Have you ever watched an old movie on TV, a western maybe where a dog barks in the movie? The sound of the TV dog barking wakes up your dog who starts looking around confused. And you think wow, she’s looking for this dog that’s been dead for fifty years but the voice sounds strong and the bark sounds clear and you think about how fleeting our lives are.
I think about time a lot, and how short the window is for youth, good health, love, and the open window for being a creative artist.
This week it’s been especially in my minds forefront as I watched an old video of a trip across Ireland made with some old friends in 1993. It was a painting trip from Dublin to Donegal. I was watching the film researching a long lost conversation about a cheeky farmer, but that is another story. In my living room I came across another segment shot in a tiny peet warmed pub in Donegal where my friend let me have-at the camera and film the goings on that night, as they shot darts with the locals.
I filmed the interior musicians, pub men and then slowly spanned into a nice composition where the painting was just right and I held the lens there, editing out , zooming into my final chosen frame. So I was on the edge of my seat at home, the other day, realizing how well I had set myself up for this weeks work, sixteen years ago, watching the work of the younger me saying here it is Loretta. The perfect pub shot on a nice festive night far out on the western coast of Ireland. Here it is, your motif from your past, a gift from another time to paint now. I know what I was thinking back then, I was thinking just be the gatherer. Just gather all the reference for work now and later. The filtering and the decision making process comes later.
My film starts along the bar with the young Irish men watching me, waving for the camera, saying “Good Morning Vietnam”, I scan right past them, past the shy barmaid to the composition of quiet older men sipping the Guinness at the bars end. To the warm light and the soft glow of muted figures of old men long gone now I am sure. To silhouettes along the back mirror and the Guinness foreground long drunk. Hearing the sisters trying to get past each other in darts behind me and the session music’s perfect sound track from the pub corner and I thank God I do what I do for a living.
“Donegal Pub” 2009 Oil Monotype 15×19″
Thanks, Loretta. You made me feel like I was there.