eQuilter Blog

June 20 Creative Nudge:

I'd like you to stand here on the Cliffs of Moher with me, and breathe in the salty ocean air.

Off to the right, a lone tower keeps watch over the sea. Off to the left in the distance, the undulating 700 foot high cliffs stretch out to a thin peninsula, with another stone sentinel tower visible through the humid haze.

Below to the left, gulls circle and cry out, then land in their cliffside nests on rocky shelves. If you stand in just the right spot, you can spy a colony of sea lions at the base of the cliff, and you can hear their high-pitched barking echoing up the stone walls.

Behind us along the pedestrian path, a woman with auburn hair in a wine-red dress plays the Celtic Harp. Her crisp plucking and rolling arpeggios are carried to us by the sea breeze.

Are you there with me yet?

We usually think of green when we think of Ireland, but I came away from this trip with shades of gray. The gray of the stone walls, the medieval ruins, the castle stones and the cathedral walls….and the heavy gray clouds hanging low and full of rain.

The Irish shades of gray are made all the more beautiful because they are the neutral dark backdrop for the pinkish-purple rhododendrons, the amethyst digitalis, the white Queen Anne's Lace and cream-colored sheep, and a hundred shades of green!

On a couple days of the trip, we were blessed with soft blue skies, and aquamarine seas. Along the seaside villages, boats and pubs in Firehouse Red and Cobalt Blue, competed with Sun Yellow, Periwinkle and Peacock Teal… softened with grey stones, brown thatched roofs, and earthy red bricks.

The modern Irish (Gaelic) word for Ireland is ?ire, named after the matron goddess of the island. In the days when the Celtic tribes prayed to the goddess, they doubtless celebrated the Summer Solstice – the longest day of the year – which is today. (June 20)

For those of you living in very high Northern latitudes, you may not have much nighttime at all tonight! For those of you in the Southern hemisphere (hello to all of our friends Down Under!) you are marking the Winter Solstice and the longest night of the year.

The more we travel and meet new friends around the globe, the smaller our world becomes. As I post more images from Ireland on my photo pages, I hope to share some of the magic of our experience on the Emerald Isle.

Happy Solstice – North and South – Summer and Winter. May you mark the turning of the seasons with a quilt on your lap, surrounded by those you love.

There is nothing like stepping out of your comfort zone to shift your perspective on life…and creativity.

Last night I arrived home from a 12 day trip to Ireland. I am still processing the whole experience, but I have to say that the experiences that touched me deeply were the ones that took me back in time to a simpler but much more challenging time in history.

Visiting the Aran Islands with its bleak landscape, seeing peat harvested from the bogs to burn in chilly cottages, walking through tumble-down medieval ruins, seeing the ancient Book of Kells…and experiencing all of this set in a lush green landscape under heavy grey clouds…gives me a new perspective on phrases such as "stark beauty" and "bittersweet heritage".

The Irish people really know how to have fun, and they don't need much to be creative, to throw a party,(local pubs are family-oriented and full of music) or to express themselves creatively. During the trip I read "McCarthy's Bar" by Pete McCarthy, which gave me a wonderful inside view of living and traveling in Ireland. One of the quotes in the book said that – if it didn't rain so much in Ireland it would be overrun by tourists and Irish wannabes. The weather keeps all but the most serious Hibernophiles (lovers of Ireland) from staying too long. I took a brief class on the Gaelic language at the festival – and learned enough to know that this is a difficult language to master!

However my babysitter from when I was 5 years old, was one of those Hibernophiles, and she's lived in the Dublin area for about 40 years. Sadly, I was not able to connect with her during my trip, but I imagine I'll go back with my kids some time to look her up.

The Irish Quilt Festival made its premier appearance and despite a few birthing pains, it made a remarkable showing for a first-time festival. My congratulations and thanks to Jim West and his team, for creating such a huge event for the first time.

My thanks and hugs to my wonderful group of quilters who traveled the island with me. Together we discovered the magic of Ireland, and I would say pretty much every one of us has the intention of returning one day.

Be sure to watch my photo page as I post more images, and I'll be sharing more about my experience in the midweek Creative Nudge newsletter!

Greetings from Ireland!

Sometimes the thing that inspires us cannot be captured by a camera, because it is a feeling or a memory that can only be expressed by an creative mind.

They say that when you come to Ireland, you'll see shades of green that you've never knew existed. The image that I have in my head now is after miles and miles of patchwork-green fields, dotted with sheep, under grey clouds but saturated from rain. Colors brighten under the sun, but they also are more saturated in Nature when wet. Occasionally on this trip we've seen both, (wet, but drenched with sunlight) and that is an amazing shade of green!

This view was captured at Slea Head on the Dingle Peninsula, which is the most Southwest part of Europe (including the Blasket Islands)… the closest land to the west is the east coast of the US. In fact here they refer to Boston or New York as "the neighboring parish".

