Jenny O'Brien

"Patience" by Jenny O'Brien

I first met Jenny O'Brien in the Spanish Arch Hotel in Galway one morning, and interviewed her across a white-linen-clad table in the empty restaurant. My son was restaurant manager at the time, and as I couldn't drive after having cut my hand very severely on glass, he kindly gave us permission to conduct our interview over idle silver cutlery and sad-looking wine glasses, awaiting their table napkin adornments. Noisy chefs in the adjoining kitchen were our background music as curious staff members thudded up and down the wooden staircase between downstairs bar and first-floor restaurant.

"Marilyn" by Jenny O'Brien

I was again reminded of Jenny a couple of months after our interview, when I heard her pure voice singing on Galway Bay FM radio. I remembered she played in a wedding band, that music was a huge thing in her life .... and was proud indeed, possessive of the knowledge that 'I knew her', when I heard her sing. Our interview had covered most aspects of her portraiture and painting career but had only touched on her music career.

I wanted to spotlight Jenny here because recently she has shown a lot of kindness and generosity to my niece, Ferne Krystal, who is an aspiring singer and lyricist. She met with us in Athenry (Co. Galway, Ireland) one lunch time and was quite happy for Ferne to pick her brains about all things musical in Ireland, giving her sound advice about recording equipment and offering to work with her on a dem CD.

"The Wedding Couple" by Jenny O'Brien

A few weeks later, after my husband's work Christmas dinner - in February! - we ambled down to the Quays bar in Galway's night hot-spot, to hear Jenny sing with a Funky Rock band, which she does from midnight every Thursday. We arrived early, all the better to pick our good viewing seats in the pub, and Jenny immediately came over to us to chat and give Ferne more advice and titbits, before taking her place on the stage with the band. And wow! what a natural, easy and well-projected voice our Jenny has! We loved the music and loved her singing.

Ferne called Jenny a week or so later and arranged to get together to record a couple of songs, which they duly did, in the recording studio in Jenny's home. She generously gave hours of her time, her skills and the use of her equipment, in her usual friendly and open way.

Thank you Jenny! It's my pleasure to once again highlight your self and your talent.

This is Jenny's profile:

Jenny O'Brien

"I'm not particularly full of angst and just want to express myself"

Jenny O'Brien's mother is an artist and used to keep the cereal boxes for her children to draw on. "There was always loads of arty stuff around the house ... and I thought everybody's house was like that. I remember when I was almost five years old I wrote on the wall and tried to blame it on my then-unborn brother!" Her dad was a guitar and trombone player so Jenny was always encouraged to either draw or play music - her instrument being the piano. when she got to secondary school she had to choose between music and art. Art won and she continued with piano lessons but didn't go down the academic route with music.

"Buttons" by Jenny O'Brien

She was born in the Coombe Hospital in Dublin in 1976 and when she was three the family moved to Cork, from there to Wexford and in 1995 Jenny moved to Galway. She had been doing a teaching degree in Dublin for two years, but felt that there was no focus on the actual learning of her discipline. She knew she wanted first and foremost to be a painter and felt too young to teach. "Even now I get asked for ID!" she grinned. "You have to learn what it is you're teaching before you can teach."

She transferred to Galway to do a Fine Arts Higher Diploma. "Neither my Leaving Cert nor my studies in Dublin stirred any philosophy for me and I felt that that part of my brain was starting to atrophy with lack of use. I had forgotten how to form an opinion on a piece of work and felt too far removed from where I wanted to be. I needed to change that." To cut a long story short, she got engaged to Kieran Kelly who teaches guitar and writes music and lyrics; plays and sings in a wedding band called "Fraggle Rock" (who have recently released a CD); and moved to Athenry where she and Kieran have built a house.

Jenny's degree exhibition centred around portraits. Exposure to variety in the arts whilst doing her degree in Galway gave her a focus and she found portraits to be her natural inclination. "I've developed my style over the years and can recognise now when a painting is working and when it's not. My standards are higher, still a bit refined, but less brown and dark ... I've come out of my gothic style now!"

