Relax, I'm painting
There's a common denominator amongst the members of Kilcullen Art Group. Relaxation.
Coming from different backgrounds, different jobs, each one of them seems to find total relaxation when they get together every week to swop tips and techniques, dipping brushes into oils or water colours paint, drafting a composition with a pencil, and generally getting something of the creative part of their psyche out onto something tangible.
Even for the very experienced, like their tutor Clodagh Gale (above right), the process is a 'honing' of the tools of her craft. A professional artist for many years, she says she loves the company of the weekly class and finds that working with the group can reinforce what she herself has learned and maybe forgotten about.
"Helping somebody in oils, or acrylics and water colours is in itself a learning process for me," she says. "And if I live to be a hundred, I'll still be learning.
The group was set up two years ago by Sabina Reddy (above), triggered by her own wish to learn to paint. "I hadn't done any painting since my Inter Cert, so I put the feelers out for some like minded people, hired a room, and looked for some experienced painters to show us how."
Two years on, and with around 20 people in total participating, Sabina says she has got a great deal of satisfaction from the experience, and her painting has improved to the point that she's planning a group exhibition for next winter.
"It is also a very relaxing thing -- when you've been busy all day you can just immerse yourself for a couple of hours in art," she says. "It has also opened up my world to art, going to exhibitions and seeing what's happening further afield. And I've met people I'd never have met otherwise, some of whom I've been living in the same community with all my life."
Through the winter, the weekly meetings have been held in the Parish Centre, and when numbers dwindled last summer the remainder met in each others' homes. With the brighter evenings coming, they're hoping to move soon to the new Kilcullen Canoe Club premises, which has excellent natural light and views of the river.
That is being facilitated by group member Jock Kelly (above), who apart from being an enthusiastic canoeist for decades has been painting since the early 90s.
"It's great fun," he said last week as he wrestled with the delicacies of water colours techniques after working mostly in oils since he began. "It's something to look forward to every week, and it stops me from getting lazy."
Another newcomer is Sadie Wheatley, new also to Kilcullen itself. The existence of the group gave her a chance to fulfill a long-standing wish to learn to paint. "It's nice here in that you can try it out for yourself, try a different technique every week if you want. I get great encouragement, and it is relaxing too."
Watching Clodagh Gale moving from table to table, giving a hint here, taking up a sketching pencil or brush there, it is clear that there's plenty of professional encouragement too. But she constantly preaches the maxim: 'Enjoy it, have fun with it'.
"That's the whole idea," she says. "These people are coming in here after their school, or after their day's work, and the need to enjoy it. I believe it should be relaxed, that if anyone doesn't feel like painting on any night, and just want to watch the others, well, that's OK too. And I love it when, every now and again, someone gets a 'eureka!' moment, when they've maybe mastered some little technique."
The group is always open to new members. Anyone interested can contact Sabina at 087 6807139.
Brian Byrne.
