Celtic Family Magazine interview

I love small scale, niche publications.  So, when the editor for Celtic Family Magazine recently approached me for an interview, I immediately said Yes!

Today, the Celtic lands, (known as the Celtic Nations), are Brittany, Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man.  Celtic Family Magazine celebrates Celtic communities, and provides global news on travel, entertainment, art, culture and history.  It's published and distributed in the USA, and is available worldwide online via Celtic Family Magazine website.

Excerpt from my interview below...

Celtic Family Magazine: You paint parts of Cornwall, Brittany and Scotland.  Can you tell the readers about their unique characteristics and your relationship to these places?

Melanie McDonald: I'm very, very lucky to have a connection with these beautiful places.  They are all Celtic regions, with strong historical and cultural similarities, yet each region has its own striking beauty and uniqueness.
 
These days, my life is divided between Cornwall and our renovation project - an 18th Century farm - in northwest Brittany, France.  (Cornwall and Brittany are easily accessed via the Brittany Ferry link which was started by farmers in the small fishing port of Roscoff close by).  Cornwall to me represents memories of time spent with my family on windy granite cliff walks and golden sandy beaches.  When I think of Cornwall, images of surfers enjoying strong Atlantic swells and the fairy tale romance of St. Michael's Mount float before my eyes.
 
The attraction of Brittany is space and the gorgeous coastline, of which there is a stunning 1,780 miles, representing a third of the total French coastline.  The coast of Brittany ranges from the dog-toothed Wrecker's Coast to islands with white sandy beaches and emerald bays, and to the famous giant sparkling pink granite boulders of the Cote de Granite Rose.  My personal sense of freedom starts in Brittany where there is so much for me yet to discover and paint.

(Read more by clicking on the photos!)

On Golden Shores, Locquirec, Brittany

(Click to enlarge to read the interview)

 

Bright Day at Polzeath, Cornwall

 

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R.I.P. Wonderful Writer

The following extract is from the novel Love in the time of cholera - it's written by one of my favourite (in fact, one of the world's favourite!) authors, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who died last week.

The only thing Florentino Ariza salvaged from that disaster was the loving shelter of the lighthouse.  He had gone there in Euclides' canoe one night when a storm at sea took them by surprise, and from that time on he would go there in the afternoons to talk to the lighthouse keeper about the innumerable marvels on land and water that the keeper had knowledge of.  It was the beginning of a friendship that survived the many changes in the world.  Florentino Ariza learned to feed the fire, first with loads of wood and then with large earthen jars of oil, before electrical energy came to us.  He learned to direct the light and augment it with mirrors, and on several occasions, when the lighthouse keeper could not do so, he stayed to keep watch over the night at sea from the tower.  He learned to know the ships by their voices, by the size of their lights on the horizon, and to sense that something of them came back to him in the flashing beacon of the lighthouse.

Excerpt from Love in the time of cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez page 94.

I love this passage for its magic and its memory.  

Living as I do, on this wild, dog-toothed coast which has many lighthouses, I thought I'd team Gabriel Garcia Marquez's lovely words with a few of Brittany's lighthouses ....  in honour of a wonderful writer.  

Gabriel Garcia Marquez 1927 - 2014

The Phare de l'Île Vierge, in northwest Finistère, soars skywards for over 80 meters. It's the tallest lighthouse in Europe and has one of the most powerful beams in the world, (and 397 steps!).

Pontusval Lighthouse on the remote and stunningly beautiful Côte des Légendes, also in northwest Finistère. 

Phare de Sainte Marine, attached to a stone 'Keeper's House' on the estuary opposite Bénodet, built in 1885.

On the horizon, the granite lighthouse found on the Île de Batz, near Roscoff, dominates this inhabited island which is less than 2 square miles.

Phare de Mean-Ruz, built in 1946, from pink granite. It stands on the famous Cote de Granit Rose, in Cotes d'Armor. The original lighthouse built in 1860 was destroyed during World War II, and replaced by this modern castellated design.

The small active lighthouse of Beg Léguer near Lannion, hidden in the trees. The tower height is only 8 meters, making The Phare de I'Île Vierge over 10 times taller!