"The Boys" by Jenny O'Brien

"I paint murals as well and have wonderful conversations with children while I'm painting their walls. One little girl of eight or nine years old wanted a forest scene and I found it quite daunting trying to keep up with her imagination."

Jenny works with oils on canvas but for smaller paintings she uses little pieces of board, and because it needs to be more precise she uses brushes only. For portraits she uses very fine brushes actually meant for acrylics, working from good photographs - which she prefers to take herself. "I want to get a likeness and the character of the person."

"Matteo" by Jenny O'Brien

"My techniques are pretty traditional. I work up layers of paint with glazing - it takes a while and I need to look back at it. I don't exactly reproduce the photograph but if it works, a painting can be a stronger image because it's what you see in someone as well as what their face looks like. When you do a portrait there is something of yourself in it too.

"Edward Hopper would be a good influence on me. At college one student spoke about how beautiful his work was and my viewpoint was completely to do with the people and how miserable they looked in some of his work during the depression in the States. When I started college in Galway I felt back in a creative atmosphere, finding out where I fitted in. I'm not particularly full of angst or anything and just want to express myself and my interest in people and people-watching. I'm curious, just nosy really, about their behaviour and the reasoning for them being the way that they are.

"The Central Hotel" by Jenny O'Brien

"I find 'that moment' fascinating and I like to catch people unawares. I'd like to be doing more work that lands closer to observation of people but not necessarily portraits. Putting people into a setting and painting what I see as well as including things I think are amusing, are my inspiration."

Jenny's work to date has been mainly commission based but recently she has begun working on paintings with a view to a solo exhibition. Her 2006 exhibition and calendar launch in the Kenny Gallery in Galway gave her a tremendous boost and she's working to aim higher this time.

www.jennyobrienportraits.com

My art website : https://lyndacookson.blogspot.fr/

The ePlan page : https://onlinepresenceassistant.blogspot.fr/

Tea at The Hobb in Middle Wales

Beginning at the end, above is the painting which twelve artists, who were Taking Tea at The HoBB in Knighton, Middle Wales, 11 May 2010, created. It's called "Welsh Web" and it's acrylic on linen-covered board.

The HoBB

Elf, creator incredible, writer, and epitomy of the essence of life a.k.a. Grant, who keeps The HoBB vibrating with magic, together with his wife Helen, burst a bubble of enthusiasm over me .... the rainbows of which lead to a tasty and painterly few hours of fun, chat and acrylics with these artists:

Jilly Tinniswood, Anne Collins, Martin Herbert, Vivi-Marie, Ciara Lewis, Julia Harris, Bronte Woodruff, Grant, Helen, Brenda Mackay, Mavis Chapman and myself.

Grant, Mavis Chapman, Helen
(backview of Anne Collins, Ciara Lewis)

Mavis Chapman, Helen, Vivi-Marie, Martin Herbert
(backview of Anne Collins, Ciara Lewis)

Brenda Mackay, Ciara Lewis, Anne Collins, Grant
(backview of Mavis Chapman)

Mavis Chapman (centre front) Helen (backview)
Vivi-Marie, Martin Herbert, Jilly Tinniswood

I'd been searching for a reason to visit The HoBB for two or three years, after chatting with Grant on the Ecademy.com networking site - and being entranced by his messages, feeling his enthusiasm for everything which comes his way. Then last month, May 2010, I had to fetch my Mum (Mavis Chapman) and eldest sister (Brenda Mackay) from London where they had been staying with my middle sister. Ha! None of us had visited Middle Wales and Brenda, herself an artist and over from South Africa to visit my Mum, is always up for a bit of extra travel .... so we were on! An email to Grant and within hours Roisin, my PA, was searching google for artists to invite.

Even just inviting artists was fun .... I linked up with a handful of artists who couldn't make it on the day but who I hope to keep in touch with and visit next time.

Before boarding the Irish Ferries "Ulyssess", I stocked up with some deliciously sugary and chocolatey goodies, boxes of different teas and coffee ... and felt not a hint of diet-police guilt. We were, after all, going to be Taking Tea.

