Thursday, April 23, 2009

Shadow

Spikey Abbess 1, 24 March 2009, ink and pencil on paper, 140mm X 189mm

Spikey Abbess 2, 24 March 2009, ink and pencil on paper, 140mm X 189mm

Lacking cities, Ireland didn't quite see the point of bishops, and gradually these were replaced in importance by abbots and – in a development that would make any self-respecting Roman's blood run cold – abbesses...(Brigid)... ruled as high abbess of an immense double monastery – that is, a foundation that admitted both men and women, another irregularity that would have deeply offended Roman Catholic sensibility, which to this day imagines rule by a woman over men as a perversion of the natural order....She is reputed to have taken the veil on the hill of Uisnech, Ireland's primeval naval and the mythical centre of its cosmic mandala.
Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

The Dark

Two Figures, 18 August 2008. Ink and pencil on paper, 285mm x 380mm