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GP from Kildare speaks about how he approaches the talk of dying with his patients.

A practical approach of discussing death and what happens after. I find this comforting to hear a direct and matter of fact way of speaking about death because that's what it is - a matter of fact. We are all, some day, going to die. We all, some day, will have to make these decisions

"In Ireland we die predictably"

"7 steps to have a good death:

take control of your death

think about it: a little and often

understand how you are likely to die, we can't always predict it

identify your trusted friend, tell them what you want after you're gone

get and use your end of life planning tool

practice the decision "I've had enough medical care"

imagine yourself having the best death that you can (imaginative psychology)

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"Whose Death is it anyway? How we Die matters." | Dr. Brendan O'Shea | TEDxDunLaoghaire

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This illustration above I believe has been my most successful to date, as the image shows remnants of human activity but leaves a large empty space. For my final illustrations I will create more drawings similar to this one to fill the repurposed frames.

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Based on my research of artists and connecting back to my overall concept for this semester's project, I'd like to break out of the linear way of thinking I have gotten stuck in. I had until recently decided I would sequence my illustrations to depict a clear narrative however ultimately this is not the route I want this project to take.

I thought back to what originally inspired the theme for this project - my nanas house and all the feelings that cropped up as we sold her house a year after she passed. She covered her walls with mismatched frames full of memories of her life and the lives of those she loved.

For my final presentation of work I will gather preloved frames and place my illustrations in them, and display them in a mind map sort of style: scattered

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Love the colour palettes she uses. They feel very earthy. I usually avoid these colours because they often end up looking muddy but that's not the case here. I would also love to explore collage. She has combined her illustrations with images and I think this could be a nice combination for me to try as I have a lot of reference imagery that I always draw from, I often illustrate them directly but it would be nice to experiment using them in different ways.

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Upon finding the work of Andrew Whitson I wondered if maybe some text in Irish would be a nice addition to my illustrations. I'm not fluent in Irish but I have always had great appreciation and love for the language. My grandmother Noreen could speak it very well and I'd often ask her to help me with my Irish homework when I would spend evenings after school at her house.

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Olivia Golden - Irish illustrator based in Cork city

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Olivia Golden - Irish illustrator based in Cork city

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sparseness

inclusion of text

I like her use of texture, made using overlapping lines of various thickness and also simple dots

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Christina O`Donovan - Irish illustrator based in Dublin

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Christina O`Donovan - Irish illustrator based in Dublin

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softness.. tenderness.. comforting

The bare and the hare story of sharing Christmas (somewhere only we know) tells a story of reaching out to the lonely and welcoming them with open arms to come together and share love during this time of year

overall I love the visual qualities of this one, characters are simple, not too heavily shaded in any areas, their expressions are subtle and sweet

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Uses gouache, watercolour, coloured pencils - with a focus for people and animals

minimalistic

muted colour tones - uses negative space in an impactful and clever way

softness

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sparsness

soft colours but the focal point contrasts by using thicker black line

simplicity

composition feels similar to the work I have been creating

negative space

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Tina Berning - illustrated book cover below

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Tina Berning - illustrated book cover below

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Book cover

Block colours

Freehand lines but deliberately placed

colours are vibrant and energetic in contrast to the pose of the boy that feels he is in a quiet moment

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Ciara Coogan - Irish illustrator from Galway, working in France

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Ciara Coogan - Irish illustrator from Galway, working in France

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overflowing with delicate details

simplistic

refined

minimal

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Invocation

As old houses harbour ghosts, so do words.

Take museum which comes down from the Greek,

a place to put things that please the Muses,

a shrine or seat of the old goddesses.

What you find here might not be what you seek.

Rich, poor, citizen, commoner, lady, lord:

mortal trace made immortal by design.

Surrender as you enter through their door;

know all are equal here: in Time’s brute trust

we are held – the quick, the dead, the blest, the curst.

Open heart and mind to those who’ve gone before,

to honour the Muses – virgin, mother, crone,

and hope to glimpse them ninefold in this house,

daughters of Memory, oracles of grace.

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Cora, Auntie

 Staring Death down
 with a bottle of morphine in one hand,
 a bottle of Jameson in the other:

 laughing at Death--
 love unconditional keeping her just this side
 of the threshold

 as her body withered
 and her eyes grew darker and stranger
 as her hair grew back after chemo

 thick and curly as when she was a girl;
 always a girl in her glance
 teasing Death--humour a lance

 she tilted at Death.
 Scourge of Croydon tram drivers and High Street dossers
 on her motorised invalid scooter

 that last year:
 bearing the pain,
 not crucifixion but glory

 in her voice.
 Old skin, bag of bones,
 grinning back at the rictus of Death:

 always a girl in her name--
 Cora, maiden, from the Greek Kopn,
 promising blossom, summer, the scent of thyme.

 And we would know the very moment
 it was time to go and leave her
 in the arms of Death who desired her so

 and walk out under the stars of April
 thrown like sequins
 on the velvet of night.

 Sequin: she is standing on the kitchen table.
 She is twenty one.
 It is nineteen sixty one.

 The women are sewing red sequins
 to the hem of her white satin dress
 as she moves slowly round and round.

 Sequins red as the berries,
 red as the lips of maids
 in old time ballads,

 red as blood on the snow,
 as blood on the bedsheet,
 as this red pen on this white paper

 I've snatched from the flux
 to catch this poem
 at my own kitchen table--

 Cora, Marie, Jacinta, my aunties,
 Helena, my mother, Mary, my grandmother--
 the light of those stars

 only reaching me now.
 I orbit the table I can barely see over.
 I am under it singing.