What I hadn't mentioned in my emails to the artists was that I also planned for us to be painting a joint painting. A huge bag stuffed with acrylics, brushes, palette knives and clothes sat heavily next to a linen-covered board - primed for painting - and a travel easel in the boot of my car.

The next thirty-six hours of driving - Maam Valley in the West of Ireland to Dublin, across the puddle to Holyhead, on to Stevenage and back to the village of Presteigne in Middle Wales - was lightened with pleasant anticipation. Finally, my hands tender from manipulating a steering wheel for so many hours, we plonked our luggage down in a garden lodge of the Radnorshire Arms Inn in Presteigne ... all three of us secretly hoping for ghosts, after having read the bloody and secretive history of the Inn building. (You can find it here www.radnorshirearmshotel.com/history.html - it's an excellent read!) I definitely heard a creaking and a cranking in the walls, but as that part of the hotel was only built in the 1970s I fear it was simply the plumbing.

Next morning, bright and early, we were in the car, skidding to a halt here and there to dash out and take photographs like all good tourists ought to do, on our way to The HoBB. We missed our turning into the driveway, but it was almost on purpose as we were so enjoying the scenery, the bunnies scampering into the hedgerows, and the cockerels strutting their stuff in farmyards, so much that we almost didn't want to arrive too soon. But arrive we did, into the welcoming embraces of Grant and Helen - and straight into their kitchen to prepare the goodies.

Grant lead me outside, past miniature wooden elves houses lined up on a shelf in a wooden shed area which only belongs in a twinkling book of fantasy - to a room which he and Helen have built ... into it's environment. I think that's the best way to describe it. It's wooden, with the most incredible carved door, lovingly created by Grant; it looks down the field of sheep in front of it through glass windows angled out to make the most of the view and has dragon scales and a forest of trees embossed in cement on its walls.

He thought it might be the ideal place for us to create our painting. He was right. It was brilliant.

We warmed up and got to know one another around the table set for tea; then took our chatter out to The Dragon Scale Room where the talk never stopped and the brushes just flew over the canvas.

This is how "Welsh Web" began ......



... progressed a little more ...

... and so it carried on ...



... until this point, just before it got a few more splashes
before it's journey home to become this ...

The final "Welsh Web"

I took a video of the whole painting process ..... just a little editing and it'll be here to enjoy.

Anyone want to Take Tea with Artists? Give me a shout!

Déjà vu in Paris

MONICA BOYLE

Déjà vu in Paris

By Lynda Cookson

As the ferry slipped into the harbour on Eigg Island in the Hebrides where Monica Boyle was working at the time, she mused on the feeling of knowing the intimacies of the islanders’ lives as well as knowing the ways of mainland folk. She felt like both an insider and an outsider and yet neither one, in a limbo between the two - and so, in the late ‘80s her fascination and love affair with islands began. In her own words: ‘I have never been able to understand or escape my growing infatuation with 'the islands'. It has compelled me for decades to fall through layers of relationship from distant admirer, acquaintance and finally lover to a whole archipelago. Like most obsessions, it has become narrower in its focus, mainly the islands around West Cork and Heir in particular. The first time I went to Paris, the hamlet of houses on the west coast of Heir island, it all seemed very familiar to me, I had a sense of déjà vu and felt as if I had been there before. Sole possession or an understanding of the relationship is not a necessity for me. It is my 'encounter' with the offshore islands and my subsequent response to it in paint that is important to me. Water, land and sky merge and separate into abstracted forms as I wipe paint on and scrape it off again. I dip my finger in vibrant vermillion and make an emphatic smear, which is then enveloped in a haze as I smudge grey-blues around their edge. Indian red and sultry ochre trickle along dark shorefronts to lift the temperature further in these cold western seas. Finally, I scratch the surface to stitch and consolidate the whole. The painted surface is the only vestigial record of the experience.’