La Perdrix lighthouse near Loctudy on the south Brittany coast - built in 1915, it was deactivated in 2000, but saved from demolition  by local residents.  (Loving the black and white checkerboard design.)

The lighthouse Saint-Mathieu is built amid the ruins of a 13th C. Benedictine abbey, the monks began showing a light from the tower of the abbey in 1692.  The lighthouse and abbey, with its unique and fascinating history is open in the summer, it's awesome!

A little lighthouse with a big lampshade!  I spotted this at Le Guilvinec, in south Brittany, if you know how it works, let me know!

Lighthouse resources :

Lighthouses of France: Northern Finistère

Lighthouses of France: Southern Finistère

Lighthouses of France: Northeastern Brittany

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R.I.P. Wonderful Poet

The Skylight
You were the one for skylights.  I opposed
Cutting into the seasoned tongue-and-groove
Of pitch pine.  I liked it low and closed,
Its claustrophobic, nest-in-the-roof
Effect.  I liked the snuff-dry feeling,
The perfect, trunk-lid fit of the old ceiling.
Under there, it was all hutch and hatch.
The blue slates kept the heat like midnight thatch.

But when the slates came off, extravagant
Sky entered and held surprise wide open.
For days I felt like an inhabitant
Of that house where the man sick of the palsy
Was lowered through the roof, had his sins forgiven,
Was healed, took up his bed and walked away.

The Skylight by Seamus Heaney - (13 April 1939 - 30 August 2013)

The much loved Irish poet Seamus Heaney died last month, aged 74.  This poem, from his collection called Seeing Things (1991) - is one of my favourites.  I enjoy it for many reasons, one of which is the insight it gives in to Heaney's character and relationship with his wife, Marie.  In his writers' room in the attic of their Dublin home, (after 20 years of 'nest-in-the-roof'), Marie insists on skylights - he opposes, but demurs.  Heaney is astonished, 'surprise wide open'!  'Extravagant sky' enters, (surely, this is not the same Dublin sky?, he may have thought).  It was like a spiritual epiphany, he was miraculously inspired, healed physically.  Not one for change, perhaps he looked to Marie for the 'things beyond measure' mentioned in Squarings, also from this collection.

p.s. Seamus Heaney's poem is teamed up with my painting Starry, Starry, Night - Isle of Skye, (I hope he doesn't mind!) .... I like to imagine that he also wrote under a galaxy of starlight.  R.I.P. Wonderful Poet.

n.b. photograph by Eamonn McCabe for the Guardian - Seamus Heaney obituary

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Worlds within worlds

There was music from my neighbour's house through the summer nights.  In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.  At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam.  On weekends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station-wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before.

Excerpt from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 

Painting: Worlds within worlds - original and gallery canvas wrap prints worldwide  

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Earth Woman

Then, to give Estha and Rahel a sense of historical perspective (though perspective was something which, in the weeks to follow, Chacko himself would sorely lack), he told them about the Earth Woman.  He made them imagine that the earth - four thousand six hundred million years old - was a forty-six-year-old woman - as old, say, as Aleyamma Teacher, who gave them Malayalam lessons.  It had taken the whole of the Earth Woman's life for the earth to become what it was.  For the oceans to part.  For the mountains to rise.  The Earth Woman was eleven years old, Chacko said, when the first single-celled organisms appeared.  The first animals, creatures like worms and jellyfish, appeared only when she was forty.  She was over forty-five - just eight months ago - when dinosaurs roamed the earth.


'The whole of human civilization as we know it,' Chacko told the twins, 'began only two hours ago in the Earth Woman's life.  As long as it takes us to drive from Ayemenem to Cochin.'


It was an awe-inspiring and humbling thought, Chacko said (Humbling was a nice word, Rahel thought.  Humbling along with-out a care in the world), that the whole of contemporary history, the World Wars, the War of Dreams, the Man on the Moon, science, literature, philosophy, the pursuit of knowledge - was no more than a blink of the Earth Woman's eye.


'And we, my dears, everything we are and ever will be - are just a twinkle in her eye,' Chacko said grandly, lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling.



Excerpt from The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Archive life study painting - private collection
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To glimpse things beyond ....

