Nenagh Art Classes

Children's Art - Saturday Afternoon
Explore a range of craft and art based activities. Children are encouraged to discover their own creativity and interests. We will be using a range of meduims and also looking at the work of well known artists.
Ages 5 to 7 yrs @ 2pm, Ages 8 to 12 @ 3pm.
Eight weeks, cost €85, Starts 1st October

Adults Art Workshops - Thursday Evenings
Get in touch with your iner artist and find your own inspirations. Open to all abilities for a relaxing and social evening.
Eight weeks, Thursdays 7.30 to 9pm
Starts September 29th, Cost €110

To book a place call Olivia ph: 087 6380201 or email olivia@creativehouse.ie. All materials included, cost can be paid in full or by installment.

Community Sculpture - Update



My Wabi Sabi Sphere



I have been very busy of late, our baby was born three weeks ago so my motivation to update the blog has been taken away by a very cute little girl. I was unable to get the sculpture into the cathedral for July so I am hoping to have it in for October. I did however have it displayed in the local gallery during the festival, where it got a great response.

To be honest I had my doubts, doubts in buckets. I wasn't sure if anyone would quite get what I was trying to do or what the Wabi Sabi Sphere meant. I also was worried that no one would turn up to the workshops. But most of all I didn't know how I was going to pull it off in the end. What was it going to look like? After a short little meltdown in a room full of styrofoam painted balls and 30 metres of tangled wire, I called in my ever helpful husband and two designer friends for consultation. Once I got my head in the right place I was able to pull it all together in a very short time. The result is the long intertwining piece that can be hung in different places and manipulated into different forms. I must say I felt very proud when it was hung in the gallery.

Below are some images from the workshops and gallery.

Community Workshop

Children's Workshop

Jess the Artist

If anyone is interested in how I made the sculpture drop me a line and I will give you all the details and list of materials.

The Arts Banquet

The launch of the new Arts Banquet took place last night last in the heritage town of Killaloe / Ballina Co. Clare. This new arts festival is about opening the doors on the art world and making audiences participants. The festival hopes to bring a feast of arts to all who are interested or who wish to be the musicians, artists, poets and writers that they always knew they were.

The Community Sculpture "My Wabi Sabi Sphere" will start it's workshops tomorrow, 25th June in St Annes Community College @ 2pm. For those interested in getting their hands messy and having the title of 'sculptor' come and join in.

Community Sculpture & Children's Parade Family Workshops,

at St. Annes Community College, Killaloe,Saturday 25th June 2 to 4pm

(Parade workshops starts at 11)

Youth Workshop, Friday 1st July, Kincora Hotel

Active Age, Friday 1st July, Kincora Hotel

Open for all, Saturday 2nd July, Pop Up Playhouse, Cathedral Quay

The sculpture can be viewed by the public on Sat 2nd July, 8pm Quay Arts and for all of July in the Killaloe Cathedral from 3rd July

The following are a list of Arts Banquet events that will take place during the the next week.

Wednesday 29th June

Killaloe Writers Group - Readings & Selected Poetry, 8.30pm, Il Ponte Vecchio, Killaloe

Thursday 30th June

Music in the Glen Strings Summer Concert, 5pm, Pop Up Playhouse

The Hunt Museum Lecture, 6pm, Il Ponte Vecchio

Killaloe/ Ballina Youth Theatre Club Final Year Show, Pop Up Playhouse

Quay Arts Theatre Nights, 8pm, Quay Arts, Ballina

Friday 1st July

Sharing Stories - Children's Workshops, 2 to 4pm, Killaloe Library

Quay Arts Theatre Nights, 8pm, Quay Arts, Ballina

Lola Montez Theatrical Caberet, 9.30pm, Pop Up Playhouse

Saturday, 2nd July

'A Day in the Life', visual arts, all day event, Quay Arts

Killaloe/ Ballina Community Orchestra, 4.30pm, Pop Up Playhouse

The Great Big Boru Gig, 8.30pm, Pop Up Playhouse

For full details on all events and locations click on

http://www.feilebrianboru.killaloe.ie/index.htm

http://www.musicintheglen.ie/

http://www.quayarts.ie/

My Wabi-Sabi Sphere

As part of the Arts Banquet Festival (local arts festival) I am creating a community sculpture. The theme of the festival is 'Transition, Transience and Change'. I love the idea of engaging with a community to create a single piece that represents each person in it.  Last year for the Brian Boru Festival I did something similar using a tree. It was a community tree and each flower and leaf on it represented someone who helped create it. It was very simple and easy to do yet it inspired a lot of questions and comments.

This year I have upped the ante. My interpretation of the theme is the 'Wabi-Sabi Sphere' sculpture. Sounds very odd and arty. I have however tried to simplify it for people to understand. I am running workshops with school kids, families, teenagers and an active age group. I will also have much of the work coming from myself.

I came across the idea of Wabi Sabi a few months ago and it hit a nerve with me. It is a Japanese philosophy which is centred around the acceptance of transience. It is a beauty that is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. It has three underlying aspects, nothing lasts, nothing is finished and nothing is perfect. This all really resonated with me. So often I am restricted by a need to be perfect and held up on the goal to finish. So much so that it often ruins the enjoyment of doing something or causes me to put things on the long finger for fear of doing it 'wrong' or stressing out that it 'needs' to be finished yesterday. The idea of Wabi Sabi allows me a breathing space. When I think of it I realise that I will never be finished and nothing will ever be perfect and there is beauty in that.

When I heard that the theme was 'Transition, Transience and Change' I knew I had to bring in the idea of Wabi Sabi into it some how. The idea for a sphere came about as I knew that we could use the local cathedral to exhibit and that excited me. I wanted to create something that would contrast with the space. A  simple form in vibrant colours to contrast with the dark ancient structure.

To create the sculpture each person who participates will paint a sphere to reflect where they are in their life, this could be something as simple as a colour. I felt that as an individual the sphere can be a symbol of something that is a perfect whole and complete, yet because it is a sphere it is always moving and changing or has the potential to move and change. Therefore My Wabi Sabi Sphere is a representation of that person and where they are in their life, even when they are in a state of change, transformation or transience they are still perfect, whole and a thing of beauty. I will then create a sculpture using all the spheres.

I will post up the photos of the sculpture in progress and the finished piece over the next few weeks. In the meantime you can read up about Wabi Sabi on the web.

http://nobleharbor.com/tea/chado/WhatIsWabi-Sabi.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi

Try to remember Wabi Sabi next time you are caught up in perfectionism.