A relationship with her bucket and mop … but actually in love with the sea

MAJELLA O’NEILL COLLINS

A relationship with her bucket and mop … but actually in love with the sea

By Lynda Cookson

The last house on the there-and-back road on Sherkin Island, a brown-stained cabin sitting on a lawn just metres from the lapping sea, belongs to artist Majella O’Neill Collins and her husband Michael. They live there with their children Michael (12) and Fiona (10).

Majella’s abstract paintings, vibrant in their blues, crimsons, greens and yellows, hang against fresh white walls, looking back at the reality of themselves - the real sea - through large windows and the open front door.

Mashed potato to begin with please …

KATE FRENCH

Mashed potato to begin with please …

By Lynda Cookson

Kate French was asked to write about herself for a recent exhibition: ‘I wanted at first just to write … “My name is Kate French and I make sculpture” … but then I thought it would look pretty stupid so here goes … I have made things three dimensional for as long as I can remember. I modelled things in mashed potato as a toddler and it remains a passion. If I were to analyse my work I would say that it is about movement. The movement just before and after an object moves. I also hope that it conveys a sensation of joy. Something magical, as I notice that a lot of my work is inspired by Greek legend. This just seems to happen. But then it could simply be organised chaos or Quantum heresy.’

I met Kate in the art gallery she shares with her painter husband Philip, at the end of a colourful walkway of shops above the centre of Kinsale. Before I knew it I had been welcomed into the airy and light gallery with an enthusiastic handshake, and settled comfortably in a chair I thought I may never be able to, or want to, get out of while Kate energetically talked a blue streak about family, health and fitness. Her enjoyment of pilates (breathing exercises), tai chi and yoga flow naturally into her work and are reflected in the physical challenges she attempts with sculpture – like the bronze horse balancing delicately on one hoof. She laughs: ‘I like to challenge engineering. A lot of the things I want to do defy the laws of sculpture.’ But it’s her knowledge and sense of how breath, muscles and state of mind work together as a team, which allows her to bring grace, balance and sensitivity to the movement in her sculpture.

Normally late but usually right

JOHN SIMPSON

Normally late but usually right

By Lynda Cookson

John Simpson held me spellbound for more than two hours, using simple words to say clearly and calmly what so many artists feel but cannot describe - from their need to escape to a private space to feed their compulsion to paint, to the irresistible pull of expressing uniquely the element of life that catches their passion.

Born in Fraserburg in Scotland, John spent four years at The Slade School of Fine Art in London and was strongly influenced by modern American painters like Rothco, Koenig, Ellesworth Kelly and Jackson Pollock. However, he said of an exhibition of Bonard’s paintings in London at the time: ‘I thought that’s really what painting is or should be about. It was very rich and his work stuck in my mind through all the influences even although it threw me into a bit of confusion, being older than all the contemporary stuff around.’

Art, Music and Seagulls Dancing

JOHN HURLEY

Art, Music and Seagulls Dancing

By Lynda Cookson

On 23 February 2006, John Hurley, artist, lyricist and musician, attended the World Premiere of ‘Seagulls Dance’ at the Draoicht Theatre in Dublin. He got in for free. And so he should. He wrote all the music and the lyrics!

Not only did he create the music, but he produced a collection of abstract paintings depicting the stage production in soul-awakening abstract form. His painting style is intense, colourful and pure like his personality which is intense, deeply coloured (with emphasis on the ‘deep’ bit) – and I’m not qualified to pass opinion on the ‘pure’ bit!

…Text missing…

Now back to John where I visited him in his home just outside Tralee, and sat on a stool in his music studio amongst an array of guitars, mandolins, avocado pear-shaped shakers, microphones, a computerised keyboard and an elastic band. Well, not really an elastic band, but John who at times made me think of an elastic band stretched to full capacity and about to ‘ping!’ into a hall of fame somewhere.

He’s a very clear-minded person indeed, with not only a well-organised music studio in a room of the house overlooking Tralee Bay, but with an outside art studio and another room set aside entirely for picture framing. As he says himself ‘Maybe twenty years working in a bank in Dublin was a good grounding for me.’ It gave him a solid business head as a perfect shovel with which to fuel his ambitions. And there’s no doubt that he is an ambitious person.

