Ginger Hanrahan- The Swamp Project

I am a visual artist. I make paintings and work also with hand-made felt and occasionally embellish my pieces with more felt, embroidery, yarn and wire. I am constantly collecting images, most of the time they are subconscious but I also save information in all of the usual ways.

I keep notes, drawings, photos and drawings of doodles on small scraps of napkins and paper plates and my hands. I collect patterns of all sorts. Too me, life is a collection of patterns.

Now to get to the reason why I am calling my blog the "Swamp Project." I think of life as a collection of activities that includes my artwork, family, experiences and various interests that are all living together in a metaphorical "swamp." I believe that everything in life gets collected and jumbled together into a collective, primordial /organic mass. Sometimes the various pieces of life are clearly articulated and at other times they all get blended and squished together until they are integrated in an almost invisible fashion. That being the case, the squished parts still provide a supportive platform for living life.

Inspiration for this project is also provided by the soggy, pond-like affair we lovingly refer to as the " swamp," located directly across the road from my home. I am not really sure if it can be technically classified as a swamp, but it seems to have all the prerequisite feature: brackish water, rotting trees, moss-covered trees, lots of birds, frogs and otter-like animals.

I'm very certain that seeing and hearing this swamp on a daily basis through all the seasons at every hour of the day has influenced the subjects, designs, moods and colors found in my paintings.