"You know, Nephew, I wouldn't rush to do that.  I'd give it some time.  There's other possibilities.  What I'm getting at is maybe she is sensitive in a way the rest of us aren't. Tuned in to things we don't get.  There's people here like that."  Looked sidewise at Quoyle to see how he took that.  That his daughter might glimpse things beyond static reality.
But Quoyle didn't believe in strange genius.  Feared that loss, the wretchedness of childhood, his own failure to love her enough had damaged Bunny.
"Why don't you just wait, Nephew.  See how it goes.  She starts school in September. Three months is a long time for a child.  I agree with you that she's different, you might say she is a bit strange sometimes, but you know, we're all different though we may pretend otherwise.  We're all strange inside.  We learn how to disguise our differentness as we grow up.  Bunny doesn't do that yet."
Quoyle exhaled, slid his hand over his chin.  A feeling they weren't talking about Bunny at all.  But who, then?  The conversation burned off like fog in sunlight.

An excerpt from The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

Painting: Summer Evening, Lusty Glaze, Newquay, Cornwall

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Between us.

Sometimes, Soraya sleeping next to me, I lay in bed and listened to the screen door swinging open and shut with the breeze, to the crickets chirping in the yard.  And I could almost feel the emptiness in Soraya's womb, like it was a living, breathing thing.  It had seeped into our marriage, that emptiness, into our laughs, and our love-making.  And late at night, in the darkness of our room, I'd feel it rising from Soraya and settling between us.  Sleeping between us.  Like a newborn child.


Excerpt from The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Painting: Curled Pink Nude, Private Collection

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I was thinking of Anna.

I sat in the bay of the window and watched the day darken.  Bare trees across the road were black against the last flares of the setting sun, and the rooks in a raucous flock were wheeling and dropping, settling disputatiously for the night.  I was thinking of Anna.  I make myself think of her, I do it as an exercise.  She is lodged in me like a knife and yet I am beginning to forget her.  Already the image of her that I hold in my head is fraying, bits of pigments, flakes of gold leaf, are chipping off.  Will the entire canvas be empty one day?  I have come to realise how little I knew her, I mean how shallowly I knew her, how ineptly.  I do not blame myself for this.  Perhaps I should.  Was I too lazy, too inattentive, too self-absorbed?  Yes, all of those things, and yet I cannot think it is a matter of blame, this forgetting, this not-having-known.  I fancy, rather, that I expected too much, in the way of knowing.  I know so little of myself, how should I think to know another?

Excerpt from The Sea by John Banville

Painting:  Pink Nude by Melanie McDonald (private collection)

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Remember, this is now ....

I lie in bed and listen to the rain thrumming on the campervan roof.  I can't sleep.  Parked in the courtyard next to the crumbling old farmhouse with the red door.  It's country-night-black and the last of the sweet apple scent blows through the open window.  It's been two years since the lump, the surgery, the radio and chemotherapy.  There's been disbelief and denial .... it's the will to live you see.  Somewhere there's acceptance.  You told me to get on with things, that you're not going to die.  Lying here wrapped up in my blanket of solitude, the thought of it still makes me catch my breath.  I always thought it would be me, it never crossed my mind that it would be you, my love.  I listen to your breathing. With your heavy arm across my waist you hold me .... remember, remember, this is now ....

Inspired by:

Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now.  Live it, feel it, cling to it.  I want to become acutely aware of all I've taken for granted.  Sylvia Plath. 

Painting: Small family in shadow by St. Michael's Mount 

http://www.melaniemcdonald.co.uk/gallery_paintings-of-st-ives-and-penzance_189.htm

Window reflections.

The bright light makes me look at my reflection instead of the window display.


I mingle with the street scene behind me.
People pass by, making shadows like clouds passing over the sun.


Is this the way I look to others?
The girl with the fly away light brown hair.


I cast a searching look at my reflection.
Who is she?


Human beings can not be viewed like houses, trees and stars.


What are her desires and hopes, fears and prejudices?


How well do I know myself?

P.S. With a nod to The Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier 2004.

Night ocean surfers. Cornwall.

