Stones to Lough Fada - Part 1

Dereenacappera

Artist In Residence

ARDGROOM, WEST CORK, IRELAND

October 2020

STONES TO LOUGH FADA PART 1

STONES TO LOUGH FADA PART I

A FIELD GUIDE

After spending two weeks just outside Cork City in Garravagh at the cabin at Road Books, I had planned to travel the West Coast of Ireland. A county lock down was introduced so my plans changed. Judy and Peter put me in touch with Frieda and Hans who run an artist in residence on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork - Dereenacappera. I headed across Co. Cork to Argroom, a small village tucked between Kenmare Bay and the Caha mountains. 

I stayed for one week exploring the area and documenting my time with film, photography, drawings and recording tunes on my wooden flute and melodica. Some of the tunes were recorded in The Barn and some out in the landscape.

Frieda gave me a tour of their beautiful home, studios and land. They have planted trees over the last 10 years and there are currently about 15,000 trees on their 16 acres of land. Surrounding their 16 acres is a beautiful vista of the Caha mountains and commonage land. A direct route to Lough Fada is to cross the commonage land which is very boggy in parts so Frieda had placed quartz stones from the local beach in small piles as a guide to make the route a little easier for visitors. I followed the stones, sketching and photographing these small piles of stones glowing from the earth along the way. As I arrived to the lake I had recorded 44 piles of stones.

AN INVITATION

When I came back to the UK I made a film from the images and flute recordings. I slowed down the flute recordings and layered these as a sound collage to create a more abstract ethereal soundscape. Words kept coming to mind as I was editing the film. I experimented with overlaying the photographs with these words as visual text and then as voice recordings. I then realised my words didn’t feel right for this project but to invite others to respond to the piece.

The invitations were sent. I wanted the process to unfold organically so I didn’t want to be too specific, just inviting participants to speak words that resonated into a recording device as the film played in whatever way they felt moved. From this I would find a way to bring it all together. 

When I received Frieda’s response, I knew her words needed to stand alone as she is so part of the landscape. I decided to make the film in two parts using the same photographs for each film. The first part without the soundscape and just the photographs with spoken word from Frieda followed by a flute tune inspired from the land. The second includes the same photographs, the abstracted soundscape and the voices of eleven participants.

Here is part 1…

THANK YOU

Thank you Frieda Meaney for your words and placing the stones.

Thank you Frieda Meaney and Hans Leptien for time and space to explore the landscape.

Thank you to all my Patreon supporters with special thanks to Guy Malkerson and Ari Malmberg.

Photography and sound produced by Mog Fry © March 2021

Clair de Lune

It was a real joy to make this film for Andre Shilmon performing Debussy's Clair de Lune.

Perfect timing too as the following weekend I managed to capture reflections of the February Snow Moon in the lake not far from my home. Merged with textures in the landscape of waterfall, river and pond resulting in a dreamscape of light reflections.

Andre Shlimon is a contemporary-classical pianist and composer, and the alter-ego of Paper Fishes frontman Andre Levy.

Andre Shlimon Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/6pYzZYVKEXWby7hgLA99vC

Paper Fishes Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/0P5Au1xPkldiHh7PAat9cS

More of my films here https://www.eightfivepress.co.uk/films or here https://vimeo.com/519500335

Have a lovely weekend xx

A Winter Woodcut

A new series of prints currently available via my Patreon Page will be unfolding over the following year.

As a Silver Birch supporter, as well as some other lovely benefits, you will receive a seasonal handmade mini relief print four times a year. This could be in the form of a woodblock, linocut, rubberstamp or letterpress print.

To find out more about being a Silver Birch supporter see my Patreon page.

The first in the series is a woodblock print ‘Winter Rosehip’ printed on Kitakata Japanese paper inspired from a winter walk in the country lanes of Hampshire.

I’ve also added a Patreon Prints page to my website where I will post images of the prints after they have been delivered to Silver Birch patron supporters.

Warm winter wishes from Mog x o x

Cabin At Road Books

Artist In Residence

GARRAVAGH, INNISCARA CORK, IRELAND

October 2020

A MAIL ART PROJECT

In July 2020 I was offered a two week residency at Road Books, Cork, run by Judy Kravis and and Peter Morgan.

A vague idea for a mail art project had been rolling around in a small corner of my brain. I had written a list of friends, artists and musicians that I wanted to connect with while I was away. The list was so long that I realised I wouldn't be able to connect with all of them in the short time that I was there. I knew then that the project was going to organically unfold and I would allow my daily explorations of Garravagh guide the process.

At the end of September 2020, there were still Covid restrictions in the UK and Ireland. The cabin was the perfect place to be. I would be in quarantine for 14 days.

To read more about this project see Cabin At Road Books in the Artist In Residence section.

Elephant in Boa features no-mu residency

Photographs of Omoya by Rina Nakano.

Illustrator Ksenia Kopalova and Evgenia Barinov recently launched their contemporary illustration magazine "Elephant in Boa” (Slon v Boa) focusing on image making in Russia. As part of the magazine they are featuring a section dedicated to the no-mu Artist in Residence in Kameoka, Japan where I spent 6 weeks at the beginning of 2020. See some stunning work by other artists on the residency including Ksenia Kopalova, Elena Aframova, Julie ChOvin and Rina Nakano. Delighted to be a part of this project. Thank you so much Ksenia for inviting me to take part.