Thursday, April 2, 2009

The Observers

Scriptorium Museum days: occasionally instead of bringing manuscripts up to my office, I'd camp out in the gallery itself. And sometimes, I'd be working away while a tour came in. They'd peruse the collection while the guide talked about manuscripts, the birth of print, history of the biblical text, yadda yadda.

But then the tour would take a turn, as the guide gestured over to me, enthusing: "Sometimes we have visiting scholars who come to study the collection, but here is our own Orlaith. You can see, she's currently working on a manuscript". And everyone would come close to observe me: she's reading, she's turning a page, she's reading some more...

And that's the feeling I have now, because there's a couple standing outside the house, looking in, watching me type...

Anyhoo, in saner news: enjoyed a fab lunch with friends who are staying out on the Sheep's Head this week. And it's a glorious sunshiney day, which looks something like this:

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Net curtains......they had a purpose!

Anonymous said...

...or start charging. How about getting Baltimore Town Council to commission you as an artist in residence with a requirement to be on view writing from 2 hrs a day, 4 days a week...and then use net curtains or sheers or some muslins or some such thing the rest the time!!!!

Just a thought- big believer in rights to privacy, me, especially as the tourist seasons gets going.

Hope you are getting to enjoy the sunshine over there

Sara

Orlaith said...

Wow. You are such a font of wisdom. Okay, I'm going to think about the sheers/nets/reinforced concrete.

And I love the idea of an artist in residence - it's like those tours of the Perry Street Glass Buildings they do in the Village in New York - you can just watch people making coffee, reading the paper, talking on the phone... (okay, and I'd find this really boring, but I'm guessing some people love it!).

Course, my other option is to start leaving notes on the windowsill for passers by: maybe a humourous message, maybe something a little more strict...

Endless possibilities :-)