Winter Programme of Events 2009 - 2010

I'm delighted to be announcing my Winter Programme of events 2009 - 2010 and hope you will get a chance to join me at some stage for creative fun, networking, socialising, meeting new people, engaging with art materials and discovering creative visualisation if you have n't already.
I am currently looking out for workshop venues in Carlow, Waterford, Kilkenny and Wicklow, if you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them email me creativedynamix[at]gmail.com. Or you'd like me to come facilitate a network session for a group in your location let me know and I can get right on it!
I'm really excited to be bring you Creative Safari's in 2010 these have been a dream to do for a few years and have come together, so I am delighted to offer you a creative weekend away "...to the waters and the wild...”.

Entrepreneurial Downtime
7.30 – 9.30pm Tuesday 24 November, 2009. €25
Introduction to creative visualisation. Give yourself space and time to stop your brain, connect in with you and have some fun with art materials. Starting with a deep relaxation followed by an invitation to engage with art materials and networking with a difference.
No experience required.
Tea and coffee 9.30 – 10pm.
Location: dreaming, Donaghmore, Ballygarrett, Gorey

Open Studio Sale
10am – 4pm Saturday 28th November. All welcome.
Ballygarrett Art Studio Sale; paintings, photography, prints and handmade textiles framed and unframed. Unique gift ideas, super price range €10 - €2,000. Also open by appointment.
Location: Ballygarrett Art Studio, Templederry Lane, Ballygarrett, Gorey

Introduction to creative visualisation.
7 – 9.30pm Monday 30 November, 2009. €25
Give yourself space and time to stop, connect in with you and have some fun with art materials. Starting with a deep relaxation followed by an invitation to engage with art materials and share the experience.
No experience required.
Tea and coffee 9 - 9.30pm.
Location: Ann’s Angels, 6 Cinema Lane, Wexford

Entrepreneurial Downtime
7.30 – 9.30pm Tuesday 1 December, 2009. €25
The journey. Using deep relaxation and a guided visualisation you are invited to enjoy space just for you. Art materials are provided for fun and as away to explore and express yourself. It’s about the process not the product.
Tea and coffee 9.30 – 10pm.
Location: dreaming, Donaghmore, Ballygarrett, Gorey

It can’t be Christmas till I get a day off!
7.30 – 9. 30pm Tuesday, 8 December, 2009. €25
A fun evening for friends, neighbours and family to join in a lovely relaxation, have a nice introduction to creative visualisation and get creative with art materials.
No experience required.
Tea and coffee and mince pies 9.30 – 10pm.
Location: dreaming, Donaghmore, Ballygarrett, Gorey

Visualise your Client
10am – 12.00pm Tuesday 15 December, 2009. €35
Develop a clear understanding of who your ideal client is and create a visual reference to consolidate information and as a tool to focus your business.
Tea and coffee 12 -12.30pm.
Location: Ballygarrett Art Studio, Templederry Lane, Ballygarrett, Gorey

Moving Forward!
6 week course starting 7.30 – 9. 30pm Tuesday 12 January 2010 €150
A six week course that combines creative strategies, tools for living and art materials with goal setting. Clarify what you want in your life and start making it a reality. More details on request.
Location: dreaming, Donaghmore, Ballygarrett, Gorey

Creative Safari Weekend
arrive 8pm Friday 29 –depart 4pm Sunday 31 January 2010 €280
“Come away to the waters and the wild...”
Give yourself the gift of a weekend away just for you. Immerse yourself in relaxation, creative discovery and mythic location. Two nights’ accommodation and all meals included. Full details on request.
Location: Caraiosa Centre, Bishopstown, Moate, Co. Westmeath

Creativity coaching is offered on a 1:1 basis at Ballygarrett Art Studio or at an agreed venue.

Gift Vouchers available.


Contact Roisin Markham to book on the CreativeDynamix hotline 086.1546163

October saw a flood of new work

October was fun! I started teaching felt making workshops again titled 'The magic of felt', everyone that came rally enjoyed them and were so impressed that they made a piece of fabric out of fleece. It inspired me to make some new felt also. This one is for stitching...

I also picked up these adorable little cups in a local charity shop. The rose motif is so sweet and the green colour still so vivid on this eighty year old hand painted crockery. More photos and information about these cups here.

