Keira McArthur

I wonder. As this Hamilton residency approaches its third year in March I can see the times my ego has stepped forward to protect me – from change, from expansion, from my own decision to grow as an artist, evolve as a person. From connection. I felt profound relief when we first began self-isolation. That […]

My favourite teacup is made of fine bone china. I was offered it as thanks for playing at a church fundraiser many years ago, but not until this year of coVid isolation have I understood what it’s for – I’ve only just learned to drink tea. This cup in particular demands a certain level of […]

Some days I wake up into where I am as though I’ve never noticed before how truly lovely it is. At the moment it’s here where I come for first pre-dawn coffee, where I take note of the morning sky, the quality of first light. Here where the tone of my day is set. This […]

This rain’s falling hard, straight down. Even so, there’s a reassuring line of red sunfire on the horizon just now; the sun rises warm above bruised clouds. I’ve been sifting through headlines to check the people barometer, which reads just like the morning sky: heavy and bruised with some pockets of humour (a photoshopped Rudy […]

Snow in the skies today, first time this fall. I’m reminded of every other first snows I’ve experienced, how watching the way the flakes move makes the wind visible, like magic. A grin that begins in my belly. Then watching, still in all the swirling: here we go, into Winter. I was born into these […]

I feel wonder this morning, as the sun rises. Sparrows flick by the east facing window but my eyes are glued to the clouds – they shift and change colour like a living watercolour painting. Then they part as if to make space and it’s all blindingly gold for just a few seconds. For a […]

Writing grants instead of working in the studio which is where I yearn to be. So as a break and with your indulgence I’ll share a list of some learned things from this CoVid self-isolation summer. I have only a handful of decent insights – notes to self – that pull their weight for me. […]

Late June 2020, Hamilton …I discover the pleasure of wearing wet pants and t-shirt fresh from the washing machine – this gives me a good twenty minutes more of clarity of mind and focus. The constant burr of fans and the roar of the one window a/c unit is on a par with the scream […]

We call them bodies, the lakes. Bodies of water. Great and larger lakes, oceans, straights and inland seas are bodies. I’ve amended my understanding of this term through travel in the world in a learned understanding that context is all-important. The largest lake in Ireland, Lough Neagh, is about one fortieth the size of Georgian […]

I know people who choose to live in forests – with forests, that is, rather than with humans. I am one of these whenever I am able, though I recognize a balancing urge also, to interact in the world of people, thoughts and ideas. So, internet connection, car, art studio, city streets cloth face masks […]

It was a complex spring last year, coloured by the peaceful death of a beloved man. Dad passed in the middle of the night on the 29th, the day before I presented my Masters capstone. I heard a train whistle, Mom texted ten minutes later. The leaves must have been budding, but I wasn’t watching […]

As it turns out that if one is not well trained in endurance sewing, a good recipe for burnout is making 100 cloth face masks and driving twelve hours to deliver them in one week. My Le Mans effort was 42 masks in 24 hours, when I’d become efficient enough to make one every twenty […]