Over the
winter, which seems such a long time ago now, I was fortunate enough to have
two short residencies one in Cill Rialaig in Ballinskelligs and the other at The Tyrone Guthrie
Centre, Annamakerrig. Both were great in allowing me time to develop new work, but they were so different!
Cill Rialaig
Cill
Rialaig, and the light there, even in the winter, sometimes takes your breath
away. It is many years since I lived by
the sea, so a visit to Ballinskelligs always reminds me of huge skies and
openness. When I come back I find myself
continuously looking at the sky in the city and seeing the space around me in a
fresh way. Cill Rialaig is a great place
to refocus, and in winter with the long evenings and so little other
distractions, it makes reading, drawing and just thinking all the more
enjoyable.
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| Snow on the hills as I drive away from Ballinskellig |
The Tyrone
Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig.
This was my
first time going to the Tyrone Guthrie Centre and I was allocated a large studio space to work in. Over the period of the residency I experimented with lots of new work and ideas, all of which
is now feeding back into my studio practice at Contact Studios in Limerick.
For me a great element of the residency is
the opportunity to meet the other residents every evening around the dinner
table. This social aspect means
conversations with writers, artists, composers, and art practitioners and a
broad spectrum of artistic engagement and thought processes and all sort of different ideas and work practices being discussed,
which proved really interesting.
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| The Entrance Hall of the Main House at Annaghmakerrig |
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| The nameplate on my room somehow inspires confidence |
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