My first painting while in Ireland!
When we arrived in Listowel, we got our bags settled, figured out WiFi, and had a yummy late lunch at Mai Fitz on Olive’s recommendation! Afterwards, we walked around Listowel to get ourselves acclimated. By the time we got back to Olive’s gallery, it was close to closing time and Olive wanted to take us to John B. Keane’s pub (lovingly referred to as John B’s). John B. Keane was a playwright, novelist, and essayist who died in 2002. His presence is still all over Listowel through his writing, in the statue in front of Lynch’s Bakery, his silhouette sculpture in the European Garden of our walking path. The Field was made into a movie in 1990 starring Richard Harris and John Hurt.
Silhouette of writer John B. Keane of Listowel found in the Garden of Europe!
We ran upstairs to freshen up and realized there was a card waiting for us. We opened it and it was from Lillie Morris (an artist from Georgia who will be part of this residency next year) with the most wonderful note inside telling us that she had purchased a bottle of wine for us at John B’s and we could go on over and enjoy it!
This story will continue in the Day 3 entry but we arrived at John B’s, sat down, and I saw this man sitting at the bar watching life go by. He seemed comfortable and completely rooted on his stool. I got this photo of him without him knowing. I went and introduced myself and asked if he would mind if I painted him and he was delighted.
When I did this painting, I decided to skew the perspective a bit on the other stools to further make the point of his being rooted at that spot and the others were floating until another regular took their place for a pint and a story. As you will read in subsequent posts, there were plenty of stories to be told.
Please check out http://www.etandressfineart.com to see more of my art!
exciraanddelira 