Cultural Offices
Annie Ryan, artistic director of Corn exchange
`There's a limit to what you can organise when you're working around the laundry and the cereal bowls." Annie Ryan is sitting in the empty room which, by the time you read this, will have become her office at 43 Temple Bar. The building, which will provide six Cultural Offices for a vriety of arts enterprises (including Cle, Irish Modern Dance Theatre and the Irish Film and Television Academy), is not quite finished, but she is delighted at the prospect of having an office. The rent (only £50 a week) is also very attractive. The Cultural Offices are situated above URBANA, the new interior design warehouse. The architect, Felim Dunne, who also designed DesignYard, has kept the warehouse character of the building, leaving some of the brick walls exposed.
Kerry West, Corn Exchange's administrator, is enthusiastic about the location of the new base: "It is just across the road from the Temple Bar Gallery, where most Corn Exchange productions have been performed." Although this is the first year Corn Exchange has received Arts Council funding, the company has been active since 1994. In 1995 it took part in the Dublin Fringe Festival (DFF) with Cul- tural Shrapnel. In 1996 came Streetcar, and last year, there was the company's memorable version of Edward Albee's classic, Big Bad Woolf, again using its distinctive Commedia dell'Arte style. There have been two other shows: A Play On Two Chairs, and most recently Baby Jane, performed at the Project @ the Mint.
Annie Ryan feels that Temple Bar is a good place from which to operate: "We're young and new and full of enthusiasm. Our new show for this year's Dublin Theatre Festival is called Car Show and will consist of three or four 15-minute plays set in cars on the streets of Temple Bar." The audience will sit "in the back seat": "The danger of Temple Bar is that with all these hip people and expensive shops, people won't want to set foot in the place. Car Show will warm things up with a human touch."
It will be good, they agree, to share the building with other arts practitioners so that ideas and experience can be pooled. There is a designated "meeting-room" to facilitate a communal atmosphere.
The company has applied to the Arts Council for a capital grant to buy a computer and other necessary equipment for the new office. Annie Ryan looks forward to having a space where potential corporate sponsors can drop in for meetings. She adds: "We also want to share what we have with other young companies who might not have a base yet."
International Artist's Apartment
Jack Jeffrey, visiting artist from Canada
The international artist's apartment at 10 Blind Quay in Temple Bar is a stylish two-bedroom ground-floor space, complete with a small walled courtyard accessible through a glass door. "It took me a couple of weeks to realise I was responsible for the potted plants out there," jokes Canadian installation artist Jack Jeffrey, who, when I spoke to him, was coming to the end of his four-week stint in the apartment. For £70 a week the resident artist in this new development (designed by architects Gilroy McMahon) can enjoy a large asymmetrical open plan sittingroom, with a small kitchen in one neat corner. Even the furniture looks arty: there is a royal blue sofa and an angular grey chair, set off to perfection by the clean white walls and sweeping wood-effect flooring.
Jeffrey's interest in Ireland stems from his West Cork mother, and he has been coming here since 1991: "In the past I have worked at the National Sculpture Factory in Cork, but I decided I'd like to try Dublin for a change." He is the visiting artist at the Temple Bar Studio for four months: "I'm going to have to find somewhere else to live after my time is up at Blind Quay," he says regretfully.
Cities are his preferred environment and source of inspiration, so he is happy to be based in the centre of Dublin. City features such as street bollards and road works signs play a central role in his oeuvre. At the moment he has an installation on the outer wall of the Temple Bar Gallery, which involves a short story based on some boys setting up a football field using street materials in Marseille.
He has mixed feelings about the noise factor in his apartment: "During the day there is construction going on nearby and at night the bar across the street doesn't close until 2a.m. Some nights I stop in for a beer. Other nights I want to sleep."
He likes Temple Bar best during the day: "Walking around at night you can be put off by the impression of a party centre for Europe, with loads of people drunk on the street. And in some of the pubs, they are so used to serving tourists that they don't bother pouring pints properly. "But during the day it is very pleasant, with nice cafes. Passing places like the IFC and the Temple Bar Music Centre, you realise how much cultural activity is going on." He does not frequent the many restaurants in Temple Bar, finding them too expensive: "I buy food at Roche's Stores, or Marks and Spencer, and eat in instead." And with such a nice apartment, who could blame him?
Artists' and Writers' Studios
Catherine Lynch, visual artist
`It keeps me fit as a fiddle," says Catherine Lynch of her studio at the very top of 16 Eustace Street. The building's front door is made of glass, and has to be opened and locked again by residents when their visitors ring the bell.
Her studio is reached via a magnificent wooden staircase. The room has gleaming wooden floorboards, white walls, an original stone and cast-iron fireplace, and, most importantly, two windows that let in plenty of light. In one alcove there's a tap and a Belfast sink. Two small tables are littered with brushes and tins of paint. On her easel sits a canvas in progress, over which she has stretched what looks like fabric from a child's pyjamas: "I'm experimenting, you shouldn't really be looking at all. . ."
The building has been restored with the help of O'Mahony Pike Architects and the Civic Trust, but even before its facelift it was for many years a centre for artists: "Anthony Little is here eight years, and there are others who have been here since before Temple Bar Properties did it up."
She'll be here for two years, paying £20 a week rent. She has taken those two years off from her part-time lecturing position at NCAD. Her normal routine is to teach at NCAD for three days a week, and spend the rest of the time in her house (near Macroom in Co Cork) where she has a room which she uses as a studio.
She is delighted to have a studio space in Dublin: "Being in the country is a bit isolated. In Ireland, the emphasis on the artist is in Dublin. I had two shows in Dublin last year: one in the Green on Red Gallery and one in the Original Print Gallery. Before that I was in the US. I want to stay in Dublin now, and this will hold me here."
She has been working on a series of lithographs based on women's clothing, but she also wants to get back into the painting: "And now I have two years of security, I'll have the freedom to explore instead of regurgitating things I've done before. A whole new chapter in my life is starting up."
Artists' and Writers' Studios
Michael O'Loughlin, writer
Novelist, screen-writer and poet Michael O'Loughlin was finishing his three-month stint in the basement of 16 Eustace Street when I spoke to him. The room is sparsely furnished with a desk, filing cabinet and easy chair. There is a high window and a grey floor. "It's spartan, as you can see," he jokes. "I asked them could I have a bed, and they thought I was joking. But in fact I do a lot of my thinking lying down. A lot of writers do. So I lie on the floor instead."
On the desk rests an Apple Mac computer which comes with the room. "It's functional," he says. There is also access to a shower "if you get hot and sticky from your work." The rent is £15 a week.
He lives in Dalkey and although he has a room at home where he can write, he finds it a relief to be able to come into the city: "Sometimes you have to get out of the home environment. Anyway, at home the view is too good. It's distracting." There is no view from his room in Temple Bar, just white walls and a narrow opaque window: "It suits me fine to be in a basement with no distraction." Then, when he has finished for the day, he enjoys the DART journey back to Dalkey, the sea view, and the company of his wife and daughter.
"While I've been using this space in Temple Bar I've written a film script, a sort of Irish version of Cape Fear set in Amsterdam," he notes. "I'm also working on a novel for which I've been given a large advance by Picador. It's based on a Messianic movement in Holland in the seventeenth century."
He occasionally goes for a coffee to the IFC across the road with fellow writer Dermot Bolger, who is also using one of the Writers' Studios. But he is more likely to be found "sneaking off to Bewley's on Westmoreland Street for the full monty" - a fried breakfast.
For information on the Temple Bar artists' studios and apartments, contact Temple Bar Properties on 01-6772255
