Quiet

From 11 May 2020

Welcome to our second online exhibition showcasing the work of creative artists, particularly those associated with the Causeway Coast & Glens Borough.

This month’s theme of Quiet, like our first exhibition theme of Space, reflects on our current lives affected by the global pandemic. A certain quietness has fallen temporarily across our neighbourhoods, communities, towns and cities, with less traffic on our roads, fewer flights above us, people working from home. Our enforced solitude and social distancing has made many of us reflective. Many people have turned to creative pursuits for solace and self-expression during this difficult time and have embraced the natural world, clearly evident in many of the featured artists creative responses.

Some works are for sale and all proceeds will go to the individual artist. We are not taking any commission as supporting our creatives is of paramount importance to us. If you are interested in any artwork, please email Desima.Connolly@causewaycoastandglens.gov.uk and we thank you for supporting our wonderful local artists.

To finish, here is a beautiful and apt poem ‘To the Imagination’ by Emily Brontë, chosen by textile artist Crann + Caora to accompany their submission:

To Imagination

When weary with the long day's care,
And earthly change from pain to pain,
And lost, and ready to despair,
Thy kind voice calls me back again
O my true friend, I am not lone
While thou canst speak with such a tone!

So hopeless is the world without,
The world within I doubly prize;
Thy world where guile and hate and doubt
And cold suspicion never rise;
Where thou and I and Liberty
Have undisputed sovereignty.

What matters it that all around
Danger and grief and darkness lie,
If but within our bosom's bound
We hold a bright unsullied sky,
Warm with ten thousand mingled rays
Of suns that know no winter days?

Reason indeed may oft complain
For Nature's sad reality,
And tell the suffering heart how vain
Its cherished dreams must always be;
And Truth may rudely trample down
The flowers of Fancy newly blown.

But thou art ever there to bring
The hovering visions back and breathe
New glories o'er the blighted spring
And call a lovelier life from death,
And whisper with a voice divine
Of real worlds as bright as thine.

I trust not to thy phantom bliss,
Yet still in evening's quiet hour
With never-failing thankfulness I
welcome thee, benignant power,
Sure solacer of human cares
And brighter hope when hope despairs.