CIRCA 89

NEWS BITS

Party!

A bit of a blast, but serious for all that. Bang in the heart of New York, the summer issue of CIRCA was launched this June in a joint celebration with the Irish Arts Review. It was all related to the various Irish art events taking place yonder this summer. Glucksman Ireland House generously provided the venue (and what a venue it is!), The Arts Councils and Aer Lingus Artflights, Peter Murray from the Crawford the speech, Susan Philipsz a piece of sound art. Much interest in and goodwill towards Irish art activities guaranteed lively discussion—which meandered through Manhattan into the small hours.

The serious business, of course, was to promote Irish visual culture and to strengthen dialogue across the Atlantic. On Page 12 (and here) Gemma Tipton outlines a few things CIRCA has found out along the way, should you be thinking of a similar journey. And on Page 60 Anna Hammond gives her take on those Irish shows.

Parties!

Lots of parties happening within The Council of National Cultural Institutions, which is a new initiative of the Republic's Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Síle de Valera. One of these parties, representing Education, Community and Outreach, is due to commission a report on the state of education, community and outreach (hence the party's clever title) in cultural institutions. Underlying all the fancy titles and big parties thus lies a well-allocated interest in education; perhaps our current supplement on Art Education will be of assistance to them?

A wee Arthouse

"Nobody in the village wants to see the wee house disappearing, after all," said Mr. Hugh Bailie. The local fisherman from Ballyhalbert, Co. Down, used his skills to catch a castaway artwork as it drifted towards adventure and the open sea. Sea-Green Belt, a fifteen-foot-high little house of red brick—complete with satellite dish, picket fence and gingham curtains—by artist Gavin Weston was part of the Ards Borough Council's sculpture trail around the Ards Peninsula earlier this summer. The house, floating gently in coastal waters, was intended to be temporary—but not that temporary.

Modeling the arts

Úna McCarthy (above), former Director of the Old Museum Arts Centre, Belfast, is now Director of the Model Arts Centre, Sligo. The Centre is set to re-open next year. And Alice McCartney (below) has been appointed Education and Outreach Officer at the Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast. Themes for in the future include artist placements and residencies, art and new technologies and master classes.

Developmental Psychology

On July 27 The Arts Plan 1999-2001 was launched by The Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon. The Government has apparently taken its recommendations to heart, agreeing an increase in state support by 23% over the spending levels of the last Plan. Fundamental changes are envisioned within the Arts Council to transform it from what is essentially a funding body into a "development agency." Reaction in the press seems positive but guarded—not too surprisingly, given that the Plan is basically aspirational and that it is the style and substance of the implementation that will matter. If it's immediate facts you are after, a better bet might be Visual Invisible by Stella Coffey, Executive Director of the Artists' Association of Ireland. This book gathers together an impressive corpus of statistics, information and argument relating to the visual-arts sector in the Republic. For more, contact the AAI at Dublin 8740529.

Are you an apple crumble?

Unsure of the answer? You may be ready for A Guide to Contemporary Art Terminology, the ultimate language lesson for newcomers to the art world by Simon Morse. At a local CIRCA web-site near you—where you might like to check out your own apple-crumble status.

And in the web, that tangled thing we weave, a bit of magic occurs with a tip-type, a click-click, and the first-ever grant from The Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon to a web-only organization. See Page 64 for a report from Los Angeles by the Stunned man himself, Conor McGarrigle.

Glen stop-calling-me-the-Irish-version-of-the-Turner-prize Dimplex Awards dosh; small wonder lolly; Perspective spondoolicks; and gin

Put otherwise, let's talk loot.

• Catherine Yass received this year's Glen Dimplex award and IR£15,000 for her gorgeous photographic light-boxes. For more on the Glen Dimplex, turn to Lorna Healy's report starting Page 53.

• From over 1300 submissions, 13 artists were chosen to receive awards totaling IR£7,500 at the Tenth Iontas National Small Works Art Competition and Exhibition organized by the Sligo Art Gallery. Recipient of the Adjudicators' Award and a four-week residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig, was Hazel Walker.

