Art Exhibition, Callan Library until 30th April 2024

The Bridge of peace, Derry, Ulster, Ireland

The Peace Bridge

Newly arived Vintage cycle frame

Cougar

1983

SHARE

This fine frame is a 1980s Cougar built by Terry Dolan in Liverpool, now simply known as Dolan Bikes. Today this British bicycle manufacturer is well known for their track racing bicycles ridden by some of the UK’s best known cycling talent from Bradley Wiggins to Mark Cavendish.

A good range of easy-to-use gears and lightweight quality quick-release wheels makes for a fun and responsive retro ride. If you are a small rider looking for a compact steel racing machine for Eroica then look no further.

I will work slowly and take my time as always, this frame is a massive part of British bicycle manufacturing history, I cannot wait to get her restored and back on the road again

An update, what have I been doing in the last year :)

It is almost a year since I posted here on my blog but there has been a great reason why not 🙂

The bike above was finished my myself, four weeks ago and has been stripped down completely with new components, new paintwork and a full road safety check. I love every moment of this build…..

I have spent the last year studying a full-time city and guilds engineering course in county Kilkenny and it has been one of the most amazing years of my life 🙂

This time last year I was on a cycling holiday in county Mayo, at that stage Covid was just coming to an end as far as a lot of public restrictions were concerned. However, I knew I needed to make a change in my life, so a looked for a new training course and found one that was the course of my dreams.

I have always loved the Bicycle as a form of transport and fully believe in its future, in fact, I feel strongly that the bicycle will play an ever-growing role in returning our environment to normality.

The course has lived up to every one of my expectations and in many ways has exceeded them.

Here is a list of all subjects included

Bicycle maintenance, including full bike disassembly and reassembly

Electronics
Math and Geometry

Steel bicycle frame building

Engineering

Computer-Aided Design

Bike CAD and bike Geometry

And many many more subjects

Leading a Winner Team for a bike build and business plan project 🙂

I will add a Gallary of images below, It has been a very intensive course with in all fourteen exams, overall I passed with a Distinction and was over the moon with both the result and the course.

I am currently reviewing my options but would love to take up a full role in adding my new skills to an industry I fully support and love.

A story of the falling rain …..

Flowers in the summer rain
Nikon Coolpix A
Nigel Borrington

A Short Story of Falling – Alice Oswald

It is the story of the falling rain
to turn into a leaf and fall again

it is the secret of a summer shower
to steal the light and hide it in a flower

and every flower a tiny tributary
that from the ground flows green and momentary

is one of water’s wishes and this tale
hangs in a seed-head smaller than my thumbnail

if only I a passerby could pass
as clear as water through a plume of grass

to find the sunlight hidden at the tip
turning to seed a kind of lifting rain drip

then I might know like water how to balance
the weight of hope against the light of patience

water which is so raw so earthy-strong
and lurks in cast-iron tanks and leaks along

drawn under gravity towards my tongue
to cool and fill the pipe-work of this song

which is the story of the falling rain
that rises to the light and falls again

Images of Kilkenny, Thomastown train station

ThomasTown Train station
Nikon CoolPix A

ThomasTown train station and the Kilkenny to Thomastown rail line, part of the Waterford and Kilkenny Railway, opened on 12 May 1848; it was subsequently extended from Thomastown to Jerpoint Hill, opening on 29 May 1850. These days there are only three or four trains stopping here each day with a direct links to Waterford City and Dublin Heuston stations.

I captured this image on a walk around the ThomasTown area last weekend, the signal box in the picture is located on the far side from the now only public used platform, their is only a single rail line passing through the station these days. There was only a single car parted in the larg car park on this Sunday afternoon with the two of us being the only Humans to be found, the atmosphere here felt ghostly and isolated, with great weather for a series of moody black and white images.

I took many black and white images and I am working on the rest during this week, I will post an image Gallery before next weekend. This image was taken using My much loved Nikon Coolpix A , These cameras have become very hard to find, I had to wait many years before finding one in good condition at a very good price, finding one for sale in Dublin. The images it can produces are high quality and its a perfect walk around camera for location studies.

The image Is processed using Raw Image Processor RawTherapee , this is a Linux version of the application that I have been using for sometime now, I find its one of the best programs for my Black and White image processing Style.

A cool Sea breeze ….

A wanderer, I explore grasses high as my knees
Far away, grey foam breaks from the stiff seabreeze
To my left, a stark mountain frames the sky
My tireless bare feet follow memories nearby

As I inhale familiarity, my heartbeat slows
And earthy remembrance kneads through my toes
I’m not scared as blossoming storm clouds appear
For I remember what happened when I was actually here

Nostalgic breaths of wind soon whip at my face
Surrounded by vastness, this awe I embrace
To a place lost in time, I’m fervently drawn
Funny how you can only miss something when it’s gone

Fabrizia Mugnatto Dec 2016

The Kings River, Kells, Kilkenny – In infrared …

Lumix GX80
17mm Olympus f1.8 lens
Urth R72 filter
F8 at 25 seconds exposure

Monday morning on the river bank …..

Monday morning on the river bank
River Barrow
County Kikenny
Ireland

The river has a silver string that runs its length,
holds it to a source in the mountains.

The river cradles its corded muscles of water
between high banks, giving the banks no thought

as it bites them with eddies,
eroding their lower flanks.

River thinks it is only water and the gristle
of currents, hay stacking surfaces

and deep, bellowing falls
running for the sea, though

it does not know it is there.
River should take more care of its banks.

Banks are what hold it a river, give
direction, keep it mitering downward.

Without banks, river loses its way,
becomes a swamp and stills.

All my life I have chafed at river banks,
fighting to spread my currents

in whatever turn needed exploring.
The high song of freedom seemed

to be a music of ‘no banks’,
and yet the whole joy of rivers is pushing,

etching the banks to join the flow,
but having them hold.

An industrial landscape : Acrylic ink on Board

My childhood was spend in Altrincham, greater Manchester, towards the end of hundreds of years of history lived within the Industrial age. I can just about remember the look of the towns industry parks like broadheath near the bridgewater canal, that passed through our town on its way into the city of Manchester.

I have been working on a personal art project for about the last twelve months, working mainly with charcoal on paper, I felt that charcoal was the perfect medium to work with as I can remember just how black these places looked as a result of the smoke created from the burning of coal used to create the energy needed to drive the factory machine.

This week I have moved onto creating a series of images painted onto timber boards, using black Acrylic ink. The boards I am using have a great pink and red feel to them and they also have a fantastic horizontal grain that adds a very likeable texture to the finished work! At first I was considering painting the board with a white under painted ground, In the end I made a great choice (I feel) in just painting directly onto the timber.

I intend now to work on a good collection of these boards, working with many different compositions, talking of which I feel this subject is all about composition and I am learning a lot in this area by doing this work, treating the factory buildings as shapes to be visually moved around in my mind, overlapping them and working them into a valuable depth from background to foreground, never letting any object rest and stand by itself until the ones that are the closest to the viewer…..