This scene is spectacular because you come around the bend on a narrow snaking road high above the cliffs and crashing waves, when suddenly there is a dramatic sweep of green, with dark rocks that drop suddenly to the beach, and then the turquoise water sparkles beyond. A few simple cottages are seemingly tossed across the landscape, and the ubiquitous grey rock walls stretch up the sloping hillside, containing hundreds of sheep and cows.

It feels like the edge of the world, but there were 43 of us sharing the experience. The sun came out just in time to capture this remarkable view, and to illuminate the jeweltones that sparkled after a rain. No wonder the ancient residents believed in fairies and magic!

I hope hope I can share with you this moment when I gasped, and was just blown away by the sweeping landscape. I am taking lots of photos, collecting books on Celtic art, and drawing Celtic designs in my sketchbook. We have a fantastic group and they are having a great time together!

This was originally sent out in the eQuilter newsletter on June 9:

Greetings from Ireland!
*
My week has gone by very quickly, after an unscheduled overnight stop in Boston, and a whirlwind start to our group tour and the Irish Quilt Festival.

Have you ever heard of Aran Island sweaters? Well, I was there on the island all day yesterday! It was windy and cloudy, which is typical weather I imagine, but despite the weather it was a fascinating journey to a lifestyle of another time. The whole island is partitioned off by rock walls that are stacked by hand and fit together like a puzzle. They don't use concrete because the wind must be able to blow through the rocks….otherwise it would just blow the walls over!

Each of the walled-in segments of land has a different purpose. One farmer explained that he had 3 plots in different places on the island: one for his cows, one to grow potatoes, and the third was used as an alternate because they can only grow potatoes in one place for 2 years in a row. All of the soil on the island is manmade, because the island is basically one big rock. They haul up seaweed and sand, mix it together and make their own soil within the walled plots. Quite fascinating to see the soil built up over years of this practice. I'll be posting photos of the walls and the island later this week.'

I am aware that the economy is bad here, so hopefully the festival will be a welcome input of funds to the local economies where we visit. Today is the 2nd day of the quilt festival but my first day there, so I'll take photos and post those later this week as well. Most of the photos I'll post when I get back, since I can do higher quality photo editing on my big desktop computer back home. (I have my laptop on this trip – can't get the colors exactly right on a laptop.)

You may remember that in April I spent a week with teacher/author/artist Pam Holland in Australia. She is here too, and last night we went to the Wicked Thimble Pub and heard an Irish folk band perform. Tonight we are going to a medieval castle for more music and local food. I am staying in a hotel on Galway Bay, and every morning and evening I see people out in the cold water swimming along the shore… and I mean really SWIMMING… like they are training for a triathlon! Off in the distance on the other side of the bay is the Burren which we'll visit on another day of our tour next week.

Sunday afternoon my tour group (40 people) and I will be off on the rest of our journey around the island. I haven't been in my room much since I got here – so I'm planning to share more with you in a few days: watch for my midweek Creative Nudge newsletter!

This was originally sent out as the midweek Creative Nudge on June 6:

Ah well, the best laid plans….

Instead of arriving in Dublin Tuesday morning and having a day to scope out
the city on my own, my Denver to Boston flight was delayed and I missed my
Aer Lingus connection to Dublin Monday night. I'll be on another Dublin
flight Tuesday night, now arriving the exact same time as my group Weds
morning. I am writing this from an Irish pub at the Boston airport… pretending that I am already in Ireland!

So having said that, you can guess that Monday night was a bit of an
adventure. After running from Terminal C to Terminal E to hopefully catch
the flight (and seeing the plane pull away from the gate when I was almost
there – *sniff*), I had to track down my luggage, get a hotel voucher, and
then since the bad weather had filled up all the local hotels, took a cab 45
minutes to Danvers to the only hotel the airline could offer.

Now, you are going to ask what the heck does this have to do with
creativity? You may well ask.

My story begins as I arrived in front of the hotel, and the "resort" name
was laminated on a sign that was taped up beside the revolving door. As I
entered the lobby I saw something scoot off to the side of the registration
desk, saw 2 young men frantically looking around the floor (but in the other
direction), and then the deer-in-the-headlights look as I asked – "Mouse?"

"Yes, where did it go?"

So you see this is another few pages in my book of travel essays. Ha! I won't bore you with the details of my room. Lets just say it had peeling yellow-beige tiny houndstooth wallpaper throughout the entire room…and leave it at that.

So what have I done with an extra day inserted into my itinerary?

* Stayed up late answering emails and simultaneously downloading photo filters
for my new creative obsession – Instagram.

* Researched how to combine Pinterest and Instagram so I can view them together on the web. (Instagram is a photo-sharing program for smart phones)

* Wrote another chapter in my novel. (haha)

* Decided to draw something every day on this trip…once I get to Ireland! Did a little still life sketch to warm up.

* Since it is rainy and chilly – put on my raincoat and pretended like I am in
Galway already.

* Went for a walk in a nearby park and spotted this cluster of shamrocks.

I think my luck is changing!