• Sifting through a ‘mere' 254 submissions (compare Iontas), Philip Dodd of London's ICA chose Aileen Kelly for the £6000stg award linked to the Perspective 99 show at the Ormeau Baths Gallery. This was for her Curtain Door, pictured left.

• Paul Kelly took the overall prize, and IR£2000, for his work Attraction at the Cork Dry Gin Art of Refreshment Awards (try saying that after a few glasses) announced at Arthouse, Dublin, this August.

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July 10 saw the opening, by Limerick Printmakers, of Limerick's only printmaking studio. The group are currently seeking ‘Friends of Limerick Printmakers' who would be interested in supporting the studio and exhibition space. For more information, contact them at 061 311806.

Obituary: Deirdre Meaney

A warm shy smile under a rainhat, dripping with winter wet, wellies squelching after a day's journey through the bog, in the middle of March. That's how I remember artist Deirdre Meaney. Her dark eyes shining with obvious delight, having captured the light and dark of bogland paths, green roads, turf tracks and secret places near the Cill Rialaig retreat on Bolus Head, County Kerry.

We were very lucky to have her amongst us for a month's sojourn up and down the hills and glens of Ballinskelligs where the soft rain and bold winds seemed only to encourage her fresh, naturalistic ‘plein air' approach to landscape painting.

We are very unlucky not to have her continue her intense, textural studies of areas of colour in the fields, in the hedges, on the pathways, in the lanes, in the streams, in the meadows. Her ability to translate that rare ‘sense of place', her enormous powers of observation, portraying atmosphere like no one else. How sweet she was and innocent too of the ways of much less talented artists. She demanded nothing but from herself and she worked hard all the days of her short life.

Born in 1948, she had attended NCAD from 1967 to 1971. Where did she go then, this budding flower? What did she do?

After her first solo exhibition at the Tubular Gallery in Cork (1976), she showed in Zurich and then back to the Triskel in 1980. Then years later Deirdre was in Copenhagen in one of those ‘exchange' exhibitions and 1994 saw her show Journeys at the Crawford in Cork. In 1998, her work benefited Cill Rialaig when the gallery commission from her piece Tracks and Boglands at the ORIGIN Gallery went to the retreat's rebuilding fund.

It was after this that she rang me one day to ask for a show proper at my gallery. I was thrilled to be asked and we planned to hold it in October of this year. She had always wanted that little place in France where she could get away from all the distractions and prepare for what we both knew might well be a ‘landmark' show for her.

Her work was really beginning to win critical acclaim. She had developed a truly individual style all her own and I was sure that she would win many new admirers.

What a terrible loss to her partner Maurice who also spent some time ‘not going home' with us too. How her sister Frieda and others must miss her. And what a loss to Irish art.

Noelle Campbell-Sharp

Would-be mentor to Deirdre Meaney Do you have an opinion on this article? If so, please click here for our comments form.

Responses so far
Comment 1	Dear Noelle Campbell Sharpe, I was delighted to read your appreciation of Deirdre Meaney. I had searched the internet to get some information on her work and came across your work. Your description of her intense interest in the beauty of lanes and hedges was particularly apposite. I bought a wonderful painting by Deirdre of celandines painted on fabric at a show of hers in Cork. (Whether at the 1980 Triskel show or the 1994 Crawford show I am not sure) It is a painting I love and it does indeed capture the image of those early flowers of Irish country lanes that were so beautifully described in words by the late John McGahern in his "Memoir". These two works of art, one in paint on fabric and the other in carefully chosen words complement each other and render variously a similar artistic sensibility. Is there a site with a list of Deirdre Meaney's works of art and are there any images of her works online? Yours Sincerely Fidelma Maguire
Comment 2	I would like to know where Deirdre Meaney paintings can be bought or seen. Sorry to hear an old friend of forty odd years ago is gone!