers, from a total of nearly 300 applicants, to be awarded a place on the Irish Writers Centre’s National Mentoring Programme 2023. I’ve been plugging away at a CNF (creative non-fiction) book over the past year apart from a brief break for printmaking. I’m slowly making my merry…
Just back from a two-day workshop in Japanese woodblock with print artist Hiroko Imada at the Chester Beatty Library. Over the weekend, we focussed on sumizuri-e printing, in which a single printing block is used with black ink to create a monochrome image. I’ve cut lino, acetate, copper and MDF plates before so I was…
So we’ve reached the final chapter in the ‘it doesn’t go away’ series of prints. This print relates to work or rather my rather colourful and eclectic career. I always joke that I have a corporate strain of ADHD because I’ve chopped and changed so much over the years. A TedX talk informed me that…
D-day arrived to ink up the mask plate and see how it turned out. Here’s an Instagram reel of the day’s work in the print room including the outputs and a few mistakes and comments under the video. Here’s a little gallery of the outputs in case you find the reel too fast
Autism masking or camouflaging is a common enough practice to disguise or suppress specific autism traits or behaviors in social situations such as1: I’ve been masking for so long that I no longer know what is real or learned behaviour. The other night in a pub, my friend thought I was bored of all the…
After sleeping on it, I woke up yesterday and decided I would not be defeated by my own idiotic ambition. What could help me align those goddamn arrows? I decided on a cardboard base that would be meticulously measured. I roped in the wasband you know the way men love to work with a ruler,…
Back to Gorey School of Art Print Room to test the big plate. Here is the Instagram reel summary of a disastrous day of printmaking. Guest Talk After the coffee break, I took an inspired break and accepted the invitation from the Printing and Drawing course to join them to listen to Patrick Redmond talk…
A busy day in the print room of Gorey School of Art yesterday. 5 plates to test, various papers/materials, and two colours. Here’s the summary on an Instagram reel. Below is the write-up of what happened and what I learned. Key Findings from Testing: Implementing the Findings from Testing: To be continued…..
