January 2020 in photos

Joining in today with Kate at I Live I Love I Craft for the monthly Photo Scavenger Hunt - come along for a wee peak at what everyone else has put up to illustrate the words for this month.  

Lost/Found - 

For me, this should really be - where was the most ludicrous place that things have turned up !!  Like finding my phone in the fridge 24 hours after I'd most definitely had it stolen!!

1977? or 78?

But I reccently found this newspaper cutting - I thought all my old clips had been thrown out - I won a talent compeition back in my late teens and was invited back as the main guest the following year.   In between times I'd met my two lifelong friends Nigel on the left and Willie on the right and we formed a band called Misty Morning - the name came form the title of a song I'd written with a school friend.   You'd think butter wouldn't melt in our mouths LOL    We played together with an added bass player until I left for the middle East in 1980.   Nigel still works in the business as a music promoter and Willie owns a pizza company.  It's definitely time for a catch up. 

Print/s

I got a glimpse into the print workshop last week at TGC - a wonderful thing that means very little to me.   We've been watching Anne With An E on Netflix - the new Anne of Green Gables - and it's wonderful .   A printing press has been featuring heavily over the past few episodes in that too.
The artist in Annaghmakerrig was an American based in Paris and she very kindly let me have a look in to see the machinery - I would have loved a day playing in there.  

Lunch

A reminder of warmer days .... the start of our festival in July is a picnic lunch up in the meadow that gives the Festival its name - Fiddlers Green.   This is a meeting place about 600 feet up the slope of Slieve Martin which would have been the crossroads on the old road from Newry to Kilkeel.   They say Fiddlers Green is where fishermen go to heaven. 

Here, festival chairman and folk activist Tommy Sands is opening proceedings with a song and a welcome - the session lasts for 2-3 hours and usually there'll be performers from more than 15 countries taking part - last year we counted 17 nationalities.  


 

Starts with M ..... 

Migrant's Day was on the 18th December.

Top left Csilla and I performing from The Emigrant Woman's Tale
Top Right - Lana from Lebanon
Bottom Left - Den from Cambodia; bottom right Soheil from Iran

To mark it my friend Csilla Toldy and I ran an event called This Is Home to raise money for the homeless in our local town and invited people from as many nationalities as we could find in the area to perform a song or a poem or a piece with special meaning to them.  I'm borrowing some photos from my friend Belinda at Good Craic Gifts - she's from Australia and had us all joining in on an Australian version of Jingle Bells to wind things up.
All performers spoke in both English and in their own native language - We had readers from Poland, Iran, Hungary, Austria, Germany, France - Den read some of his lifestory from being a captive aboard a fishing trawler off shore in Camobdia, a Lebanese girl sang and several local performers sang songs about emigration, this being a country where that theme is so much a part of our history.  At the end we sang Silent Night in 6 different languages and the Syrian ladies who run the foodbank in Newry joined in with us.  The venue The Rostrevor Inn where we hold most of our events put on a spread of mostly Polish food which was enjoyed by everyone - a great lead up to Christmas which will hopefully become an annual event.

ENDS with T.... 

Frost in the morning
The pink skies in the mornings in the middle of January weren't the best harbingers - shepherds warning and all that ... but seeing the moon over a frozen pond with that tinge of blue in the sky lifts my heart.

 and I had to add in a wee pic of this cute birdhouse outside our cottage window at Annaghmakerrig.

My own choice

Two of my favourite things coming together - curly trees - hazel I think that one is or is that willow?  Whichever, it's curly and that delights me.   And secondly, the colour of that moss, glowing in the afternoon sun.   Filters haven't entered my photography yet so that's au naturel.

The weather here has been so typically January these past weeks - storms and lots of rain - and then the blessing of a warmish, blue-sky day for a walk in the fresh air.

Thanks to Kate for keeping this lovely hunt going - it's always a challenge and always fun to see what everyone else has put up for the prompts.  

Annaghmakerrig - the annual visit

Having written lots about the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig before I'll not bore you with more details other than it was the estate and family home of an aristocratic composer Tyrone Guthrie who left it first to two workers who looked after the farm and that was susequently taken on by the Arts Councils of Ireland and Northern Ireland as a retreat for artists to come and gain inspiration and quiet out of their daily routines.

The old maze at the back of the house

 As well as the main house accommodating up to 13 writers full board, there are also five self catering cottages that are mostly occupied by musicians and visual artists.  They're also ideal for couples like ourselves.  

