The Journal
Self Portrait May 2021
Jack Frost Came.
Hidden away in a farm house in the middle of no where. Where no thing happens but frost on moss and sun rises and sun sets and little girl games and twinkling rushes. Isn't it lucky and grand to be here and hiding. When the vibe beyond the hilly, cold wilderness is...
I Didn’t Know by Helen McNulty
I Didn't Know by Helen McNulty --- I didn’t know that having more to do in life meant you get more done and give more to the world. I didn't know that having more niggling pains in your body meant you spring out of bed earlier and with more appreciation. I didn’t know...
MYTH – Peripheries:POST
“The myth is a surviving fragment of the psychic life of the infancy of the race whilst the dream is the myth of the individual.”— Karl Abraham Abraham said that we create myths as a collective dream, a way to understand our desires, needs, darkest capabilities and...
Dr Bach
Dr Bach aka Daddy on New Year's Day 2020 | Pencil on Paper | 21 x 14cm | January 2020---When we were children, daddy would make for each of us our own unique concoction of the Bach Flower Remedies. I needed cherry plum, mustard and something else I can't remember....
Listen At … Wellington from 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLi9DxEHcgQ&ab_channel=ListenAt
Uniform
Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice, Self Portrait
Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice, Self Portrait, Colouring Pencil on Paper, 15 x 21cm, 2022 (with David Colouring the vest)
Healing Time, Self Portrait, Watercolour on Paper, 15 x 21cm, 2022
Healing Time, Self Portrait, Watercolour on Paper, 15 x 21cm, 2022
The House of the Gardener Who Never Stops Working
The House of the Gardener Who Never Stops Working, Watercolour on Paper, 14 x 9cm, 2022The Gardener. A little voice called 'Mammy' each morning. She made her way into our room, from her little mess of teddies. 'Programme' or 'What Now?' were on the menu for the...
Excerpt
Excerpt, Watercolour on Paper, 14 x 9cm, 2022
Poseidon Palm
Poseidon Palm, Watercolour on Paper, 14 x 9cm, 2022
The Hills Above Agios Giordos
Entropy. A family; A mum wears a black bikini, thirty years old, she has tattoos on her legs and arms of flowers, A dad wears tight shorts, thirty years old, he has tattoos on his back of a map to somewhere, A daughter wears a stringy pink bikini, twelve years old, A...
Ubiquitous
They say Padre Pio could be in two places at once.Then again, I may be mistaken,It may have been St Francis of Assisi -I never was good at remembering the saints. We had a picture of Padre PioAbove the door going into the back porch,The Sacred Heart in the living...
Painting Asta
Painting Asta I held your image in my hand and didn't know that it wasn't you. Two paintings sit abandoned. Like a tiger ghost estate. An ambition that was too much. Now I can't go back. To where you were. To see your hair. To see your chair. To feel the woollen hug....
Nymphaeaceae
Nymphaeaceae - Digital Image, 2007, Helen McNultyNymphaeaceae Among tea breaks and doing the dishesMy memory floats like the water lilies.Pretty little teacup flowersSailing by on waxy green saucers. Under the spell of old glory (that never was, really)I slip head...
Butterflutterfly
First Portrait
I couldn’t move, but I could draw.
I had a green pen, almost all the ink was gone. It was scraping along the little book I had set aside to put the notes of what it was to be mummy for the first time.
The book was small.
I forgot that my eyesight is not the best.
Foresight not the best.
You lay there feeding.
I couldn’t move, but I could draw.
I could try to draw what it was to be mummy for the first time.
With green scratchy ink running out on my lovely hand-made, not made for drawing in, too small book.
It is the most precious drawing I own, and sits on my desk every day.
Preparation for Lockdown
Preparation for Lockdown.by Helen McNulty March 2020I am making listspreparing for lockdownalmost believing in the possibilityof an absurd end. A tingle in my nose scared me half to death.Worldometer announced the first fatality in Ireland. Who is this democratic...
The Byre
The byre was left there with material traces of the two of them in it. The house locked up and bits of medicine and old bandages lay on the windowsill and spoke of final days of nursing and comforting. A tilly lamp whose glass was covered over with layers of dust, had...
The Snow
The Snow on Eugene Street. Oil on Canvas. 20 x 20 cm. 2010
From The Pulpit
Struggle
Struggle. Oil on Paper. 25 x 20 cm. 2010
Address
Wicklow Mountains, Ireland