Walks and Reflections

 

Written in September 2014

I dreamt last night that I did a parachute jump from the stratosphere like good old Felix Baumgarther, only I dropped to earth over days and didn't need any special suit. As I got closer to Earth I could see the lights and landscapes and intermittently small parts would come in focus and zoomed in on particular people. Nobody I knew, but I felt a connection all the same. Then, when I saw the airport runway I pulled my parachute and landed easily.

I woke to my baby's cry at 4.30 and drowsely fed her, remembering my lovely dream and thinking about how I'm feeling these days...motherly love, somewhat unsettled, eager to find some sort of pattern to the day.

I want to reflect on these past months but find the feelings too big to grasp, so I've decided to look at some photos I took while walking with my baby and reflect on what I was thinking about during those walks. I found that when I walked with my,then, 2 month old daughter, she was so relaxed looking up at the trees and the sky and at me. My mind wandered..enjoying what I saw and reflecting on my own journey to this point.

 

Walks in Orgiva, Garnada. July 2014

 

Evening light in Andalucia is beautiful. But it's particularly striking because you can see things that you can't see during the day. What do I mean? In Sevilla, for example, when the sun is high mid-day, the colours are bleached and the lack of shadows flatten things. In the evening, colours come alive and are tinted with yellow-orange tones and things stand out with the low cast shadows.

 

When I moved to Seville I walked around the city a lot, drawing, observing, taking potos; and I remember watching how important the shadow was in the city. People gather below things that give shelter from the sun. Like Dubliners do under shelter from the rain.

 

And people sit. Watching. I remember drawing people watching other people because it stood out to me. In Ireland, weather seldom allows people to sit around aimlessly looking. You have to run from one dry place to another! I loved how older people especially, spent hours on a bench watching the world pass them by.

 

The colour of Winter clothes in Seville, was something else that caught my attention.

There are particular shades of brown and cream that are typically combined as well as other muted colours. People often match colours meticulously from head to toe so there is an unusual oneness to the color palette..like a monotone or monochromatic color study. And there is a retro tinge to the clothes too.

It seemed to reflect the bleached out day-colour I've just described. That, in combination with flaking paint and crumbling walls, white washed pueblos, dry vegetation, open skies....  All of it, and more, affected the colours in my paintings