Celtic songs and slow airs

Last january I received my first dulcimer, and have since gone on to collect a few more.
 I never imagined how it would change my world. How these three strings stretched across the length of 37 inches of wood , would bend and straighten my heart. That emotion and science can coalesce and restore my sense of purpose and passion for living.

Here are a couple of Celtic songs & slow airs that I have been practicing , arranged by Neal Hellman for mountain dulcimer

~

When I was on Horseback. played on a Blue lion mountain dulcimer in the key of GcG

The Banks of Claudy is an Irish Ballad. played on  a Cherry Mcspadden in the key of DaD

~

~~~

The sleeping lady of Malta

 She lies here in repose 

a reverie of gargantuan proportions

Dusk settles, her day of work is done 

She takes her meal and stretches out

 on this slab of cold hard stone 

She doesn't mind one bit though 

she is rather hot and it will be another clement night 

She is tired and there is much work awaiting her tomorrow 

goodnight

Tzigane

One of my greatest inspirations has been Remedios Varo. I first discovered her in the late 1980's. Janet Kaplan wrote a fantastic biography on her. Included were her major works printed in full colour plates. Luminous golds and umbers . Here was an incredible artist who merged the magical, the superstitious and the everyday mundane machinations with scientific exploration of space and time that she illustrated with a delicate erudite painterly precision.  A fascinating mind I would have enjoyed knowing her more intimately, but her friends and those who knew her guarded her personal details with secrecy. One can only gather a rich and complicated inner world. Perhaps painting is what kept her going , I hazard to guess that when she had exhausted all she had to say, or the questions had been answered, her journey was over. Apparently shortly before her death she confided to a friend that she no longer wanted to live and she died shortly there after , just shy of fifty five.

Over the years I have struggled with my own technique . Being untrained and to my chagrin ..not especially gifted. I plodded on to learn how to paint. Now fifty. Someone I came across recently remarked on my Paintings, that they reminded them of Remedios Varo. I thought I had left her behind. I took out that old copy of Kaplan's Biography.

My eyes fell upon the plate 

El vagabundo. 

My audacity said give it a try.

I have my own textural stroke. 

I have lived a life different from hers.

Our paths converge in our thirst for knowledge and deeper understanding.
The delight in the mesmeric.
The struggle towards self actualization and the passion for painting.

Tzigane (Hungarian Gypsy)

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Leaf Poetry

It was time to clean out the closet and get rid of those paintings I deemed not worthy of showing to anyone. However I found a couple that I quite liked if not for their technical skill, then for their composition. It wasn't too late to rescue them from oblivion beneath the crunch of garbage disposal.

This one is from 2009

I titled it leaf poetry, and inscribed a poem long forgotten. 

I thought I would add a few touches.

 Before I knew it

the brush took over

the leaves fallen

 the words gone.

There is something about the cozy early morning light indoors, before anyone else is awake. It's when I feel the safest. The promise of a day , the fecund spirit awakens in me.

I erased the last few years of this blog because it no longer reflects who I am. A new decade is unfolding. The times have been hard, the times have been changing. It is no better, it is no worse. It simply is now!

My companion of 11 years still walks by my side.

Others have departed.