 She was weeks from taking the boat to England.
 Dust on the mantelpiece,
 dust on the cards she left behind:

 a black cat swinging in a silver horseshoe,
 a giant key to the door,
 emblems of luck, of access.

 All that year I hunted sequins:
 roaming the house I found them
 in cracks and crannies,

 in the pillowcase, the eiderdown,
 under the stairs,
 in a hole in the lino,

 in a split in the sofa,
 in a tear in the armchair
 in the home of the shy mouse.

 With odd beads and single earrings,
 a broken charm bracelet, a glittering pin,
 I gathered them into a tin box

 which I open now in her memory--
 the coinage, the sudden glamour
 of an emigrant soul.

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"making people comfortable with the uncomfortable - and grief is so uncomfortable, especially other peoples grief"

"the people who we've loved and lost are still so present"

Although she opens up about her own personal experiences with death and discusses it seriously and authentically, it is also a very witty and enjoyable talk to listen to

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We don't "move on" from grief. We move forward with it | Nora McInerny | TED

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Email Communication with poet Paula Meehan - her responding email:

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Email Communication with poet Paula Meehan - her responding email:

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Dear Claire,

What a lovely surprise it was to get your email & hear your kind thoughts about my poetry. I am honoured by the attention you have paid the lines and really moved that the poems offered comfort. I cannot think of a higher praise than that.

My sincere condolences on your loss of loved ones.

I love the subtlety of watercolour & I know from my own attempts that it is a very unforgiving medium. Your images carry a fine spontaneous touch - and I know that’s the result of hard work, the ease that comes of a disciplined practice.

I wish you every good thing from your work & I hope you get rest & restoration over the holidays & that you get to spend plenty of time in the creative zone.

All the very best,

Paula

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In Memory Of My Mother - Patrick Kavanagh

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In Memory Of My Mother - Patrick Kavanagh

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IN MEMORY OF MY MOTHER:

I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see
You walking down a lane among the poplars On your way to the station, or happily

Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday-- You meet me and you say:
'Don't forget to see about the cattle--'
Among your earthiest words the angels stray.

And I think of you walking along a headland Of green oats in June,
So full of repose, so rich with life--
And I see us meeting at the end of a town

On a fair day by accident, after
The bargains are all made and we can walk Together through the shops and stalls and markets Free in the oriental streets of thought.

O you are not lying in the wet clay,
For it is harvest evening now and we
Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight And you smile up at us - eternally.

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NOTES:

The main message of this poem is that we should appreciate our loved ones and treasure the time we spend with them. This bond is so strong, however, that even when they are gone, we may gain some comfort from seeing them in our mind’s eye – as Kavanagh does – smiling up at us ‘eternally' - Pg. 33

https://aoifesnotes.com/junior-cycle/Paper-Two/docs/studied-poetry/A%20Complete%20Study%20Guide%20to%20JC%20Poetry%202020.pdf

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(picture in top left frame is the Main Street of Kilmallock, meant to be!)

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I have 2 larger frames not pictured above. I tried to gather a variety of sizes. I liked the one bottom right with the string and clips attached, it reminded me of something my nana would have loved, I think it might me nice to have two small little illustrations hanging from them.

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using Adobe Fresco - initial sketches

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Irish Illustrator.

The work above was inspired by poem by Emily Dickinson, Hope is the Thing with Feathers.

Simplistic and quirky. I like how he has brought the cage to life. I'm not sure if I will continue to use poetry as a reference this semester.. maybe I could reference it in a less direct way than putting the words in the drawings..

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Inspired by John Frazer prints and Kate Mary Illustrations

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Landscapes and landmarks made fresh with bright colours

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A postcard of significant places/symbols of Kilmallock. 

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One branching theme from my previous interdisciplinary practice that I have been exploring is connection.

My focus last time was the feeling of loss when a loved one passes. Reflecting on this, my first thought was to switch this perspective from what is gone, and focus on what is still here. Grief always brings up the topic of staying connected, whether it's wishing you could call your loved one again or feeling your family come together as one to mourn.

This work is specific to the connection within the community. It is a sort of tribute and celebration of the town I live in - it's heritage and values.

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I had an idea to use this as a background for collage and put the illustration of two people hugging (shown in following posts) in front but it doesn't match with what I am trying to portray which is a very intimate moment this just takes away from it.. also it's not a very well made watercolour in general ... this is the view from the front door of my Granny's house

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I really like the simplicity of the illustration of a hug.

It shows one person wrapping their arms around someone else holding them close. It could be interpreted in different ways.

Maybe the person being hugged is grieving and the other is showing their love and concern for them.

Maybe the person being hugged is someone who has passed and is being grieved.

I think it's nice that a simple hug can have so many meanings

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I drew these preparation to cut them out and use for a little collage but before I cut them I thought this could be a fun way of abstracting pieces that are the making of a hug. I could maybe use these shapes to create a new design entirely.

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this is a very loose using of the word 'collage'...

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much nicer looking version of the work above. When the background is blacked out it brings the illustration to life. It makes this moment feel like it's the centre of the universe, and I think a good hug and make you feel just that.

(I'm not sure I love how I arranged the arms to cross, might alter this)

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a digital, very minimalist sketch of a hug, inspired by previous sketches

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A second version, becoming more consuming

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I like this one a lot more. It's less flat than the previous sketch. I like the idea and the approach, I am definitely leaning towards a stripped back and minimalist aesthetic but even so, this feels too elementary.