.... and I suddenly went back into a state of mind I'd forgotten, something from my childhood. I used at night to sit up in bed and play what I called 'the game'. First I created the room I sat in, object by object, 'naming' everything, bed, chair, curtains, till it was whole in my mind, then move out of the room, creating the house, then out of the house, slowly creating the street, then rise into the air, looking down on London, at the enormous sprawling wastes of London, but holding at the same time the room, and the house and the street in my mind, and then England, the shape of England in Britain, then the little group of islands lying against the continent, then slowly, slowly, I would create the world, continent by continent, ocean by ocean (but the point of 'the game' was to create this vastness while holding the bedroom, the house, the street in their littleness in my mind at the same time) until the point was reached where I moved out into space, and watched the world, a sun-lit ball in the sky, turning and rolling beneath me. Then, having reached that point, with the stars around me, and the little earth turning underneath me, I'd try to imagine at the same time, a drop of water, swarming with life, or a green leaf. Sometimes I could reach what I wanted, a simultaneous knowledge of vastness and of smallness. Or I would concentrate on a single creature, a small coloured fish in a pool, or a single flower, the moth, the fish, slowly creating around it the forest, or the seapool, or the space of blowing night air that tilted my wings. And then, out, suddenly, from the smallness into space.'

From The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing published by Harper Perenniial. page 480.

Painting featured: Night Ocean Surfers, Cornwall.

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26 Treasures inspire me at the V&A.

The Unveiling
At 12 of the clock you slipped into the world,
slithering, fish-like.
No cry.
A silent child veiled in filmy gauze - your caul.

'A lucky omen' the midwife said.
'A bringer of great happiness and a talisman to keep you safe;
no sea captain shall buy your caul to protect him from a siren's song.'
A son, long hoped for, now unveiled.

Poem by Helen Jones

From the exhibition 26 Treasures at the V&A Museum - Locket containing a caul. Treasure number 17 - the smallest of the 26 treasures and my personal favourite.


Image scanned from my 26 Treasures brochure. (All photos: copyright V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum, London.)

Caul is a thin filmy membrane that sometimes covers a newborn babie's head and face immediately after birth. Being born with a caul is very rare - less than 1 in 80,000 births. In medieval times it was considered a sign of good luck and highly prized by sailors (caul - wikipedia). Well, who knew? In 62 words this tiny object has been brought to life in the most extraordinary way. Thank you Helen Jones.

With thanks also to Rob Self-Pierson and the team of 26 Treasures and the V&A Museum.

......

'Come on - I want to go to the V&A again.' I said.
'Oh no, I can't stand museums. They're so antique and dismal, so depressing.'
'No, you've got it all wrong, it's not like that anymore.'
'Yeah but, it's crushing - the weight of all those objects and their previous lives.'
'But that's the point! You amaze me!', I said, giving my husband a kiss, and added, 'I met this guy called Rob, on Twitter, he made a connection between objects and words .... to help make you see the objects in a different way.'
'Who?!'
'Oh, please hurry up hun, I'll show you 26 Treasures and explain all ....'

Other posts you might like:

Golden Sands near Rock, Cornwall.
Mountains, sea, sky, crofts, dormer bungalows, telegraph poles and pine trees.

Painting: Little Beach St. Ives, Cornwall.

Girl in the snapshot.

My emotions have been sloshing around like messy surf or the coffee in the drink holder of my Mini.

I remember saying to myself, 'Well - that's it, it's gone - I'll never be really happy again.'

But since I've been up at our 'farm on the hill'. I feel like I've stepped out of a shadow into the light. I'm fighting to become that girl from long ago who arrived in a foreign country with a dream.

Being here is forcing me to remember the girl in the snapshot on my computer screensaver. Compelling me to remember again what I'd banished - making me feel light-hearted. Forcing me to forget that frightening and sunless time.

Other posts you might like:

Watching from a great distance.
Moving to France - 4 weeks and counting.

A certain light after a storm ......

Mel: I'm finding it difficult to be happy.
R.: What would make you happy?
Mel: Hmmm .... I don't know. Security in the future.
R.: No one has security in the future.
Mel: I thought I did, and I was happy. Then it was taken away from me.
R.: My scan was clear. I feel fine.
Mel: It takes its toll.
R.: You're telling me - I've got a fucked up shoulder, lost my saliva and have less energy than before.

We laugh. We're sitting outside in the morning sunshine, on a white painted bench, drinking coffee. And it's looking like a beautiful day ......

