| A thing you promised and it impossible, from Donall Og. Nuala Creed Stepping from the green wonder of Ireland is the heart and soul of a woman, Nuala Creed, who plays with and reshapes the roots of matter to make art that reminds me to pay attention to my life - especially the part about when I was a child. Nuala is a ceramic sculptor but her artistic reach extends to the beach, the kitchen or the butcher shop and beyond. Rich with traces of their pungent and original purpose Nuala wraps gut and fish skin around invisible space to form objects that are beautiful to look at while begging to be touched. But dare I finger what dehydrated intestines feels like to lift a shoe that is delicate and translucent enough to remind me of the one Cinderella wore to the ball. I’ve never been to Ireland but it’s a county I consider to have great depth and soul steeped in ancient truth, triumph and tragedy. The soulful and mythical ethos I associate with Ireland is found also in Nuala and her art forms. However, the rain I always imagine when I think of Ireland stopped after meeting Nuala. In fact, ladybugs, butterflies, the first robin in Spring, red licorice and most things yellow, like daisies and the sun, remind me of Nuala Creed because they are gentle and sweet, or innocent and hopeful and so is she. Now I consider Ireland to be many more things besides green. Nuala’s Fledglings stand as gentle wisdom reminding me the world I watched as a child - the clouds passing lazily over head, or the bugs scurrying under my shadow, are memories to be trusted and acknowledged. My childhood way of witnessing the world can tell me a lot about who I am today. Nuala writes, “As the butterfly nourishes itself on its disintegrated body we are nurtured and nourished by our childhood.” Paramahansa Yogananda writes, “ In childhood a person’s senses and life force, and the development of the body, are governed more or less automatically by the soul’s intelligent powers.” Nuala’s life and work has been directed by her ability to retain what she learned from witnessing her childhood’s “soul’s intelligent powers” while she interacted with her imagination, siblings and playmates. Activities fold into memories on sunny weekday afternoons when school is out for the summer and children gather around the paddling pool and then run next door to play soccer, but for many children their only notice of time is if meal “time” cuts into play “time” and what “time” the cartoons will be on TV. However, Nuala knew the hours of childhood were being swallowed into adolescence and adulthood and she knew the childhood she was witnessing was precious and profound. I was familiar with Douglas Harding’s philosophy called the Headless Way when I first saw Nuala’s Fledglings, and because Harding’s theory had been trying to convince me that I didn’t have a head I wasn’t concerned that Nuala’s children didn’t have heads. In fact I was thrilled to find someone making art about what Harding was trying to convince me of. Nuala’s ceramic Fledgling children with big buttoned coats, baggy pants, and oversized shoes standing as open body shells with no heads are not frightening comments about something that is lost or missing. Instead Nuala’s headless, featureless children are the lucky ones being protected from being misjudged because of their appearance, parental ignorance or, ill-fitting societal constructions. Harding says,”
And if those parents, teachers and friends get it wrong and made their judgments by what they saw on the outside, and this doesn’t match with the “I” each of us know and feel on the inside it can be difficult to experience life honestly. The people making these judgments are also the one who have recently taught us to speak and to walk, so it is almost impossible to defy the declarations they make about who we are. When they call us quiet or loud, obnoxious or precocious, stupid or sinful these are the word pictures we put in the place where we keep our head. If I don’t have a head for people to misunderstand it is easier to protect the interior truth of how I experience myself in the world. A “fledgling” is a young bird ready to fly. Nuala nudges
me to remember that childhood was for flying and it is something I still
know how to do. My identity is not something I try to discover - it is
something I’m trying to remember. |
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