Nothing like a nice noise.

Beautiful Lehinch beach at dusk, 4th February, 2012.

As an artist, I have a tendency to be most aware of the world in a visual sense. I am naturally drawn to seeking out the aesthetically pleasing. The visual world is primarily what my own work becomes part of and so there is a constant instinctive urge to acknowledge what is already there and fathom where my pieces fit in. I naturally appreciate the beautiful and can spot it in the most unlikely places; equally what is not pleasing to the eye is extremely obvious.
Working with clay as my medium, there is also a focus on the sense of touch and so perhaps more than others, I often struggle with an incredibly strong urge to touch things. This generally happens when an item is extreme in the sense that it looks especially soft or smooth or particularly delicately engraved or embellished. My body seems to sense the capacity for extra satisfaction to be gained beyond the visual; an urge for a tactile engagement.
In Budapest I visited the Margaret Kovac museum. This contained a collection from the life works of the ceramic artist after whom the museum was named. One room within museum, to my surprise and delight was dedicated to the visually impaired and contained incredibly accurate reproductions of some of Margaret's figurative pieces. These pieces were meant to be touched. They invited the visitor to place their hands on the cold ceramic surfaces and experience textures and details and the very forms which she had modelled with her own hands. For me, this tactile interaction put her work on a whole new level. It gave me an extra dimension of engagement, a deeper connection and so, a greater appreciation for the pieces. On a personal level, it also left we with a lovely sense of satisfaction upon leaving, a sensual satisfaction.
Lately though for whatever reason, it has been my sense of hearing which I have been most aware of. Last Saturday, at that brief transitional time when light diminishes and darkness begins to conquest, where for a few minutes day and night seem to equally exist simultaneously, I walked on the beach. There was enough light left to illuminate the sea and the horizon and allow them to glow, all be it dimly, with a perfect combination of blues and purples and whites and pinks, while the sky inland revealed a hazy moon and the first twinkling stars. Though completely delighted by the visual exquisiteness, it was however the sound that struck me most. The stillness of the sky, bathed in beauty was perfectly complimented by the noise of the sea, the waves ebbing and flowing, not in any way angry, but with their natural power; a strong, rhythmical, solid sound, so very beautiful and somehow so comforting. It was the kind of sound that made me close my eyes, breathe deeply and allow for a tranquil contentment to occupy my whole self.
Yesterday, I sprinted through the carpark and down the slope, in the wind and lashing rain, feverently trying to keep my hood on my head and my bag from being soaked. I punched the code on the wall, pulled the door with far more effort than necessary and incredibly gratefully landed myself in the dryness of the kiln room in college. As I took down my hood and tried to physically compose myself, and catch my breath, I was suddenly aware, not of the warmth and brightness, but the beautiful clam into which I had just entered. Jason's radio, permanently set to Lyric FM, was emitting the most lovely piece of classical music. It seemed to reach every dusty surface and crevice of every kiln and every shelf and create a haven where chaos and stress could never exist.
It wasn't that I was never aware of sound or music before and how they create atmosheres but it seems that lately I have been simply touched particularly by my aural sense in a way that I usually reserve for the visual. I can't wait for the next poignant sounds to reach my ears*

Sometimes you win competitions, sometimes your handbag gets stolen.

You set your alarm in the morning to play a tune or make a noise that is guaranteed to wake you. You force yourself out of bed and into the daytime world to perform whatever tasks you've planned or are required of you and then at the end of the day, you sink back into the oblivion of sleep. Sometimes there are blissful breaks in the pattern where awakening is not determined by a dreaded alarm sound. The mornings where we don't need to be in a certain place at a certain time are the incredibly desirable ones where getting out of bed is simply whenever we feel like it. Sadly these are the ones though when someone will call to the door or the neighbours will decide to play blaring rave music at 10am.

In a fleeting way, a certain question has crossed my mind more than once lately- that being, how much control do we really have over our own lives? It's one of those considerations that could very easily become an obsession and so I'm choosing to only skim the surface. Things happen in life and people will inevitably respond with phrases like 'Oh, it wasn't meant to be', and 'everything happens for a reason' and 'what's for you won't pass you'.

Ambition and the drive to work towards goals are such attractive qualities for me in a person. The desire to become and achieve and gain and make the most of life is a wonderful one. Hard work and awareness and dedication give us the best chance possible of fulfilling those dreams. However, the fact remains that one never knows what's around the corner, whether as a direct resut of our own actions or completely randomly. On one hand, we create our own fates; we have free will and the choice to follow whichever direction we choose in life, rightly or wrongly. On the other, circumstances and the unpredictibility of life get in the way more often than not. Sometimes, they pose simply as obstacles to be overcome, things to prove that life never runs smoothly. Learning from experience and becoming stronger obviously adds to us as people and so we can sometimes look back at those annoying and unexpected obstacles and see the good in them. Some other times however, for whatever reason, life comes up with solid brick walls that are unbreakable and so the course of our plans and dreams has to radically change and these ambitions may never be realised. No more than the cow is in charge of her own fate, we can't control many things in our lives like the onset of some illnesses or how people feel about us or actions other people make. We simply have to do our utmost to live every moment to the full and srtive to make the most of life and to love as much as possible with hope firmly rooted inside us.

When the irritating, dreaded noise of the alarm goes off in the mornings, there is a long and wonderful day of possibilities ahead, some planned and some surprises. Bedtime will come round soon enough again and we will be no closer to answering the question on how much control we have over our own lives but the good comes with the bad, and the unknown, though a little bit scary, can be a really exciting prospect. We may not be fully in control but we're in a far better position than the cows in the fields. Make the most of it*