Ballyvaughan IRL Week One

I cannot believe it has been an entire week already in this beautiful landscape. Although the territory know as the Burren in county Clare Ireland may not immediately impress the viewer, the longer you stay and the harder you look the more you see, learn and come to understand about this unique landscape. After all the word 'Burren' stems from the Gaelic word 'Boireann', or Place of stone, as well as having an Abbey named 'Sancta Maria de Petra Fertili' or St. Mary of the Fertile Rock.

Shadows

The Burren, the 'Fertile Rock'

After arriving here from Boston and a four hour layover in London's sprawling, disorganized and currently under-construction Heathrow Airport I stepped off my Aer Lingus flight on to Shannon's International Airport and saw my first sights of Ireland. The ride in was a roller coaster, being driven in by a local cab driver alongside my soon-to-be roommate Joanne of B.C. Canada I was not immediately infatuated with the barren limestone pavements of the Burren but by the simple giddy feeling of actually being in Ireland, my first time alone, away from, and out of the continent of North America.

Burren College of Art is located approximately 2.8 km from the town of Ballyvaughan, County Clare, Ireland where I am spending my four week program in a thatched cottage with a view of Galway Bay and five other women surrounded by the limestone mountains of the Burren. The campus is on a refurbished castle grounds known as Newtowne Castle, it was originally owned by the O'Briens of the historically well known family and rebels.

 

Ballyvaughan, main street

Coastal Ballyvaughan, Monks Pub

Home!

Our view of Galway Bay

The first week has been theory, learning about the Burren and its issues as well as becoming acclimated to the surroundings and seeing everything there is to see about local culture, politics, history and environment.  Ballyvaughans and the Burrens ecosystem are unique to this country. The Burren contains 75% of all native Irish species of plants, 23 of the 25 native orchids, and a mixture of plants from the Arctic, Alpine and Mediterranean regions of the world that should never be able to grow together. But here, those conditions exist because of mans impact upon the land, and the unique features of the limestone.

Burren College of Art

Burren College of Art Campus: Newtown Castle

Suffice to say, being a closet botanist, having a mild interest in anthropology/psychology and having a love of the natural world and a want to balance human impact and environmental safety/biodiversity, the Burren is a wonderfully inspiring place. It is full of experts, scientists, scholars, artists, family's who have lived here for generations upon generations, houses that are older than the country in which i live and the Burren is in a position in which interesting debate occur regularly.

This place has a meditative resonance with me. That is the best way to describe the feeling of connect to the small towns, farm lands, hazel forests with moss carpets and the wind blown limestone mountain tops that I have been frequenting everyday despite the mile plus hikes to the points and the steep slopes of these up thrust ancient seabeds.

The Courses thus far have not hesitated to make me think and wonder, the Professors have such an immensely different feel of Art here than in the states, or perhaps its my own conjecture that needed a large change in order to see and be open to more abstract views of art. Although, as usual with a lot of thought comes a lot of questions, particularly concerning the direction of my art. As much as I do enjoy MECA, I have stopped many times and wondered if I should have stayed, if an open ended degree in fine Arts would have been better and would have allowed me more experimentation between media and ways of thinking. Despite this, I do not believe I would want to spend an entire semester here, particularly concerning my final year in college. Perhaps for a residency or other programs in the future, I already know I will return to this place many times in the coming years.

I will be writing more posts concerning the courses, the thoughts and experiences I have had here. This is but a quick over view of things to come, and my posts will be a bit staggered.  To end this entry here is the sunset over Galway Bay.