Of course it was great to work with Wexford County Councils Enterprise and Community Department on my 'creativity for boosting morale and self esteem project' otherwise known as 'the postcard project' on the 16th of October. You can read about it over at the CreativeDynamix blogspot by following both links. The follow up writing thank you and great quotes on the postcards was fun to do and also gave me time to think about the project and further applications of the idea. I was further inspired by the quotes. I started working on a series of images to be printed onto textiles for beading and stitching; the theme maps and quotes. I am working on progressing the designs, patterns and applications to textiles, clothes or prints for framing. A preview of the initial work:

I got exciting news in October that my tender for Art Alongside Programme has been placed second in order of merit! I am waiting to here more about what this actually means but its positive.
What else has been going on? Yes. I have been having very interesting discussions and extending my network in Ireland and globally. Growing my creative lab network of thinkers, doers and creative's all very exciting stuff. I'm really enjoying the way twitter is connecting me to like minds directly. More of that this month.
After my October blog post I spent some time looking at that work from a decade ago.
I realised that something very specific was going on and I was getting to respond to it if I would stop and make space for it. So that is what I did I stopped and made space for that work to look at it to think about it to just be with it.With the help of a friend and healer Catherine Maguire that window from the past has become a door. The transition happened quickly.
Imagine a door opening into a fruitful garden (a cliche I know but that is the image that comes to mind as I write). It feels good to be in the flow of work that is being communicated back and forth between my current reality and my artistic response to a previous reality. It has opened a very interesting space to work in linking loss in general in my life. As I have written before 'Loss is part of my life'. I am processing and expressing that loss and other things in meaningful images. I have posted a new image as the first image in response to the work from 10 years ago. I am working towards an exhibition with experiential workshops based on the work (1999-2009) which will be referred to as the 'inland series' dates March and October 2010.
If the images are meaningful to me that is enough or is it...

Astonished - me? YES astonished!

I recently did an open studio day where I was astonished by the amount of work sitting on my studio shelves. I took out all the dross work, semi finished work and the finished but not framed work and the framed work... yeah I know and I have n't even mentioned the work that was finished and I would never frame.

I astounded myself that I was storing work that was dated 1998.

But what is interesting about this is that I have allowed myself to hold this work and now I find myself reviewing it, recording it and realising that here lies the evolution of myself as an artist. So I think I will do a retrospective of my own work up until my exhibition "Footprints in my heart..." in 2007, during that exhibition my perspective on my creative work changed.

The other atonishing thing that happened is a small body of work gave me a wake up call. In 2000 I made work of a very personal nature... lets be really clear all my work is personal but this work was from the the core of my soul. In 2000 something happened to me that rocked me to the core of my being and subsequently other things happened that stripped me of my ability to cope. In Autumn 2000 I harvested my creativity to deal with a personal loss. I had not looked at this work in a long time just eight pieces. Eight paintings, drawings and images based around me and this loss they shocked me to my core. I could not believe the emotional strengthen of the work. My reaction happened over the last two weeks and continues. As I write I glance over to where the work is stored in a portfolio stacked behind my shelves, hidden from sight in the studio.

My first reaction was: this work is amazing I wanted to share it! Lets find a group based around this experience and go and do some creative work with them! I met a friend about a week after that and shared the idea with her noting as we spoke how deeply the small body of work was prompting me and effecting me. Two days later I crumbled I knew I needed some space, that Sunday my husband took our three sons off and in the quiet of the studio I took out all eight pieces and looked.

I looked and photographed them and looked.

Then I took myself off to our local beach where I did some work outlining a training session, lay on the sand, took some photographs and went for a swim. I reached the conclusion that I needed to be in that group for me. I need this work validated, I required that it would be witnessed... this was shocking. My ego was messing with my heart and my head. manipulation of the highest order. This was not ok to think like this...

From your perspective your probably thinking by making my art public I am looking for validation but that is not how it works for me. My professional relationship with my art goes as follows I make work for others, the process of creation is my piece and it is not until I am happy with the work that it will chosen for finishing at the framer or hung in a venue. It was a distinct point in my career as an artist where I knew I could hang work and be happy with it full stop. Even to the point that if someone disliked my art work I was accepting of their opinion and feedback with no ego attached.

So another few days passed and I got over being indignant and I came to a further evolution.

I am the witness to that work. Right now that is enough. But a dialogue has opened with the work from 2000 and that is exciting. As I move from 2009 to 2010 a decade has been lived and a window from the past leads into the future and how that window becomes a door is an interesting question.
Part of the reason for this post is still around creating space for our stories. I did not have space to share the loss, sorrow and downright grief. In some ways it is still unresolved perhaps because it is around grief it will always be there. But with compassion for myself I aim to create that space and share with you the continuing story. Not the visual work, not yet, that might follow in due course I have some work to do first.

If you'd like to see the photographs I took on the beach that day I have added them to my redbubble site, click here to be taken there...

I have written on loss before behind my paintings I journal, I process, I write.