Images from the Visual Trip

The Children's Installation and a trip to Visual

This week was very exciting for the children of Scoil Diarmada. Our hard work during the 12 workshops paid off and I spent three days installing the 320 odd round towers in the Classroom 16 (the speech and drama room). I spent the first half day darkening off the large windows with black sugar paper and was delighted to find when I switched the light off that the room was in total darkness something which was very important in order for the towers to make an impact . 

On Tuesday we started bringing groups of students in to see the final piece which was a surprise and on Thursday the children were taken by bus to see some contemporary art at Visual Carlow. I will be putting up new pictures from the trip in the coming days!

Mr Plunceid has taken some absolutely lovely images of the piece (more to come also) Check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/pluincee86/sets/72157626882434375/  These will become part of the drawing installation I am aiming to complete by early August. I hope all the students are very proud of their work!

Inspiration Central

The past few days I have been thinking more about 'how and why' with regard to creating the finished series of drawings which are to acknowledge and reference both the dance project (Cathy O Kennedy) and my own work.. My art practice has always been quite muted in terms of color, one of the reasons being my engagement with the central issue of memory. Time spent at the school is making me realize what colorful worlds these children inhabit and it is subconsciously and physically creeping into my work and thoughts over the past few weeks.

I have been carrying around a notebook,  taking it to the school, the journey to my base in the Arthouse, Stradbally and my travels to and from from Kerry. Everyday in the school I am coming across, shapes, grids, maths tables, timetables and have been thinking of introducing these elements into the work.
Today I tried something new with the junior & senior infants in making memory drawings of their homes whilst mapping it onto their neighbors drawing. I am interested how these 320 children are each in their own right an individual but yet are intrinsically connected. Even my view from the school studio window echoes this idea.

Making the installations Ctd...

 The studio is becoming quite full with round towers of various shapes and sizes from the different class groupings. The round tower is located near the old school building which was vacated in 2010.

The monastery began life as Dísert Diarmada, a hermitage founded in 812 by St. Diarmaid. The Vikings plundered it twice in the 9th century and it was burned in 1106. Parts of the medieval church have been incorporated into the present church and a Romanesque doorway (round arched with stone carvings) has been reconstructed near the entrance to the site.

The Round Tower - which as the monastery's bell-tower as well as a secure place for valuables - is unusual, firstly in having its entrance only slightly raised above ground level and secondly in being to the north of the church (Round Towers are normally in the west of churches). It was built with granite blocks and smaller pieces of limestone and is capped by battlements of unknown date. There are two stone arched vaults inside the tower, one over the second story and one at top.