Pearse Museum at St Enda's Park

Early June seems a long time ago now, especially as the promise of summer then has been superseded by the chilly, rainy days of July. When I visited The Pearse Museum and St Enda's Park in early June the timing was perfect. The day was glorious!

After walking around the park and spending some time in the musem, I walked over to the central fountain again to view the encircling walkway. This path, conceived by sculptor, Stephen Burke, consist of the words to  Patrick Pearse’s poem,  The Wayfarer, carved into stones surrounding the fountain.

From an upstairs window of the museum I had viewed this sculpture and wanted to take a closer look while I was in the park. I was amazed to find the two pieces that I had thought were ceramic, were in fact entirely carved from wood!

 Two Brothers  ia a sculpture by Liam O’Neill and is a wonderful reflection of Patrick Pearse and his brother William, who founded the Gaelic League school at St Enda's in the early twentieth century.

 

The Forks, Winnipeg

Walking around The Forks area in Winnipeg (oh so many weeks ago now!) in search of Indigenous feminist public sculptures (which I posted about here), I had to cross the pedestrian bridge over the Assiniboine River. Looking up I noticed a brightly painted bicycle; I figured it was a piece of public sculpture, but could find no information or artist credit anywhere. I wondered about the large area behind it too, but when I continued walking ...

the mural, by Mike Valcourt was revealed.

The heritage marker for the Red River was a fascinating sculpture that required close inspection .I should have taken some more detailed pictures at the time, because I could find no information, artist credit or pictures when I googled it later (I thought I would). 

The pedestrian bridge was a perfect spot to view the smaller Assiniboine River meeting up with the larger Red River. Across the water is St Boniface, a predominantly French-speaking area of Winnipeg, where Canadian author Gabrielle Roy grew up.

 

Indigenous Feminism

 The day after I arrived in Winnipeg, I attended a fabulous workshop/lecture Indigenous Feminisms through Visual Art at MAWA (Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art). Dr Suzanne McLeod led the group through an inspirational history of Indigenous feminism discussing both past and current work by Indigenous women artists. One of the contemporary artists discussed, KC Adams, who had a public sculpture at The Forks in Winnipeg and I took the opportunity to see it in person. 

Niimaamaa, the title of this collaborative piece, means “mother” in Cree, Ojibwe and Métis languages. It is an outline of a pregnant woman, apparently the first time this subject has been depicted in public sculpture in Canada. 

It is a mixed metal work representative of motherhood and Mother Earth. This sculpture is a collaboration between three Indigenous women: KC Adams, Jaimie Isaac and Val Vint.

Further along the pleasant walk at The Forks one comes across the sculpture Education is the New Bison by Val Vint. 

It is a mostly corten steel sculpture composed of “books”with laser-cut author names and titles that are important to Indigenous culture.

The bison is created from books written by Indigenous authors or allies.

Further along yet again, lies the inspirational corten steel piece by Jaimie Isaac The 8th and Final Fire. 

The tipi-shaped flame at the front continues as a series of echoes as one walks around the sculpture.

The plaque (in several languages, though I have only included the English words) gives a full explanation of the thinking behind the sculpture.

Inuit Sanauganit: Art Across Time

While I was in Winnipeg (Canada) recently, I went to The Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq to see the amazing exhibition Inuit Sanaugangit: Art Across Time. 

The huge exhibition included work by artists spanning from 200 BCE to now, so we decided to start in the smaller, top floor gallery and work our way down. There were a number of sculptures here and walking space around each, in order to view in three dimensions.

The mezzanine-like top floor gallery, allowed me to look down on the main gallery. This view shows only a portion, maybe a third, of what awaited!

The catalogue of work, names and years was far-ranging and included finely decorated weapons, such as this bolus

detailed drawings on horn bone

and utility items such as pipes. It also contained traditional textiles, such as clothing, and I enjoyed earwigging on a school tour to hear some stories and facts related to various works.

This is an enormous exhibition that encompasses Inuit art forms from 200 BCE to now, so it contained traditional older work as well as contemporary work by Inuit artists. 

The catalogue accompanying the exhibition was so huge that it was impossible for me to keep track of new vs old work and artist names.I was always glad of the careful spacing of sculptures, allowing the viewer to see it easily from all vantage points, especially larger ones, such as this, which changed so drastically from one side to the next.

