Aer Arann

by Peg Hernon

Autumn is a beautiful season on Arain. From mid-September light takes on a golden quality in which colours appear brighter and images sharper. Everywhere, the sun-bleached dune grasses stand in stark contrast to the deep blue of sea and sky.

At the airport the flight schedule has eased; the busy summer tourist season is behind us.
Today when the mid-day Aer Arann Islands flight departed I had a bloc of time before the afternoon flight session began. I got my jacket and went outside to sit and think about the shape of things, and I mean the actual shape of things because I’ve become interested in art. This new interest is akin to a sea change in me because from age six when I learned to read, I’ve spent my life happily in the world of words. The essentials in my carry-on baggage through life were a book to read and a note book & pen for writing; I’ve now added a sketch pad.

I learned on Wall Street in the 1980s that images can be more important than words as tools of communication. Back then I wrote the text for brochures about investment in the stock market. I once got a re-write request from my boss in a note that read, “Make pork bellies sexier.” Words failed me. A photographer was sent to the futures market at the exchange to shoot pictures of the pork belly traders at work. The resulting image used in the brochure was of an intense Tom Cruise look-alike, tie loosened and sleeves rolled up, his body and outstretched hand arched forward in the act of making the bid. The hormones flew off the page.

The use of images is ever-increasing in the ever-changing, fast-paced age in which we live. As a word-oriented person, I began to feel that I had missed out on something good. At the airport, I mentioned to one of our regular passengers, Noirin Watts, that this coming winter I might try my hand at watercolours. Noirin is a staff nurse at Aras Ronain, the island nursing home for our elderly, and she told me there was no need to wait until winter; I could stop by on the following Wednesday and sit in with the residents at a session of the art program, Burning Bright.

Burning Bright is a partnership project of the County Arts Office of Galway County Council, the Galway Arts Centre and Age Action West. The program provides art workshops to the residents of nursing homes and care centres in Galway City and County. At the heart of Burning Bright is the recognition that people are always in the process of becoming and that imagination and creativity are not limited by age. The emphasis of the program is self-expression through the creative process and participants are introduced to a range of art materials and techniques by the artist who facilitates the program. The artist at Aras Ronain, Sibeal ni Chumain welcomed me on the day I visited and I got nods from the residents around the table who were already absorbed in their projects. I felt very much a beginner but I drew a few tentative lines on my blank sheet of paper and paused to consider. “You don’t have to stay inside the lines dear”, said the elderly lady on my left. I reached for the tube of cerulean blue paint and giggled from the part of me, deep inside, that is still only six years old.