My whaling expedition continues! This year has been a great year, the winds have generally been favourable, although of course there have been storms – moments when I asked myself rhetorically in disbelief “Really?”. Well, e.g. flooded flat…
But! It’s been a year where I’ve managed to make a living from what I create and do. I made sure I was on the right track. I took part in a couple of exhibitions (including at the invitation of Andrzej Pągowski in the Kubicki Arcades, during the CUTOUT festival in Paris), I did a lot of workshops, including workshops at my favourite Caricature Museum. My collage appeared for the first time on the cover of a book – and it was a book about love. I visited Paris twice, Berlin once and Dublin once. I have been to Lanckorona, Zamosc and Sobibor for the first time. And these were unforgettable moments. I fulfilled a dream and went to the grave of Vincent van Gogh! I was in Balzac’s house! I realised the biggest artistic commission of my life so far: 10 linocuts for one restaurant in Florida (I will write about it, I hope, soon!). I did the illustrations for “Frankenstein” during an illustrator’s residency organised by the Kolaj Institute (the book will be published in 2024). Apart from that, I’ve swum in the lake, cycled, eaten a lot of ice cream, danced at two weddings, stroked cats and cows, read a lot of books and watched a lot of films. And the film of the year for me is “Babette’s Feast”. And the book of the year for me is ‘Moby Dick’, which I have been reading for a few years now and still do. And all this year I have been working on my website and online shop. And at the end of the year the news hit me! I got into the Áras Éanna artist residency, 10 people were selected from 300 applications! And I’m going to spend the whole of October on the island of Inis OÍrr and stare at the ocean every day! And make collages and linocuts, and then I’ll make an animation. And I will see a whale.
Thank you to those of you who accompany me on the adventure called ‘sailing’. I grab my oars and sail on!
Photo below: me and an oak tree that remembers me as an infant. Apparently I darted around terribly on those walks! I visited it in the past year. And it was touching! I told him the story of how I had planted another oak tree in Ireland. So I call that tree the tree of my life.
Happy New Year!
And now “rudder to the side! Onward around the world!”