The exhibition included sculpture, drawing, painting, textiles (tapestry and clothing) as well as printmaking. Having recently taken a Japanese woodblock printmaking course. which I blogged about here, I was delighted to see the woodblock displayed with the print allowing me to examine the registration marks and carving techniques. The woodblock carving itself being seen as an artform always makes me think of Canadian artist Paterson Ewen, whose paintings I greatly admire.

Protectour at Port Laoise

After several years of working on it, Protectour by James Hayes, was finally finished and launched on Culture Night 2022 (Sept 23). I got to see it beforehand, however, as we had stopped by Port Laoise to view the finished work on our way out west at the end of August. 

It is made of polished concrete with stainless steel features and includes a time capsule to be opened in 50 years. This is located in the bottom section of the stainless steel feature on the central portal and was designed by Hayes to be accessible by the Laois Arts Office at that future date. 

The work is highly visible from a number of locations and will be a durable meeting point in the town with its location very near to the O'Moore Park GAA grounds.

It is also very close to the O'Moore roundabout, which is named after one of the seven septs (clans) of Laois that were transplanted from Laois to the southwest of Ireland (Munster) in the historic transfer of power that the sculpture also references.

The shadows cast by the central portal of the sculpture are very dynamic.

Culture Night 2022 saw a number of people who were directly involved with the project and members of Laois County Council flanking the Cathaoirleach (chairperson), Ms Thomasina Connell, who cut the ribbon to officially launch the sculpture.

 

Uillean piper Joseph Byrne played a traditional tribute to the seven septs of Laois and everyone then retired to a reception at a nearby café for tea and coffee and absolutely amazing sweet and savoury snacks! 

When the commission was being offered before xmas 2019 the long road to it's completion at the end of August 2022 was not envisaged. There were many hurdles to be overcome (not least, the covid pandemic!) but the finished sculpture certainly stands as a testament to the perserverance of Hayes and the team of people behind the making of Protectour. The launch on Culture Night was a chilly autumn early evening, but at least it was dry, and the reception afterwards was charming.

In Trust. In Gratitude. In Hope. Group exhibition at Arthouse, Stradbally

 I did a road trip recently to check out the exhibition In Trust. In Gratitude. In Hope. in Stradbally, Co Laois. The exhibition was organised by Laois Arts Office and curated by Monica Flynn to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Stradbally's Arthouse Gallery. Over sixty artists were asked to respond to Pat Boran's commissioned poem The Window Seat. As my husband, James Hayes, had been commissioned ten years ago to create the sculptural wall piece, Growth, when the gallery was being built, he was invited to take part in the exhibition. Growth, a stainless steel work, can be seen to the left in the picture below; it is in the courtyard entrance to the gallery.

Within the small, but very elegant, gallery James's bronze sculpture, Faith, can be seen with Growth outside the window.

The artists were asked to respond in any way to Pat Boran's poem but there was a size limit on both 2D & 3D works. Artists working in 2D were provided with a square canvas. There is a screening room within the complex (which also includes studio spaces and units to accommodate a live-in artist-in-residency programme) and there were also two video pieces included in the exhibition.

The other artists who were invited to take part had all been involved with Arthouse over the ten years of its existence, most through the residency programme.

The works were as diverse as the individual artists, but the show was cohesive through the ideas of response to the poem and through the size constraints.

The main gallery is quite small but the space is augmented by the running wall immediately outside it, which leads to the screening room. This corridor is very bright and in no way secondary, with full length windows opposite the running wall. The exhibition continues till March 25th 2022.

Pluid - The National Comfort Blanket

This week I had intended to write about the other exhibition, Pathos, at Rathfarnham Castle, but after seeing the Pluid exhibition on Sunday, I decided it was a priority because it is a fundraiser in which all of the works may be viewed here and many are available for auction in aid of Pieta House, a charity with a mandate for suicide prevention. I blogged about the Pluid Project back in April of this year when I decided to get involved; you can see that post here. While the initial intention of the project was to create a National Comfort Blanket where the individual contributions would be sown together into one giant work, it soon became apparent to the organisers, Claire Halpin and Madeleine Hellier, that both the variety of media and the number of artworks involved would make this an impossible task. Instead, the numbered works were laid out on a long platform and visitors to the exhibition could make their way around the table to view the squares.

