out the window at 7.30pm, courtsey of my webcam, who cannot go outside because the battery is dead :-(
It’s so strikingly and personally disturbingly quiet here: it’s just not like me not to be babbling away all day, in person or on the phone, listening to music or TV and interacting with people online in some way, but here all of that activity has floated away like a cloud of mist over the mountains.
Last night in the residency house, after I had made some food and lit a decent fire (with briquettes this time) I looked around and found that there was no TV no radio and no internet connection. I was alone and in silence. I watched the fire burn for a while and felt a bit lonely. I know it was like this in the old days but maybe this is why everyone would go visiting each other or go to the pub. For me the pub is a good 8-10km away down a dangerously windy (both bendy and inclement weather wise) road.
So I’d say from about 7.30pm I did not speak a word and from 9pm I had no contact with the outside world in any way. This morning I got up early, had breakfast; alone and in silence and went to the workshop where I worked steadily for three hours alone and in silence. Around 11.30am I spoke my first words to Oona Hyland who runs the workshop and also lives on site with her husband and three of her five children (two are at boarding school). Our interaction was pleasant but brief and so I continued with my work.
I forgot to mention what it is that I am working on here. Maybe now is a good time? So, when I arrived back from twelve years exile in the UK I returned to my family home in Milford, County Donegal. I found myself cleaning, baking bread, getting sticks for the fire, making dinners and generally housebound apart from my little excursions on my bike to get more flour for the bread making. On one such occasion I was spotted in the village shop and approached through a series of personal connections to cover a few hours in the shop whilst one employee was on maternity leave.
With not much else to occupy my time I accepted the position and began life as a shop girl on 8th January 2013. It wasn’t long before I began daydreaming and imagining that my work in the shop was in fact and undercover artist residency. I was not ‘a shop girl’ I was Shop Girl and so began my secret project.
I wasn’t very good at keeping the secret because part of my plan was to use the uncollected receipts during my shift to make paper. I’m no Sophie Calle so I asked my bosses permission to take and use this material and possibly make images of the shop and the people working/shopping/loitering there. I spoke quite quickly, overloading him with information so that his response was something along the line of ‘I don’t understand – but do whatever you like. . .’ I began collecting the receipts and one night I forgot to take my secret stash with me. The next day I was questioned by the other staff, who instead of falling around the place in hysterics just smiled, rolled their eyes and then began collecting receipts during their own shifts.
Before long I had bags and bags of waste paper to work with. Then along came this opportunity at Cló for a month long artist residency at their very well equipped workshop. I applied and told them about my Shop Girl project, making paper, and making images of the shop with a pinhole camera made from things on the shop and developing these images onto the paper – and they liked it and awarded me a paid residency. And so here I am.
Tomorrow I have to go back to the shop and work on Saturday and Sunday, but by then my paper will be dry and I will be able to move on to phase two which will be trial and error, quite possibly more error than anything else but I will have nobody to answer to but myself as I plod along alone and in silence . . .
Last night in the residency house, after I had made some food and lit a decent fire (with briquettes this time) I looked around and found that there was no TV no radio and no internet connection. I was alone and in silence. I watched the fire burn for a while and felt a bit lonely. I know it was like this in the old days but maybe this is why everyone would go visiting each other or go to the pub. For me the pub is a good 8-10km away down a dangerously windy (both bendy and inclement weather wise) road.
So I’d say from about 7.30pm I did not speak a word and from 9pm I had no contact with the outside world in any way. This morning I got up early, had breakfast; alone and in silence and went to the workshop where I worked steadily for three hours alone and in silence. Around 11.30am I spoke my first words to Oona Hyland who runs the workshop and also lives on site with her husband and three of her five children (two are at boarding school). Our interaction was pleasant but brief and so I continued with my work.
I forgot to mention what it is that I am working on here. Maybe now is a good time? So, when I arrived back from twelve years exile in the UK I returned to my family home in Milford, County Donegal. I found myself cleaning, baking bread, getting sticks for the fire, making dinners and generally housebound apart from my little excursions on my bike to get more flour for the bread making. On one such occasion I was spotted in the village shop and approached through a series of personal connections to cover a few hours in the shop whilst one employee was on maternity leave.
With not much else to occupy my time I accepted the position and began life as a shop girl on 8th January 2013. It wasn’t long before I began daydreaming and imagining that my work in the shop was in fact and undercover artist residency. I was not ‘a shop girl’ I was Shop Girl and so began my secret project.
I wasn’t very good at keeping the secret because part of my plan was to use the uncollected receipts during my shift to make paper. I’m no Sophie Calle so I asked my bosses permission to take and use this material and possibly make images of the shop and the people working/shopping/loitering there. I spoke quite quickly, overloading him with information so that his response was something along the line of ‘I don’t understand – but do whatever you like. . .’ I began collecting the receipts and one night I forgot to take my secret stash with me. The next day I was questioned by the other staff, who instead of falling around the place in hysterics just smiled, rolled their eyes and then began collecting receipts during their own shifts.
Before long I had bags and bags of waste paper to work with. Then along came this opportunity at Cló for a month long artist residency at their very well equipped workshop. I applied and told them about my Shop Girl project, making paper, and making images of the shop with a pinhole camera made from things on the shop and developing these images onto the paper – and they liked it and awarded me a paid residency. And so here I am.
Tomorrow I have to go back to the shop and work on Saturday and Sunday, but by then my paper will be dry and I will be able to move on to phase two which will be trial and error, quite possibly more error than anything else but I will have nobody to answer to but myself as I plod along alone and in silence . . .
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