I Love Flowers

“I love flowers I’d love to have the whole place swimming in roses God of heaven there’s nothing like nature the wild mountains then the sea and the waves rushing then the beautiful country with fields of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and all the fine cattle going about that would do your heart good to see rivers and lakes and flowers all sorts of shapes and smells and colours springing up even out of the ditches primroses and violets nature it is as for them saying there’s no God I wouldn’t give a snap of my two fingers for all their learning why don’t they go and create something “

- Molly Bloom Soliloquy from Ulysses by James Joyce

Shall I Wear Red?

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Happy Bloomsday! June 16th

Bloomsday is celebrated all around the world on 16th June by lovers of Joyce. It commemorates the day from the novel Ulysses when the main character Leopold Bloom travels from the martello tower, (now the Joyce Museum) along the coast of Dun Laoghaire to Dublin. On the day, processions of people clad in the style from that era 1904, take the same walk as the protagonist of the novel. There is a local pub in Sandycove, that hosts costume parties and excerpts from the book are read with the Joycean Museum as a back drop to a crowd of Joycean fans. People of all kinds come together to partake, just for a day, in a little piece of the novel Ulysses by James Joyce.

The map travelled by Leopold Bloom on June 16th 1904 in the novel Ulysses by James Joyce

Yes I Said I Will Yes

When I first heard Molly Bloom’s soliloquy in Ulysses I wanted to create a really special painting because it captured my heart and my passion. Years passed and I never did. I painted flowers because I loved colour. But many people didn’t understand that. They thought I was a flower painter…

Then one fine day, while doing a special exhibition for Bloom’s Day on June 16th, I re-read Molly’s beautiful rambling prose. Apparently Joyce used his own wife’s writing as inspiration for the piece, in particular the non-use of any punctuation. Molly’s words spill on the page as meandering thoughts breaking though all manner of correct grammar and the social norms of how a lady should behave.

In my mind, Molly is an Earth Goddess. She claims her womanhood with pride and unbridled passion, unrivaled by most literal heroins. There is a beauty in her brazenness , and a rawness in the intimate situation in which we meet her. Those most famous words “Yes, I said, I will Yes!” allow us to live our passion through her. And yet it is not solely a sexual passion that ignites our fire. And it’s not just women who have had their creative fire extinguished by judgmental critics. I read her lines and in every sentence, she claims her creative right.

“I love flowers I’d love to have the whole place swimming in roses!”

And I do love flowers. And I do paint flowers. but no, I’m not a ‘flower painter’.

(The medium of Watercolour also has a name for being wishy washy but that’s not me even though I do work in Watercolours. And NO they don’t fade. Many modern pigments are made up of synthetic chemicals which don’t fade, but lots of gallery owners tell the general public that watercolours won’t last and are a bad investment. And yes, galleries only tend to like big bold oils and are dismissive of watercolour painters. All of my watercolours bar one survived a fire in a restaurant and the firemen’s hose. How’s that for posterity?!

But I digress…

I love this about Molly, that she doesn’t give a toss what people might think of her. I have used her words from Ulysses many times in my work. They appear as torn scraps of exclamations amidst many of my highly decorative and textured flower paintings. However, this is the first time that I have combined these words as collage with one of my nudes.

As a lover of colour and Klimt, I gave this painting my “all” in terms of gesture and adornment. The sensuality of Molly’s prose equaled my passion for painting it, and I really went to town on the overt nature of this piece. While sketching some of the preliminary work, I experimented with using different colours and styles for the setting. Molly’s thoughts flit like butterflies on the breeze and I thought it would be fun to produce a series of sketches on the different ‘moods’ of Molly. “...Shall I wear a red Yes...” expresses a whimsical side to this Earth Goddess.

I developed the painting into an orgasmic juxtaposition of colour, pattern and texture with the overt gesture of Molly’s pose as she languishes in bed with her thoughts. The title of the painting is “Her Breasts All Perfume” which I feel aptly describes her lusciousness.