Looking up the tables at the multitude of contributions! Admittedly it was a little overwhelming but also gorgeous to see. The two monoprints I submitted, Rosehips and Wild Rose (#81 & #82), are visible towards the bottom centre.

The brief was completely up to the contributing artist to interpret: so a 6 inch square encompassed both 2D and 3D work and any medium that could be thought of was used! I was particularly drawn to Ciara O'Connor's stitch-drawing image of a parent and child making pasta together.

There were three primary schools that took part in this project: Fairview NS (Dublin), Holy Family NS (Monkstown) and Gaelscoil Nás na Ríogh (Naas). This picture also shows a variety of textile-based work: knitting, crochet, felting, beadwork and quilting. 

Jenny Mahony's limestone sculpture (centre) is a beautiful example of a fully 3D artwork in the exhibition. As #56 - an early piece to arrive at Pluid headquarters - it certainly shows how impossible it would have been to stitch the works together as a literal blanket!

2D work took the form of painting, drawing, photography, sculpture and various types of printmaking. There were a few examples of sun-printed cyanotypes. The print at centre-right is by Val O'Regan.

I was thrilled to see a ceramic piece in the exhibition by Orla Kaminska (upper left), whose work I had seen at the annual Ceramics Ireland exhibition at Rathfarnham Castle in June (I blogged about that exhibition here). I was delighted to discover that Fungi (centre right), the beautifully debossed and gold leaf embellished hand-bound book by Fiona O'Grady, was a blank sketchbook! As someone who enjoys bookbinding myself it is such a treat to see what techniques another artist is using.

This picture again shows a variety of works in different media and techniques: painting, felting, photography, crochet and stitching. The gold embroidery on denim is an extremely delicate drawing of wild garlic by Mairéad Harrington, which to her were a comforting sign of spring. As I have wild garlic growing annually below the fuschia hedge in my front yard (from which I make pesto each spring), I delighted in this piece.

In many of my own art pieces I have referred to my "dream boat": an image of a red-sailed boat in the ocean that first appeared to me in a dream and which I have come to associate with my self. Seeing this marker drawing of the red-sailed boat (centre) by Laura Geragerthy brought a true smile to my masked face, like meeting an old friend.

Human touch, both painted and photographed, like these photos (top, black and white) by Joshua Sullivan, has such strong associations during this time of "social distancing". Hugging and holding hands, when possible, have become far more important and nuanced than at any other time in our lives. I was also delighted to see the mokuhanga print of Kate McDonagh. Stillness (centre) "reflects the solace [she] found in the quiet skies throughout the Pandemic particularly [during] the first lockdown when no planes were flying." I became acquainted with McDonagh's practice during one of Graphic Studio Dublin's "Artist Beyond the Studio" series of lockdown remote artist talks a few months ago. A recording of it can be watched here.

Comfort in nature was another theme found in various forms throughout the "blanket". I was particularly drawn to the bog cotton works by Pamela DeBrí. I used to live rurally in Kerry and the field next to me was where I first saw bog cotton, a sight which I thought wonderful and beautiful. It was a joy to see both the photograph of a cotton field and the real things immortalised on rag paper.

This picture shows varying 3D works by different artists. I enjoyed Grant McEwen's stainless steel Jigsaw Time (reflecting the overhead beams of the cowshed) and it gave my family the opportunity to do a squishy masked selfie. In front of McEwen's piece is the blue origami and graph paper work, Blue Pavilion, by Helen Barry and beside that is Nourishment, a driftwood and copper piece by Helen OBrien. Nearby I was struck by the altarpiece quality of Michelle Boyle's The Sun Rises in Spite of Everything, a mixed media work that includes gold leaf, granite and découpage elements to create something mystical. To the right of Boyle's work is a blue glass abstract landscape work, Bay, by Barbara Keneally.

There were a surprising number of glass works submitted and I was particularly drawn to the colourful works (centre) of Maresa Edwards, which were based on her daily walking routes.

Obviously it is impossible for me to feature every worthy artwork here - there are more than 1200 works! - so please look at the auction website, here, to view individual works and find out more about the artist's response to the theme of comfort. Altogether it is quite amazing how much thought and work and expression can go into a six inch square. Each artwork is so individual and so human - this is truly a project that has shown the depth of feeling that individuals are willing to show during this extraordinary time and to share their comfort with others. Brava Claire and Madeleine for intiating this project! Thank you.