I was always a scribbler, I think. I scribbled on most things, especially my school books. In Scoil Lorcáin a lot of boys were able to hand on their school books to their younger brothers and sisters – some boys were even able to sell their books at the end of the year – but unless you wanted to study Doodle-faces with big eyes, scribbled shoes and squiggly lines, my books were going to be a distraction rather than a help! And it wasn’t just my books – I remember I used to scribble on my runners and when I grew old enough to wear jeans, I scribbled on those as well. In fact, I still do a lot of scribbling – although these days people call it doodling.
There was a song out a few years ago and one of the lines went: “There is nothing better in life than writing on the bottom of your slipper with a biro” – I was a bit like that, I think. I liked the ‘feel’ of the pen or pencil in my hand. I liked the sensation of scribbling – it didn’t matter what I was drawing – just that I was making marks on a page or runner and I’m still a bit like that now when I paint. The thing I like best about painting is painting! – making marks with a brush, drawing with crayons… Most of the time the things I paint about are only excuses that allow me to daub paint on canvas. What I really like is doing the daubing. There’s a part in Mark Twain’s book about Tom Sawyer where Tom has to paint a big long fence and he persuades some of his friends to give him apples and stuff in exchange for a go at painting. I would have been like one of his friends – “Hey, Tom! I’ll give you this can of coke if you let me paint a bit of your fence!”
Nowadays, as well as painting, I make a living mostly by designing and painting stage sets for plays and musicals. I am always reminded of the songs I learned in Scoil Lorcáin. I remember learning the songs from “Oklahama”, especially one that had a line : “The corn is a high as an elephant’s eye”. I’d learned that song in 3rd Class in Scoil Lorcáin. Brother Doherty had taught it to us in the pre-fab classrooms behind the shed in the big yard! We learned lots of other songs as well, of course. I remember singing “Downtown” as part of the school choir in Feile na Scoileanna in the Theatre Royal and in Fourth Class we even learned a Bob Dylan song “Blowing in the Wind”. In Art School years later we were allowed to play music in the studios and Bob Dylan was one of my favourites.
Most of the music, however, I learned in school was as a member of the Accordian School Band with Bro. Leo, and it was with the band, and later, playing at Céilís in Mount Sion, that I got to like the stage and performing and so on, when in Art School we had to choose another subject to study, I chose Drama. It was also around this time that I got involved with a group called the Waterford Arts for All Project – painting murals in the arches in St. John’s Park, among other things – and we formed a group to put on plays for children during the summer. This group was called the Waterford Arts for All Theatre Company, and when, in 1985, we went to The Theatre Royal to put on Jim Nolan’s play “The Gods are Angry, