Hawthorn 2016 Oil on board 8x10''

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Comment by Caroline Carroll on July 4, 2016 at 17:28

Sally, beautiful. Is there a touch of blue in the shadows of the hawthorn, beautifully and fresh.  Its a tree I particularly love as well, and you are correct Sally, it was a great year for them.

Comment by Norah Blount on July 4, 2016 at 17:22

Sally I think you should put Sean's words in your frame of this painting, did you use some warm yellow to get that subtle glow in the whitethorn as it glows off the screen or maybe it is your use of greys that show it off.  We used to eat the leaves from the Hawthorn too Sean and we used to call it Devil's bread but I cannot remember why, we also used to love eating the little peas along the road - cat's fetches or some such thing was what we called them and then there was that sour herb in the fields we called that sarny.  It is no wonder we were never sick.

Comment by Sally Downey on July 4, 2016 at 13:21

Love your commentary Sean. I hope you're putting all these memories together. They'd make a great read enriched with your paintings.
It always amazes me that the hawthorn inMay goes relatively unnoticed. It was spectacular this year and the perfume ......mmmmm.

Comment by Sean Quinn on July 4, 2016 at 0:06

Lovely to see the hawthorn being celebrated.    In  Ireland we don't realize how impressive  it  is.  Recently in Connemara      I  saw   a  busload of French tourists  almost being decimated by traffic, as they plucked another icon of the countryside -  bog cotton from the other  side of the road.

  We  here in Ireland,   don't have lavender, but we have the ubiquitous hawthorn  - and it resonates with me, because when I was young we used to eat it.    As adventurous  ten-year-olds we roved far and wide and when hunger arrived we had the complete answer.   Bread and Cheese.   I am now not sure which was which, but we ate the  haws and   we ate the leaves. And called it bread-and-cheese.       And imposed on that memory is   that  when we discovered a bird's nest with young  scaldeens,    we  all searched for  worms, and one person was designated as the feeder.

So, Sally, a beautiful painting, with great resonances and memories.

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