Postcard 1916

Postcard 1916 was an exhibition of postcards, curated by artist Eileen Ferguson, which took place in The Old Post Office, Clones. Individual blank postcards were provided to interested artists to create small works in response to a specific word in The Proclamation or The Proclamation itself. The exhibition was a response to the 100th anniversary of the Easter Uprising.

The wall of postcards, though at first daunting in its diversity and jumbled nature, became intriguing for this very nature. The cards were all so different showing an incredible individuality of response to the same theme. 

There was also a great variey in the media used for expression: photography, print, collage, encaustic, paint, cloth

and any mixture of these materials.

Artists responded using the language of The Proclamation, or in their own words.

 Cards used naturalism, abstraction and symbolism...

I cannot comment on or show an image of every card in the display -

but one certainly gets an idea of the diversity in the exhibition.

The exhibition will be packed up and brought to France for further exhibition in La
Vielle Poste, Larroque in August of this year.

My own response (in situ below right) was a response to the word "children". I created a collage using ripped paper, an image of children collecting wood from the rubble of Sackville St (now O'Connell St, Dublin)  on a background of excerpts from my paternal grandfather's Witness Statement of his "military" activities leading to the foundation of the state.

 The postcard my husband, James Hayes, submitted (in situ, above centre left) is a lino print of the anniversary dates collaged onto a background of writing excerpted from The Proclamation.

There were so many interesting responses, it is impossible to showcase them all. The curator of the exhibition, Eileen Ferguson, was delighted with the response -- receiving postcards not just from Ireland, she also received cards from Canada and Germany. Ferguson also spoke of the range of work received and interest from both amateur and established artists, as well as enthusiastic responses from children and young people who had participated in some workshops.

  

Chinese New Year

Kung hei fat choi! We happily celebrate Chinese New Year every year. We used to live near Chinatown in Toronto so it was always a big deal in our neighbourhood. As usual, it is a family celebration with my Mum joining us. I always make a souvenir menu for her and this year, since our printer is out of commission, it was done by hand. I got a box of linoleum for xmas as I wanted to do some lino printing, and I have been sharing them. For this occasion, Year of the Fire Monkey, my husband (James Hayes) created an image based on a "netsuke" monkey carving and kindly made a print for me to use on the menu card cover.

We celebrated a few days early, as Saturday was more convenient for us! Dinner was delicious! By the way, "mei wei" means "delicious" in Chinese. "Gift tea" is Jasmine tea which is tied in the shape of a flower and made in a glass teapot so that you can watch the "flower" bloom as it is steeping. Unfortunately I did not take a picture of this.

I  tried my hand at some calligraphy to include the character for monkey with the card (opposite the menu).

Glasgow 3

It has been over a month since I returned from Glasgow, but I did take a lot of pictures which I am never going to get through it seems! My last day there was spent quite busily checking out shows and galleries from the prestigious Turner Prize Exhibition at The Tramway to a small exhibition of video & sculpture at Celine, an alternative gallery in a private apartment. I wanted to go to the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) and managed to fit in a whirlwind look at it before high-tailing it to the Institute of Contemporary Art for a meet-up chat with its dynamic director, Francis McKee.

I had read about the cone on the Wellington statue at the entrance to GoMA -- it has been a beloved eccentricity of the city since the early 1980s to have a traffic cone hat on the figure. Looks like he has a cone in reserve at his feet...

The group exhibition "Devils in the Making" explores the relationship of the gallery collection to Glasgow School of Art. GoMA opened nearly 20 years ago to the criticism that it did not include internationally acclaimed Glaswegian artists and through this show celebrates a situation redressed. All the artists in the show are graduates of GSA.

The three white sculptures, abstract figursea are by Nick Evans and the piece to the left of the white sculptures is by Alex Frost - it is difficult to tell from the picture, but, if my memory serves me, it is a 3D mosaic of a crumpled "Ryvita" wrapper.

I really liked this sculpture by Martin Boyce -- I didn't realise it was neon tubing when I first saw it, just strange ethereal light emanating from the mesh skewed basket. The effect was somewhat unbalancing!

I was immediately attracted to this colourful jumble of half-chairs by Jim Lambie. My husband, James Hayes, was not in Glasgow with me, but this made me especially think of him.

In 1998 James had an exhibition, Tables/Tableaux, at the Basement Gallery in Dundalk. The gallery is divided into two spaces, and one of them contained Family -- an installation of floating, brightly coloured kitchen chairs,  .

More Bells!

As I mentioned in a previous post, my husband, sculptor James Hayes, has been experimenting with making bells. Although also working on these at home, he usually gets more concentrated time to focus on the annual Umha Aois (bronze age) experimental bronze casting symposium. This summer it was held in Skibbereen, West Cork. Still in a bell frame of mind, a recent trip to the National Museum of Ireland got us looking at different bells, especially noticing their handles. I have previously posted pictures of the 2-loop handled bells, but this bell also struck us because it was so curvy.

The handle on this bell seems to be a simple coil.

This bell was notable because it was sheet iron riveted together and possibly brazed.

