Daniels Blog
Daniel Cullen is a Wexford based Artist. Originally from Dublin, now based in Gorey County Wexford.
Author: Daniel Cullen
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The Art Explorer is a pseudonym for the artist and writer Daniel Cullen.
Daniel’s writing draws on considerable and wide-ranging experience within the Arts (over 30 yrs). This includes a successful career as a Public Sculptor, completing several percent for art commissions and extensive work as a and Community Artist, working with hundreds of participants from all sections of the community. Daniel was a member of the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s ‘Artist Team’ where he worked for 5 years facilitating public engagement with their collection. His background also includes an earlier career as a Probation Welfare Officer, where he facilitated creative therapeutic programs with offenders. He was responsible for establishing the first Art Therapy Program for prisoners within Mountjoy Prison.
Daniel’s current art practice is primarily sculpture based, working with mixed media and local Wexford clay. In May 20/20 he completed a two years study program in Art Writing and Contemporary Art Practice at the Gorey School of Art Wexford. He has written several art reviews (under the pseudonym The Art –Explorer) in response to exhibitions at the R.H.A., I.M.M.A., Wexford Art Centre, and Wexford Co Council Exhibition Space.
His writings have been published in V.A.N. (Visual Artists Ireland News Sheet ) and on-line.
The Mop
A short poem reflecting on a sons grief for the passing of his mother.
The Mop
How long should an image remain?
Memory as a stain, that won’t wash out.
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At the time he had passed it right by, refusing to stare.
But an afterimage now persisted in his head, of the old blue plastic mop.
Cheap strips of J- cloth in place of rich cream knotted cords.
Its head jammed rigid, dank and brown stained, like a drunk, into the mesh of red bucket.
“If only she could see this” he thought, “house-proud she would gag”.
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He had been just passing the house, and called in, asking if he might look around “for old time sake”.
He was allowed in, and the tenant, a young student anxiously led him to the kitchen.
There he felt alien and alone, cast-away in memory.
The student being also far from home, had his own loss, and there was a vast distance between them.
He felt the whole experience so miserable that he didn’t stay long, and after shaking hands awkwardly, he left.
Back in the car, the full weight of the experience landed on him, leaving him pressed in the seat.
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The mop which had not been used for several months, had stood there beside the overflowing rubbish bin.
A loyal sentry at its mistress’s crypt.
Duty now done, it would not remain much longer.
Next day the young student, feeling strangely disturbed, would put it in the yard, in the wet corner beside the black downpipe.
There it would remain throughout the winter, as if still reluctant to leave, until the mould would finally devour its blue cloth head.
Leaving no stains, and only an after image in a sons head.
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LISTEN TO THE AUTHOR READ THIS
2 min 26 secs
Don’t ask how I feel.
A short reflection on the expressive power of creativity.
Don’t Ask.
Don’t ask how I feel, my friend
Ask instead about the match.
Ask about the weather, or “what it is I do”.
But feelings friend, are out of bounds
The word is taboo.
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Don’t ask how I feel
It really could offend.
Let me pound instead, a lump of clay
To within an inch thin.
So my hands will show, although I may not know,
What truly lies within.
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Don’t ask how I feel my friend,
I dare not be true.
Let me sit Instead, with a loaded brush,
Of heavy dripping blue.
Let it spill like sky,
Over a smooth white sheet
As greyness backs away.
And leave the hands to show
With brush and paint
What the tongue is afraid to say
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Don’t ask how I feel my friend
It’s hard for me to know
But the clay, it feels, like life and death
Oozing soft and slow.
It fills my sense to drowning
It welcomes all as one
Dust, Breathe, and Spirit
When the day is done.
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