Memories and the Secret Bits

GERALDINE O’SULLIVAN

Memories and the Secret Bits …

By Lynda Cookson

Geraldine O’Sullivan leaned back in her dining room chair and stretched out her tanned legs. ‘The 80’s were just so bad!’ she laughed. We were sitting in her West Cork home nestled in the farmlands of Ballylibert.

At a time when most young Leaving Cert. hopefuls went into banking, the civil service or teaching, Geraldine studied art at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. She specialised in textiles and graduated with first class honours but finding work in the 80’s in Ireland was very difficult indeed. Luckily Kilkenny Design and the Crafts Council of Ireland came into being when Irish design sense was still raw. They were partly funded by the Irish government and their aim was to upgrade crafts, to take skill bases and sharpen them in packaging, presentation and design. ‘It was a pivotal time and I was lucky enough to work for Kilkenny Design and part time with Fashion Designer Paul Costello. My work became more commercial, designing fabrics rather than painting pictures.’

As west as west can go

CLAUDIO VISCARDI

As west as west can go

By Lynda Cookson

Claudio Viscardi had not long left his homeland of Switzerland when he met a Turkish Robin Hood in a deserted square in Rome.

By this time, he had turned professional artist and sold his paintings on the piazza in Rome. There was a huge market in Porta Portese where, amongst the usual market paraphernalia, artists would sell their work. Claudio secured for himself a spot in the Piazza Navona where he sold much of his art to the Romans themselves, rather than to tourists. One particular Sunday, probably at the end of a month when all the artists sold well, the artists decided to celebrate their good fortune and went from one bar and friend’s home to another, enjoying each other’s company and spending some of their hard-earned art money. The night wore on and at about 4 am Claudio found himself walking alone across the big deserted piazza on his way to the bus station. Suddenly he found himself surrounded by a group of Turkish men, some of whom held his arms while others riffled through his clothing to find his wallet. Claudio had stuffed his day’s takings well down into an inside pocket of his jacket, leaving only a small amount of cash in his wallet. When the robbers seemed disbelieving that this well-dressed young man had no money, ‘You’ve got the wrong guy here’, he told them. ‘I’m just a poor artist with no money, and no paintings sold today from my stall on the piazza.’ At that, the leader of the gang shook his head, called off his men, reached into his own wallet, and gave Claudio 1000 lira!

If it’s the end of June, it’s Bluebells.

CLARE BUSWELL

If it’s the end of June, it’s Bluebells.

By Lynda Cookson

‘Raindrops on roses and … gates in sunny gardens…’ - just a little made-up ditty which soaks the mind when Tralee artist, Clare Buswell, is around. She’s got a twinkly smile and an aura of peace, probably because she spends a lot of her time photographing and painting sunny gardens and parks with secretive gates and timeless statues. She says: ‘I love painting gardens and if it’s the end of June, I know it’s Bluebells I’ll be doing. But I prefer painting statues to painting people - I wouldn’t like people to be offended by what I produce!’

Carving new life into the ancient

RONNIE GRAHAM

Carving new life into the ancient

By Lynda Cookson

Text missing …

Fascinated, I listened to Ronnie’s comments on the history of the bog-wood: ‘The Ice Age began retreating about ten thousand years ago and growth started to appear. About two or three thousand years later trees like oak, yew and a close relative to the scots pine took hold. There were huge climate changes after that – it got warmer and wetter and trees in many areas found the conditions no longer suitable for them and they died. They either crashed down or rotted where they stood. The death of the trees allowed fast growing bog plants like moss to develop, and if it grew fast enough, it covered the tree quickly and began the process of preservation. Hundreds of years later, the bog covered it. The bog is oxygen free and therefore has excellent potential for preserving the wood for many centuries.’

He went on to tell me about how the different hues in the wood developed: ‘The oak was the ordinary white oak but a mixture of iron in the bog water and tannin in the oak produced a chemical reaction in the wood, which turned it black. The yew darkened in the same way to a maroon tint, and the extinct variety of wood which is closest to scots pine turned into a honey colour.’