 

The farm buildings turned into cottages - we were in the end one

from outside the cottages courtyard

 I feel the presence of Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon, playwrights like Martin Lynch and Marie Jones and Brian Friel, there's a wonderful concert pianist here at the minute whom we can hear practicsing in one of the rooms and the paintings adorning the walls have all been left or donated by well known names in their fields as well as people just beginning on their artistic paths.

Lots of stone carvings around the grounds ...

heading to the lake

 With visitors from America, England, Germany and Ireland there was a very international feeling during our week.  

Annaghmakerrig Lake

and old boathouse

What must it have been like to live in a place like this - call it your home!

The gardens are beautiful and we've decided to go back at the end of the Summer this year so we can experience the place in full bloom, althought with its winter coat on it was still a lovely place to walk through with a surprising amount of colour showing through. 

So between the usual January days with storms and bluster we had some lovely frosty mornings with gorgeous sunsets and blue skies during the day.  Who wouldn't be inspired with skies like that ....

A young artist from Lisburn just starting out on her path was vying for the biggest grin along with the young German classical guitarist - their delight was infectious and we all felt the need of an injection of joy which the place always imparts. We came away with some more or less finished songs and more new ideas - the bones of a new album starting to shape up - now to not let the world crowd in again so we can get them moving onwards. 

An Artist's Retreat

The Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annamaghkerrig

I've fulfilled a long held ambition this weekend past, to have a stay at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Co. Monaghan.

This is a residential retreat for artists of all disciplines to come and have a space away from home and be looked after, fed, watered and housed to facilitate the creative process.

And it is magnificent.

Some more of the residence block

Part of the old formal gardens

" The opening of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, County Monaghan is today seen as a turning point in the cultural life of Ireland. At his death in 1971 Tyrone Guthrie, with the encouragement of his family, left the house in his will to the Irish State for use as a residential workplace for artists.

Guthrie’s dream was pursued by visionary and dedicated people through the two arts councils in Ireland at a time of deep political division. The old house was skilfully converted and Annaghmakerrig opened its doors to its first residents on 10 October 1981."

At Annaghmakerrig Lake

Anyone from any art form (and you don't have to be Irish) can come here for some seclusion - and the only rule is that everyone comes together for dinner which is home cooked and 5*.   There's a dance studio, library, art and sculpture studios .....

I had no less than 3 grand pianos to choose from!!! 

... we were in the music room which houses two grand pianos - luxury.  Plus there's another grand piano in Lady Guthrie's drawing room.  

The Music Room - the other grand piano is in the opposite corner

I found that this piano on the right in the big room brought a new tune from me every time I sat down ... the one at the window in the photo above that was perfect for working over ideas and transposing chords and the one downstairs only wanted folk music played on it!!!   

What a luxury to be the only player and be allowed free access to all these instruments - my piano at home does not compare and might have to give up its place for a newer model.  Although it breaks my heart to part with instruments that are still intact, still it would be wonderful have one that feels good under your fingers.

Writing a melody at the piano

Bulrushes

I was fortunate to be here with a poet, Csilla Toldy, who secured a bursary for the two of us to work on a project for 4 days.   Very lucky for us.

Csilla (pronounced tShiela) is from Hungary.  I have been setting some of her poems to music and we are co-producing a piece about emigration which we hope to have ready for International Women's Day in March next year.  

As our stay went on the creative energy just grew and grew to the point where I found it very hard to switch off and get some sleep - I wanted to write, paint, play, create - anything to get the adrenaline, ideas and energy out of me and onto paper or into the voice recorder on my phone.

An oasis of calm

Each night all the artists come together for dinner.  One night we had a singing and storytelling session afterwards and on another night a tour of the art workshops.   There were 4 painters, 2 other poets, a playwright, a storyteller, a journalist, someone developing a script for an animated film, another working on a poetry Ph.D, an essayist (who knew such a thing existed) and at least two novelists.  We come from Holland, Germany, Australia and America as well as Csilla from Hungary and a few of us from Ireland.

Looking in to the big dining table
where everyone gathers each evening

It has been so interesting to hear the conversations at dinner and to exchange ideas from all around the country North and South - and to exchange ideas with people from different artistic disciplines.

The stairs beside my room
and some artwork that a previous resident had done.

Over the years, many world famous artists have stayed here - and most leave some of their work behind to dress the walls, fill the library and add to the already huge collection.




We've made very good progress over the weekend, had many long conversations and pushed ourselves hard to produce work that would not so easily happen at home.   I've written two piano pieces and one song and Csilla has written several new poems.

I will definitely try to go back here for some time on my own in the future.   It's a working holiday and everyone leaves utterly exhausted ....  but oh what a wonderful exhausted.