Karen Lee: ‘I was onstage and I forgot my lines. I forgot where I was’

Even after all our recent prohibitions, you'd be amazed at some of the things you're not allowed to do – as Karen Lee discovered when she posted pictures of her brightly painted pebbles on Instagram. This, it turns out, contravenes the Foreshore Act, which a person following Lee's feed kindly pointed out. Coming from a family of artists, Lee had been painting stones to amuse her children, and had been hiding them around the community. You've probably seen something similar around where you live – rainbows, and little messages saying things like "be kind".

"My dad, Michael Delaney, is an artist –he's probably been my biggest inspiration," Lee says. "But yes, they were affirmations, and pictures of dinosaurs, that sort of thing." She would leave them close to the playground near her home in North Dublin's Bayside to raise a smile. People liked them. Verbena Home and Garden in Bayside started selling them.

“Things were going well. Then suddenly I found out that I was damaging the ecosystem, and that it was against the law to take anything from the beach...” Lee recalls this with a smile in her eyes, even though I can imagine it was a trifle frustrating at the time.

We muse for a while on what might happen if everyone chose a single day to return their beach booty. There could be a procession, I suggest. Driftwood, sea glass, shells. It could be an art project. Lee laughs. In fact, she laughs frequently, even as she tells tough tales, such as the period during which, having being diagnosed with epilepsy, she had to give up her earlier career as an actor. “I was onstage, and I forgot my lines, I forgot where I was, and I thought, I can’t do this anymore.”

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So she went to work at the Gaiety School of Acting, teaching kids, and later as an administrator. “Then my third child came along, and I had to give it up. I loved it, I really did, but...” she pauses. “The amount of women who have to move away from thriving arts careers. There aren’t the supports for them.”

Still, Lee is clearly the type of person who prefers to focus on the possible. “Lockdown came along, and I got involved with community things. When the playgrounds shut down, a friend of mine approached me and said, ‘I’d like to do something for the kids.’”

Secret garden

That friend was gardener Brendan Cairney, who had already set up a community garden in Bayside. "It's like a little secret garden, and it works," says Lee. From picking apples to planting kale, people help out, and you can also help yourself to the fruits of their (and your) labours. "It was a scrap of land, and now it's a garden."

I’m reminded of the love and care that goes into pockets of land in cities the world over. These are the places where they don’t wait for someone to come and plant rows of regimented trees and pink everything up with petunias. Lee’s mind immediately began to work. “I’m the type of person who can’t sit still,” she affirms. “All the creative cogs were turning, and we decided on the theme of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Children in the area painted rainbows and passed them (from a safe social distance) to Lee and Cairney, who laid them out on big pieces of wood and laminated them. “We got about 200,” she says. “They were weatherproof for about three weeks.”

I made a mud kitchen... I found the design on Pinterest. Kids will spend hours with muck. They're so happy

From there, it was a short step to tree decorations and murals. Lee tells me about Bayside’s local park, the Lamb Chop (so named for its shape). “We had bluebirds, we spray-painted a trail onto the grass so it was like the Yellow Brick Road, and we did a lot of skip-diving – I got my mother into a skip at one point.” Crown Paints helped, and a call went out to volunteers. The park became full of colour and fun. In winter, they made a wonderland. Donations came in, and more surprises appeared.

"I made a mud kitchen, people donated playhouses..." A mud kitchen? I ask for clarification, but it is exactly what it sounds like – an outdoor kitchen in which to make mud pies, and generally have good, unclean fun. "I found the design on Pinterest. Kids will spend hours with muck," says Lee. "They're so happy." Saying that if she has to, she'll ask for forgiveness rather than permission, Lee also acknowledges that the Bayside Community Association and Fingal County Council have brilliantly also made it all possible.

Serendipity

I’m still thinking of the thwarted pebble art, but Lee, who is smart, positive and upbeat, suggests that perhaps it was serendipity. “I had just started painting canvases, so maybe it was time to move on and work bigger and, while it’s still painting on stone, if you think about it, you can’t get much bigger than a mural.”

Wings were painted on the walls at the Lamb Chop. She made a mural with the teenagers from Pobailscoil Neasáin and their art teacher Louise Kelly. "I love working with teenagers," Lee says. "They're really creative, and have great ideas. They also have a lot to say if you listen."

Alongside this, Lee also set up an art studio at home. Her work for the Scoop Foundation Art Auction sold ("I was delighted"), and she tells a lovely story of her painting of the Poolbeg chimneys for the CRC Art Sale being sold to a man whose grandfather used to paint the red stripes on the chimneys themselves, and describes the joy of knowing her work is in such a special home.

You’ll quite possibly be seeing more of Lee’s art yourself soon. Her work is on show in the Insomnia cafe in Sutton Park, where she also does a monthly art studio; the coffee shop chain has commissioned her to do a vast (16ft by 4ft) piece at its Baggot Street branch. “I’m nervous, to say the least,” she says. “But I do like a challenge.”

Thinking of challenges, I wonder what’s next. “I’d love a solo show. I love colour, and I love symmetry. And I love painting cranes. I’d paint a crane till the cows come home, but people don’t want to buy a picture of a crane.” She stops to think. “Maybe one day they will.”

You never know, I think they might.