A Hard Goodbye
I parked the car and got out. The road wound farther down, dark and empty, to a small town. Clouds brooded overhead, and a cold wind flicked across the barren…
Autumn Leaves
Autumn Leaves presents a series of monoprints of Irish landscape scenes by Jean-Louis, each accompanied by a flash fiction story by Tobias.
Both Jean-Louis and Tobias harbour a deep fondness for the Irish countryside; the fields, mountains and rivers of county Sligo, which formed the backdrop to their relationship as father and son, have always featured prominently in their work.
Jean-Louis and Tobias created monoprint-story pairings, choosing scenes for their relation to the time of year, from the heart of winter to the budding of spring. Seasonal changes are always keenly felt in the studio where Jean-Louis works and his strong connection with his environment is evident in the monoprints. For Tobias, county Sligo is the home of his childhood, and his stories reflect his child-like reverence for all the grand and intimate spaces of Sligo’s countryside.
A Nice Surprise
The pony picked its way carefully down the valley’s far slope, grazing tufts of grass as it passed. Felipe and I stood perfectly still, almost holding our breaths...
Late for a Wedding
Ruth reached into the glove box and pulled out the wedding invitation. “It definitely says three o’ clock,” she said, offering it to Abe. He took...
A Long Walk
It’s our first walk of the new year so I decide to take the long way: a six mile track curving up through the hazel wood, the lake spread like…
Beach Day
The beach was a shimmering golden crescent gilding a mile or so of bushy wild-land through which a dozen narrow tracks threaded criss-cross down to the sand...
Field of Play
Our neighbour lives in a beige two-storey house ringed with sheds at the far side of an L-shaped field. Our garden sits in the crook of the field, a square…
Ladies Brae
We skip and scrabble over the rocks that pile up in the bend of the river. My younger brother leads the way. He finds all the best footholds and...
The Hare
The hare broke cover and scampered across the road, passing in front of Damien’s bike. He braked hard. Alice braked too. She lost her balance and toppled sideweays into her…
Park Moment
I sat opposite the swing sets, watching the kids from the terraced houses behind the park make like monkeys, bawling, hitting out at each other as they pounded circles on…
Fairy Bridge
For a quiet moment the bridge stands empty, its stone untouched by curious little fingers, its moss unpicked...
The Crow
As soon as the crow arrived the little birds fled, flitting on jagged trajectories out over the fields beyond the garden. The crow seemed not to notice this flurry of...
Autumn Leaves
Squeezed between the gable ends of two separate but similar estates, the forgotten and untouched patch of grass slopes down to a bend in the river...