While at Dublinia a few weeks back, there was a lovely rounded Viking hand bell in a display. The clapper can be seen in the photo, and this is worth noting as the typical Irish bells did not have clappers but were tapped like an instrument.

Here is a selection of bells my husband has made and a leather-wrapped bronze tool to sound a bell. The smaller flattish bell in the centre rear is made of sheet iron and has been folded and riveted together; a leather thong has been threaded through holes to make a handle. James plans to braze (bronze coat) that bell. The other bells are cast bronze.

National Museum of Ireland - Archaeology

In addition to visiting the Dead Zoo last week, we also dropped in to the National Gallery to give my visiting sister a chance to see the Sean Scully show, and then to show off the beautiful National Museum of Ireland - Archaeology building. The rotunda entrance is impressive.

My husband, sculptor James Hayes, has been recreating bronze bells using ancient techniques on the annual Umha Aois: Experimental Bronze Casting Symposium. So we took a closer look at the hand bells in the museum while we were there.

The double loop handles are intriguing.

The didactic says this bell is associated with St. Patrick, purely on the grounds of the inscription.

This is one of my husband's bronze bells; he cast it in Skibbereen this summer, where Umha Aois was held this year.

Iowa City Sculpture

I was in Iowa City the last week of June for my husband's family reunion.  Downtown Iowa is a beautiful city, pedestrian friendly, and has a lot of public sculpture to enjoy. This bronze sculpture by Jane DeDecker suits its environs perfectly -- most often when I passed it there were children playing in its vicinity. 

Another bronze sculpture, Jazz, is by Gary Alsum. I think the vibrancy of jazz is well caught in this work.

There are quite a few abstract sculptures in the pedestrian zone too.

I particularly like this wiry tornado. (Oops forgot to record the accrediting plaques for these works.)

I was too busy looking at the map depicted and reading the pirate-like inscription to realise at first that this was a book.

A few steps had my understanding sorted out. I like the idea that you could be sitting on a bench reading under the silent stare of a giant book.

Outside the pedestrian zone, I came across this series of sculptures inlaid into the footpath. 

It's difficult to tell, but the grey arcs are sentences - letters depressed into the footpath.

 I am not sure if the author is a well-known Iowa poet, but by the language it is not a modern poem.

I like this bronze depiction of sheet music and that the artist is using an aural art form visually.

I was unable to find the credits, so I don't know if the bronze pieces are done by the same artist who did the arc lettering, or indeed if all the pieces are done by separate individuals in collaboration. In any case, they were all delightful to come across!

Most events for the reunion took place at the Grant Wood historic home, owned by my husband's uncle. In 2005 my husband, James Hayes was commissioned to create the bronze sculpture, entitled Ball, for the fountain in the upper garden.

Carlow

On the way to Waterford from Bray, there were a few things we wanted to see. Our first stop was Newbridge, to show my Mum and my daughter my husband's sculpture "Sentinel" as they had not seen it yet.

Our next stop was Carlow. Many years ago my husband and I had tried to find Browne's Hill (or Brownshill) dolmen, but now it has been nicely marked. Although it is within a field, it has it's own fenced off space, with seating, an OPW didactic, a parking area and a path leading up to it from the road.

It is quite a spectacular dolmen, in my opinion it far surpasses the famous Poulnabrone dolmen for both size and accessibility.The capstone is believed to be several hundred tons in weight, making it the heaviest in Ireland.

There is no barrier to keep you away from the dolmen, therefore you can notice puddles underneath reflecting sunlight onto the dolmen's belly. It was beautiful!

We also wanted to check out Visual, the arts centre in Carlow, which could easily belong in any big city. It was both impressive in space and the exhibition showing, Cosmic Dust, a group show, In an upstairs gallery a triple film, The Floating World by Clare Langan, was haunting. Outside of Visual was a large sculpture, The Medusa Tree, by Eileen McDonagh.

Lennon's, the restaurant adjoining Visual, is a great place to have lunch. I thought the artwork on display in the restaurant looked very familiar, and taking a closer look realised it was the work of Karen Hendy, an artist who had stayed with us for a few days in January, as Umha Aois (a project with which both my husband, James Hayes, and Karen's partner, Holger Lonze, are involved) were giving demonstrations at the Ninth Experimental Archaeology Conference held at University College Dublin. Here is one of the paintings on view, from Karens "Littoral Series".

After lunch we went to take a look at Carlow castle which is beautifully impressive despite being only a ruin with two towers and one wall.

The castle is accessible by stairs from the street and then a winding path around it. Along the path are a number of etched plates which act as information didactics. Below, the plate is showing the two towers and wall still standing in relation to a floor plan of the original castle. The OPW (Office of Public Works) is responsible for the site, so I imagine they were also responsible for the clever planting -- shrubbery is being trained to take on the shape of the rest of the castle.

Across the road from the castle is a large sculpture. Unfortunately, I could not find any identifying plaque which gave any information on the piece nor could any mark be found identifying the artist. For the Newbridge piece (picture above) my husband taught himself how to electro-etch his name onto the back of the sculpture in order to have his identity clearly associated with the work. This is something I think that more artists are starting to consider as not every piece of public sculpture gets an information plaque.