ART: The students of Wesley College have learned some unexpected lessons from artist-in-residence Eóin O'Connor, writes Rosita Boland.
"I was surprised that an artist's studio looked onto housing estates and a hockey pitch. It's not what you think of when you think of Michelangelo," says Claire Delap, a fifth-year student at Wesley College in Dublin.
Delap is talking about Eóin O'Connor's temporary studio, which is located on the upper floor of Wesley's sports pavilion. By Christmas, when O'Connor's six-month residency ends, every art class in the school will have made a visit to his studio. Some classes will also have had a workshop. In return, O'Connor gets a bright, airy studio space, heated and lit by the school, that he can use seven days a week. No money changes hands.
This brilliantly simple concept was thought up by Wesley English teacher, Niall MacMonagle. MacMonagle attends the NCAD degree shows and spotted O'Connor's work there last year. A long-time champion of creative writing, MacMonagle wanted to offer something different to those in the school interested in visual art. The room in the sports pavilion usually used for hockey pre-match pep-talks was offered as a studio space. O'Connor was invited to become the school's first artist-in-residence, and has been there since June.
"As I see it, I'm here to give the students something extra," O'Connor explains, rummaging for the jar of coffee, located somewhere among the paint-pots and photographs, tools, drawings, bits of paper and books that make the ordered chaos of an artist's studio. "Something freer and looser. I didn't want to interrupt what the art teachers here were doing already for curriculum work."
He has had several studio visits so far from art classes. "They all ask me about money. I do explain that it's quite tough. And I try to take away the myth of artist as a romantic recluse." O'Connor works mainly using MDF, rather than canvas or board, and always gets questions from students surprised by seeing what they perceive as non-traditional materials.
"They can ask some great questions. I had one second-year student ask me lately: 'If you came up with an idea, how would you work it through?' I thought that was very mature."
Barbara Kenevey is Wesley's art department co-ordinator. How does she think an artist-in-residence benefits the school? "To see an artist working in their studio, and to see that it's possible to have a career from art and to take it seriously," she replies.
"We take students on lots of gallery visits," says art teacher Sonya Fromholz, "which is fine, but the students are seeing the work in isolation, and galleries can be intimidating. Here, there is a chance to see the work being made and to ask lots of questions. Even vulgar ones like how much artists get paid."
"I was expecting to see an easel and canvas," says second-year Murray O'Doherty. "But he was using MDF."
"He doesn't get paid much, but he told us it's not about the money, it's about doing what you want to do," says Gwen Duffy.
The students wrote up their impressions on a studio visit after they came back. "It's a lot harder to become an artist that I thought," wrote Ian Belton.
Rebecca Skeleton wrote: "I learned that art isn't about the money and that if you draw a stick with a ball on top you can call it a tree, and that it's good to be original and different."
"I was amazed the place was so small. I thought a studio would be big - like this," Siobhán McLennan states, gesturing around the vast art room. "Being an artist is so much more humble than you think. It sounded so lonely. He told us things like when he's looking for inspiration, he'll go off to the library or into town taking photographs. It sounded so depressing."
"I didn't like his style of art at all," confesses Gillian Hagan. "It's too abstract." "I thought his studio would be more professional. That there would be an easel and a palette," says Zach Tovin.
The fifth-years report that they loved the practical workshop they did with O'Connor. "It freed us up. We always draw looking at an object," says Emma Scanlon. "But he made us draw out of our heads. It was like being children again, the way we were drawing."
"Before, I didn't have a clue how an artist would live, or make a living," says Claire Delap. "He told us things like the name of the gallery where you exhibit is really important, and that it's better to have one show a year than bits and pieces here and there. I was shocked when he told us how much he got for some of his stuff - €6,000 for one piece!" "But he only gets paid once a year, when he has a show," points out McLennan."
They all digest this in silence. Clearly, during Eóin O'Connor's period of residency, the students of Wesley are learning not just about art, but also about economics.