Loom: Connemara

It was a matter of wind:

that breezy decision to drive out to see Johnny & Siobhán (and of course their child Rianna) in Connemara

the drive itself, the light going through its grand alterations, the little car (freshly serviced) rocked and playfully cuffed

the longish drive emotive as always when I'm with my old ghosts: my mother in everything as usual, Mozart's Requiem on the iPhone/stereo almost too overwhelming, the big wind blowing and leveling, bringing up goosebumps

then I was there: warm greetings as the storm settled in for the night.

Lovely stew and red wine. They told me then about the fence they saw around the corner on the bog road Bóthar Buí. The wind had blown and woven the grass through the wires. I made up my mind to photograph it the next day.

Couldn't sleep for the roar and burn of the black wind capping the house, leaking into my dreams ––

nightmares: my cousin Iz (for some reason) and myself alone in a huge windy house. I say to her something like: 'This is the kind of wind that has the souls of the dead out and dancing.' Then Iz rises and does a kind of dancing half-twirl, puts on a dead face, saying 'Yes, imagine grandmother dancing with the dead.' And I woke up in a cold shiver. Remembering it gives me more goosebumps.

Up late, a quick coffee and toast then out to see what the wind had been up to. I found the fence easy enough, the field next to the wind turbines (J&S live near a crop of them). And yes, it was indeed a weaving, the wire fence acting as both loom and tapestry. I spent oven an hour perhaps, photographing and filming, trying to catch the noise of wind still at it, piping through the metal gate nearby, shoveling gusts of rain and fugitive brightness as I tried to document this wonder.

Thinking of it later, I realised what else this accidental artwork reminded me of: Renaissance drawing, like Da Vinci's studies of water and wind. Art needs resistance, obstacles. The wind through the fence found a medium, a way of sketching itself, its forceful linear tendons, its muscle and push. The wire fence as medium, the wind as old master.

Anyway, I've put a selection on Flickr for anyone who has the time to check out the closeups.