ISN’T IT GREAT? ISN’T IT MARVELLOUS? I’M FREE! I’M AN ARTIST IN RESIDENCE!

It has been 3 years since I’ve officially uploaded to this blog and 3 years since having the opportunity to be an artist in residence - now in Creative Spark in Dundalk! I technically started the residency in September but after moving up all my stuff from Dublin and standing out in the rain I developed shingles. This has made my start a bit disjointed with a period of 2 weeks where I was instructed not to leave my house.

Allegedly shingles is a physical, and very itchy, manifestation of stress - like wearing an electrified bra for a month straight. I was anxious that things wouldn’t fall into flow with this interruption - with opportunities like residencies that have a time frame to explore. This had me in a greater state of stress rather than the mystery stress that caused my initial shingles.

I haven’t painted in a few years, and in the meantime I did a critical theory masters in NCAD which I graduate from next month.

During my masters I had thrown myself into producing a publication, specifically researching practical workshop facilitation, printmaking and lesser known trade union histories in Ireland. In collaboration with Rank & File Collective, Ceachta Beaga Gaeilge, Vol.IV: The Laundry Strike 1945, was born. We chronicled the story for the 80th anniversary of a strike that took place in Dublin where 1500 women who worked in the laundry houses went on strike for two weeks paid holiday, which they won after 14 weeks on strike. Ceachta Beaga Gaeilge, Vol. IV: The Laundry Strike 1945 is an extension of Norma Borthwick's original Irish language lesson book, Ceachta Beaga Gaeilge where all three volumes sit faded blue in the Yeats Archive of the National Gallery of Ireland.

We organised a lino-printing workshop, echoing the original medium of the previous Ceachta Beaga Gaeilge editions, where ten participants illustrated each page of the book. I enjoyed the archival and collaborative practices of compiling and editing this project and the outcomes of the collaborative workshop. Paper has become an important coordinate within my research - tearing - sticking - filing in a very unscientific way. Echoing social avenues in my life, a studio setting became less necessary for my practice.

But here I am

Researching how railwaymen defied an empire and ‘refused to transport armed troops, armed materials or war materials’ around the island in 1920 - an antiwar industrial action that has been little celebrated 106 years on. The second largest rail line was the old Great Northern Railway (GNR) with the majority of its line in Ulster at the time. This blog once again will be as much or as little as I want to archive for myself. This entry is just to make a dent after shingles setbacks - I’m sure when more is uncovered more shall be shared!