Moira Stratford

My name is Moira, I’m an artist living in a townland near Ballyhaunis, Co. Mayo since 1993.  I am married with three grown up children, a son and daughter in law, and three grandchildren. I graduated from the 6 yr part time Art & Design degree course at the Castlebar campus of GMIT (where I went as a mature student) in 2008, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I have mainly exhibited in local exhibitions in Mayo and Roscommon and I was also selected for C.O.E. and Iontas, Sligo.

We have a beautiful garden that always keeps us occupied but in this year of Covid 19, I was unexpectedly able to give it far more attention than usual. I found that due to being unable to travel either within the country or out of it, and sadly being unable to visit our family and friends, I gave over most of my time to the garden and growing vegetables in the polytunnel, it was my creative outlet. The weather was wonderful and this helped us get through a time that was terribly difficult for the whole country. We knew how lucky we were to have a garden full of flowers with a cat, where we had space, and could ‘just be’ and keep happy watching all the birds, listening to their beautiful birdsong, when so many people were not anywhere near as fortunate. So, spending time in the garden seemed the right thing to do. Heavy gardening isn’t possible for me due to injury, so the tunnel is perfect. I enjoy everything about the process from opening seed packets to cooking the produce. I grew many plants including cucumbers and peppers, tomatoes, beetroot, onions, kale, spinach and courgettes. Watching and looking at the different stages of growth is an inspiration to my art work so I took many photos and its my intention to use these to make Drawings and Batik work in the near future. I do also paint but always start with drawing.