A small art group forms in Kinsale

Hi everyone,
Did I tell you about our art group? It happened spontaneously. I took a favorite book: The creative Habit by Twyla Tharp as my entry into the book club at our local Bookstor' (that is the spelling). During the conversation one of our group mentioned that, "of course you can't learn art - you have to be born with the talent." Well all who know me from my art teacher days know that this is one of my pet peaves, I know for a fact that you can "Learn Art" because that was the philosophy of my art teacher - and I did!

To make a long story a bit shorter a group of four of us have been meeting now on the odd Tuesday a couple of times a month. I designed three two week segments: drawing from an object in front of you, drawing from a photograph (where we are now), and creating a composition (which we are working towards). They have learned to see as a person drawing needs to see, to use their pencils to create values, textures. We started a game to play with shapes as we discuss composition and next week I will bring my art books and we will discuss our thoughts as we create compositions of our own - which will begin the following month.

Our group include Katherine who lives out of town in Oz Haven with her husband and two early teenagers on an acre + of land - gorgeous, by the river. She works in juvenile probation so, of course, we spent one evening talking about at risk kids in Ireland and comparing that to the US. We can share professional resources etc. Una is our other member who is new to our lives. She and her husband work from home on the internet as Margie and I do. She is in information management and brings a wealth of interesting ideas to our discussions. For instance, do you know why the years go faster as we grow older? It is all a matter of perspective - when we are ten a year is one tenth of our lives - when we reach 50 the proportion is much different (let alone a 100). They lost their first child after six months due to a whole in his heart, and I have learned a lot from her sharing her stories and being willing to help us understand the issues that have defined her life. Artwork gives us time and space to let these stories develop - it is lovely.

They love it - I love it and we are discussing adding a few more people and maybe going on the odd field trip. Serendipity at work.

Lots of love,
Alana