nine

Mud season calls for a week away from this place. The reading materials for my next research packet will keep me busy. Lucy Lippard's Lure of the Local examines the topics near and dear to my heart. It will be good to step away from the interviewing and portraits. I will review materials. Distance and being in another culture offers some perspective on what I am gaining from my interviews, what insights.

While in Ireland I asked myself the interview questions in relation to my experiences in Ireland, past and the 2010 week. I love county Clare. It is a magical special place like no other. The mystique is a matter of experiences and authenticity. Like Moosehead It carries nostalgia but its significance is not just historical and landscape: Yeats' tower and Lady Gregory's gardens, the Cliffs of Moher, Lahinch's beach surfing or Ennistymon's falls. The places and experiences continue to touch people's lives in a special way. Experiences bringing awareness of old traditions and custom- to enjoy the qualities of life where time, space and people matter most. This is unique in contemporary life, and I hope it to be in the future.

I enjoyed all the public art in Ireland. We walked city streets, sat in parks, window shopped and visited the National Gallery. Now back in NH I visited a local sculpture gallery/garden. A Mammoth, made of local cranberry grasses, strikingly guards the drive into the gardens. This sculpture was on our friend in Ireland's refrigerator, It is a great piece and I had to visit it. The Mill Brook Gallery and sculpture garden currently has on display in the gallery the faculty from New Hampshire Institute of Art. I love the small ceramic pieces, lovely glazes!

Focused on writing at present so I can edit and than edit some more.