Painting: A certain light after a storm - prints of Cornwall www.melaniemcdonald.com

Finding meaning.

Three years ago this month, our friend - an artist living in Cornwall - died suddenly from cancer.

During the drive to his funeral, R. and I made the decision to 'sell up' and move across the Channel to Brittany in France. We've been here nearly two years now. However, in February this year, our carefully constructed 'new life' changed over night when R. was diagnosed with cancer.

It's been the most stressful and traumatic time of our lives. R. has finally begun to recover from all the treatment - surgery, chemo and radio therapy - at times 'youtube' videos of football matches were his only salvation. As for me, painting got me through .... and still does, without it I would literally be lost.

Last week, R. took our van, (full of paintings for customers and galleries), over to Cornwall. Something of our old life - the life before cancer - is returning. The numbness is lifting.

I have asked myself recently, what this cancer means for our lives now. I think we both feel that we've lost something precious - our trust in life - our sense of certainty in our health and the future. It's tempting to wonder what it's all about.

Living this 'life with cancer', as opposed to the 'life before cancer', is hard. It hurts. I wake up in the middle of the night wondering what's wrong and after a moment or two I remember. It hurts when you plan to go to a wedding and know that your husband is having a PET scan the same week to see if the cancer has spread. It hurts when I think of our 'dream home' - the farm we are renovating, which won't be finished for several years. Not to mention the effect of moving to another country and having a dad develop cancer, might have on our daughter.

I don't actually want an ongoing search as to what this cancer means for us or for 'finding meaning'. I just want life to be the way it was before.

Related posts:

Paint Inspired Memories
Moving to France - 3 weeks and counting
Third Cancer Month

Third Cancer Month

“I’m grateful for the cancer experience. It has taught me to see what is really important in life," is something you read about ....

It doesn't apply to me - I'm not grateful for this cancer experience in any way and I doubt R. is either. I'm not grateful for something which has taken away my Husband's thyroid, his energy, sense of security in his health and his future. I'm not grateful for something which has taken away my joy. Cancer has made me yearn for life the way it used to be. It's like an ache that never leaves me.

R. was diagnosed with cancer after surgery in February this year and has been treated with chemo and radio therapy. It's been a crap time for us, traumatic. At first, our energy was directed toward coping with the immediate crisis, now that treatment has ended, things are getting back to normal-ish. I'm not sure we'll ever really get over this, however we're trying to accept it and learn to live with it. We know things could be a whole lot worse.

Mel's marketing machine - (Melanie McDonald Artist on Facebook and MelMcDonaldArt on Twitter).

Hello again, I've neglected my blog in favour of the addictive delights of Facebook and Twitter. But I'm back .... because my website www.melaniemcdonald.com and my blog are great places to see my stuff xx

Second Cancer Month.

There's been some beautiful weather during Spring, clear blue skies and warm south winds. This photo was taken on one of R.'s better days this month. All through April, I've watched silently as day by day he has become thinner and paler. He's quiet - the radiation therapy has burnt his throat and taken his voice.  Thankfully, these physical side effects are mainly short term, but I can't help wondering about the emotional side effects?  How will he feel when the treatment ends?  How will I feel?  How strong does a relationship have to be to get through cancer?

I've read that most cancer sufferers (and their families) experience grief, in response to various losses they feel cancer has caused.  And that this grief involves denial, anger and finally acceptance.  It comes and goes, like waves in the ocean as you understand and recognize various aspects of the loss.

Thanks to friends and family.

Old friends and new, family and extended family have been in contact regularly since word got out that R. is undergoing treatment for cancer. Thanks to all who came along to the opening of my exhibition as a show of their love and support. I was especially touched to see friends who I hadn't seen for years. Words are hard to find to say how grateful we are; they have made us feel less alone during this strange time in our lives.

P.S. Thanks also to all who have been reading my blog and sent messages of support, I'm surprised and moved Xx

First cancer month.

It's been a month since R. was diagnosed with cancer. You go along in life, pushing to fulfill your goals, hopes and dreams. It's our first year in France, a dream come true. After all the hard work, we'd finally done it .... or thought we had. Then cancer came along and wrecked it. It's been the hardest month I can ever remember.