Frances McGonigle

Limited Edition Prints- from "The Ten Directions"

"I am not a bird but I'm inhabited by a spirit

that's uplifting me. It's my animal, my saint

and soldier, my flame of yearning"

                                                         Saint Animal by Chase Twichell

Ten Directions is a Buddhist metaphor for the enlightened state, in which one can see all viewpoints - the entire vista that is life. In some writings a bird is the creature who can effortlessly see in all directions. In verse and song, the bird is sometimes likened to a soul and loved for its transcendent nature represented by flight - its journeys, freedom, singing, beauty and mystery. These 2009 works are inspired by all these qualities, and also by the appreciation of bird in verse, such as when Thomas Hardy's thrush confers  "Some blessed Hope" on a bleak Winter evening with its joyful outburst.