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Veronica Buchanan is a very talented artist in many mediums.  She is currently exhibiting ‘Connections’ in the RCC – Regional Cultural Centre.

My connection with Veronica is through ceramics at Eden Place Art Centre. A creative connection, in a creative space took me on a creative healing path; for she had kindly invited others and myself to include a connection relic, linked to one of her pieces. And so, this creation, took my husband and I to her exhibition one Saturday night.

Now, Fergal’s idea of Saturday night entertainment wouldn’t normally include art exhibitions but of course you dangle a carrot on a stick… or for vogue sake, roasted sweet-potato with avocado.. and the promise of dining out first, had him on the road to the RCC.

Veronica’s pieces are evoking and emotive, and Fergal quickly made the excuse that although the work was skilful it was a little ‘troubling.’ Well not all art is the joyful Matisse’s ‘Dance.’  And so, off he danced, to feast on the Ferrero Rocher,  while I noted how Veronica and the curators went to the trouble of making the pieces accessible; the tactile nature of the work, inviting you to touch.

As I pondered over this curiosity, Fergal was making connections with everyone (the roasted sweet potato, was now well incinerated!)  Which is fine, if you are Lao tse or some other philosophy guru!  You would say ‘He is drinking his tea!’  You know, being in the moment, with purpose.  Hence, if you were not raised in the Himalayas with panpipe music, this just makes you want to push him and his new found tea lover, off the mountain and chuck the panpipes after them, for good measure.… However,  he was chatting with Veronica’s niece who was blind and had actually trekked to Base Camp in the Himalayas! So, while I pondered the whole tactile approach, he was connecting and finding out.  Well,  there wouldn’t be any story to tell if we didn’t make ‘Connections.’

Which brings me back to the relic.  My last connection with my father, before his fall and hospital admission was a short run in the car.  On return he noticed the car doors were creaky and so proceeded to oil them. I took over, and he explained how to oil them properly. A lovely moment where he could still guide me even though he was unwell.

When Veronica invited me to include a relic it was of course a ceramic raku version of that oiled hinge.  This is the little blurb that accompanied it.

Oiling the hinges

A little job you never think about…oiling hinges, that is, until they creak…When they do, it reminds us that we are leaving one place and entering another; a transitional pause. It jolts us from our busy thoughts and brings about presence. It calls us to action.

My father was a man of many, little, jobs done.  Like the well-oiled hinge; he held the door securely, allowing those in his life, to seamlessly move forth.  Like the well-oiled hinge, he was practical and useful, appearing to carry the weight effortlessly.  He lived in the now, and did not dwell on what could have been or worried about what was to come.

When creaks sound in life, we are being reminded to be present, reminded to take-action.

Thanks to Veronica for offering this opportunity to cement, in a creative way,  last moments with a loved one.

Veronica’s Exhibition runs in the RCC Letterkenny until the 24^th February.

What do you get if you cross a handlebar, two taps, a tin-whistle and a gasket?   Of course, it’s an adjustable, pottery-wheel pot-measurer!  If you didn’t get that, you’re obviously not a garden-shed engineer.  This was dad’s invention, he saved up all the little useful trinkets, knowing they’d come in handy at some point in the future. This Art of Knowing is prophetic in the practical sense.  Somehow though, this wisdom doesn’t seem to carryon through genetics; as foresight of any kind, seems to elude my teenagers.

If only there was a manual for the teenager’s mind, as obviously I can’t relate.  I was never a scatty student, that forgot flight tickets and held a plane up for 50 mins (before the days of Ryanair); or gate-crashed parties, pretending to be the DJ; or had to eat other people’s scraps as I forgot to change currency, because I didn’t know I ended up in Bosnia Herzegovina!

…If that manual did exist, the content would be vaster than the universe…which Brian Cox (you know – the physicist who made science sexy,) explains. ‘The aim of particle physics is to understand how everything sticks together.. me, you, the earth, sun, 100 billion suns in the galaxy and the 100 billion galaxies.’

So maybe for teenagers to understand this world and anything beyond, they must break it down first.

The idea of the fragmented mind is evidently fascinating. Recently, I heard a replayed interview with Micheal O Suilleabhain.  When he recorded Woodbrook, he felt his fingers worked separately from his mind, as if his digits had little brains of their own.  This too is true when throwing pots.  Sometimes there is only the sensation of the fingers passing over the clay.  The juxtaposition of the empty mind being creative, reinforces that not only the teenager, but we all, at times, take action without necessarily inducing cognitive thought.  I suppose the difference is that the unexperienced impulse and the meditative skilled approach, can lead to contrasting outcomes.  The former resulted in plenty of wonky pots but without that, I’d never have arrived at the forms I throw today.

And so, we take our life’s learning, weld it together and impart this knowledge on our teenagers, but of course they can’t listen. They’re too busy on their deconstructive course; so in the future they can philosophise about the broken parts of life and piece together the bits that worked, creating their own understanding of the world. In the meantime, we’ll have to live with the broken bits.

Claiming to be a sea swimmer leaves impressions of risk taking, endurance and ‘braving it’ qualities.  Which, of course, can be true…unless you’re me, who actually freezes like a bunny in headlights, at waves any higher than a pottery wheel!  Yeah, I can’t sea-swim but that didn’t prevent me purchasing the wetsuit, gloves, booties, cap and the couture Dry Robe.  The robe being essential; it’s not PC to wear the fur coat, casting ’rabbit in the lights’ tuft, all over the place.

As I sprint from the beach carpark, I try to make it look like decathlon training, while in my (too tight swim-cap) head, thoughts are just ’hurry quick, it’s foundering!’  Reaching the water, having checked the swell is zero for the 100^th time, I tiptoe in a drunken ballerina pointe (not quite Swan Lake’s – Margo Fonteyn) then sink down, as the water hits my knees.  I proceed to sideways crab-crawl with hands on the sandy bottom, while my head is still clear of any salty water ripples.  All the time hoping this looks 5ft deeper from the shore line.

No shame in this.  The shame lies in the primary 7 swim lessons, which have come back to shiver me.  As a 10yr old, I was cute enough to work out, if I leaned back in the 1.2m Lisnagelvin pool, while keeping feet on the tiled bottom and flinging my arms around, I could convince the swim coach it was the back stroke.  This stroke of luck earned me a 400m badge that guiltily was never sown to the swim-gear.  Of course, catholic confession was all the rage in those days and the conscience was religiously purified.  Whereas now, the splashing about in the shallows, is, the spiritual experience.  The cold brings me into the Now (as Echart Tolle tells us) and thoughts of the not-so-distant- shoreline, recedes.  There’s definite awareness of the breath as the puckered mouth sucks in and out, making child labour noises.  And there it is – A time of just being.  It’s similar to wheel throwing, when nothing else but water and the feel of clay, exists.

The beauty of individuality, is that, we all reach that space through different mediums.  Ideally, we’d love to take it with us on our daily journey but, unlike the Zen monks who can meditate into the night, I had to return to a locked car. Of course the spouse has the keys at the far end of the beach.  The setter has sprinted back and is pawing sand over my numbed nakedness. The numbing reality bites and the urgency of living returns.

Eventually, after barking louder than the setter, I find comfort in the cosy Dry Robe and remind myself, it’s alright to literally get my knickers in a twist, that happens when braving it.