"Sleep Tight"

Here it is at last, Murphy # 5!

The collage "Sleep Tight" was monumental for me, as I needed it to say so much. Recently, I sold a Giclee print of it, and when the print came back from the framers, the invoice said KIDS IN BEDS.  That is really the core of the image I guess!

It is the memory of Frances who sits in the top bunk, planning what to do if someone should break in through the window in the middle of the night.  Her lifeline is the string she fastens to her brother Peter's toe.  Her plan is to pull the string and wake him up for protection.

The challenge for me was to see the collage as painting, and to depict the correct time of evening when the sun goes down and the streetlights come on.  The perspective had to be correct, but not overtly so. I wanted the viewer to feel as though they were at the door to the room, looking in, and Frances looking back.  She is the only one in the image who senses the viewer.

There is such a contrast here to our lives today.  How many children share a bed with a sibling? or two?  How many children of today even share a room?

Sharon Doyle Driedger and Murphy Number Five

Work on "Murphys in Griffintown" is still going strong!  I've completed the fifth piece..."Sleep Tight", a childhood memory of Frances Murphy.  It is a very painterly collage. Very happy with it.  It's been shot professionally (by Derek Cooper) so will upload it here soon.

The works are taking longer than I thought, as each one requires quite a bit of research.  I love research and seeing where it takes me.  The next work will include Brother Norbert once of St. Ann's Parish.  I will place him on the sidewalk, near the corner of Ottawa and McCord.  I can see the top of St. Ann's looming in the sky behind him.  It is the memory of Edward Murphy.

Research is also ongoing for the production of the exhibition.  I am finding it difficult to imagine the work projected on a condo building(perhaps) or a historic building in Griffintown.  I'd like it outside but inside too. The neighbourhood is changing so much!  I can't keep up.

Last month I was pleased to have Sharon Doyle visit my Kingston studio.  Coincidentally, my mother was visiting that day as well.  Sharon is younger than my mother, so it was my mother's younger siblings that Sharon went to school with.  Two St. Ann's Girls School alumni meeting with my work in the background!  I was too excited to take a picture. It meant a great deal to have them meet and to have Sharon see the work thus far.  She was integral to the development of the idea of the exhibition!  I sensed her wealth of knowledge of the Griffintown area as we spoke.

My space-Nelson Street Studio
Five Murphys collages and others as well. 

Check out  her intriguing book:  

"An Irish Heart" How a Small Immigrant Community Shaped Canada 

by Sharon Doyle Driedger.  

It's on my Christmas list!