Some truths I have laid bare among the trees I think, and amongst the summer grasses. The canvas becomes a reflection of my life with Nature, entangled with stillness and action. The piece itself becomes an invitation to remember our part in the eco system.

As if making a painting, holding the balance of control and surrender, I try to write.

Forming this new website in our summer nest in Ireland, I look out. Above my computer screen I sight skim across golden tall grasses to windows of light at the end of the meadow. Arcing Sycamore, dying Ash and laiden apple trees form around where my husband PJ spent days making space for us between branches, so to see the hills beyond. There, on the limestone and mossy wall is a fine place for wondering. My daughter likes to sit there pondering her next chapter. Perhaps I can tell a thing or two from here about my art making whilst creating a new mycelium/internet connection between us.

There was formal art education. I received a BFA with treasured teachers at the Sculpture and New Media department at Atlantic Technical University in Galway Ireland. I graduated top of my class in 2002, winning student of the year award. Our graduating class was a force of nature hugely driven and inspired. Before that, Grennan Mill Craft school. After that, residencies, shows and an expanding career. Whilst gaining ground and becoming known between Ireland and Paris, I was simultaneously battling with a chronic health condition. It was worsening as I grew older and I was becoming somewhat limited in my capability. I wouldn’t understand for another twenty years, and none too soon, that I had a sizable hole in my heart and a syndrome called POTS. Living in this body has been an educating and wisening force that has contributed and shaped my art making both in its subject and application.

Grief, a close companion in my practice, has been an unexpected wellspring of inspiration. The losses of loved ones and attending deathbeds has imparted a navigational forcefield in me that has drawn me to both the crucible of sorrow and its charcoal emitting light. The arduous journey through loss, ultimately shaped me into someone who moves back and forth between love and grief and a gladness to be alive. Grief led me to the orphan wisdom school run by Stephen Jenkinson and Nathalie Roy as well as to the Centre for Education, Imagination and the Natural World where I studied both schools in tandem.

The skill of making the best with what is at hand is an essential component of my work. Though hard won, I have realized a kind of refuge in it. Though it takes time, there is a clarifying light that comes with loss that shines brightly upon what matters. It appears my job has been to hold that light and shine it at will from darker places. I look out to the world from that space to see what it is possible, that is, what can be created about the interplay of light and shadow. It is in this juxtaposition and tension of forces I dwell and work out from. Grief and love, light and dark, beginning and ending; together they are most profound.

In moments of grief I seek out places of remarkable natural beauty. All my life, the forest has called me in. Originally a sculptor, I found that, in spending longer periods in these verdant eco systems, images for paintings began to arise in my mind. This intimate relationship feels akin now to a creative symbiosis. Long-lasting and true, it has woven a familial thread between myself and the forest as a provider and support system.

I have forged pathways in and out of the woods. As a child, it often meant conveniently missing the school bus, allowing me to wander freely in, running low to the hedges so as not to be seen and to arrive under the canopy, at once protected. As an adult, I moved with my daughter to nest by a primeval Irish forest, guided by intuition after the death of my first husband. It became an immense force of healing and inspiration. Later, the Appalachians in North Carolina enveloped me in healing after the passing of my father while also beginning a new chapter of family with my husband. Each of these eco systems has nurtured a profound sense of my relatedness to Nature, and an essential perception of Earth as home, teacher, healer, and an intrinsic guide to a life of integrity.

In places of unhindered Nature, I feel it is most possible to touch a kind of circular time or dreamtime. The key is to stay long enough, or visit regularly enough, to feel that universal aliveness, the cycles of life around you, and your own being’s longing to participate. I want to observe all of this, to see enough times the seed forming out of decay.

Receiving this sort of embodied teaching of the mysteries has grown in me an openness to how paintings can similarly emerge and be born. I become a guide for the brush then. Entwined around this is a long time practice of meditation. Borrowing parts from a number of different spiritual traditions that have made most sense to me, meditation and mindfulness is a key part of this circle.

Nature shows me a world breaking apart and coming together. As I travel through these turbulent times with Earth, I am struck by the sense that to be aware of our world in disorder is to hurt, to grieve. And grieving can show you what you love and where to place the efforts of your heart. It is a momentous task in our hands. As a painter, my hands seem capable to be in the heart of something like that. Painting makes sense to me in the greater scheme of things. To be working in a painting, is to be in a mirror of life. Each stroke carries some creation, something is becoming. Some truths I have laid bare among the trees I think, and amongst the summer grasses. The canvas becomes a reflection of my life entangled with both stillness and action. The piece itself, an invitation to remember our part in the eco system. Though it took many years of wondering, I have landed upon the term of “eco-contemplative art” as a way to describe what I do.

I have had 25 years of steady art making. I loved deeply in this time and raised my beautiful daughter, now a college student in Ireland. I have grieved beloved ones and paced myself with a differently capable body. It has been truly an extraordinary opportunity to live and explore the mingling of water and color made from earth, plants, oils and rocks, hair, brushes, pens, pencils, plastics, charcoal, inks, paper and canvas thus far. Many years were spent teaching as a private tutor and in public and private institutions guiding others in their art and creative process. Pausing my teaching practice last year, I’ve been focusing on my painting, maintaining my health and exploring land protection and restoration.

“ As a painter, my hands seem capable to be in the heart of something like that. Painting makes sense to me in the greater scheme of things. To be working in a painting, is to be in a mirror of life”.

Perpetually feeling like I’m beginning, I’ve grown accustomed to this sense of embarkation, each new work being like the seed growing from decay. I understand its pattern. I have learned to love the painting I am working on then let go and begin again. That my work is collected, and valued seems like an absolute magical thing to me, a generous support of the circle of my life and my dedication to creativity. I am honored by each sale. My work has been exhibited in North Carolina, Georgia, Ireland, France and Kazakhstan; it is in permanent, private and public collections internationally and selling in these galleries in North Carolina. The Mountain Nest in Black Mountain and Artplay. (which itself was displaced by Hurricane Helene but can be seen online. Having just come through Hurricane Helene, two of my beautiful galleries are closed for the time being and I am actively seeking new galleries to represent my work within and outside of the Asheville area.

Presently I work between Asheville North Carolina and the Burren in Ireland. My husband and I bought an Irish cottage — namely, Nead Fáinleoige or Swallow’s Rest — in The Burren National Park in 2022 that we are lovingly restoring. I share the journey of being in these two places and my art making on instagram and you can visit me in the River Arts District of Asheville.

Thank you!

To learn more on our Irish odyssey and my plans for acquiring and protecting land read Nead Fâinleoige

To see and read more: Portal Places, Millefleur, Paper works, instagram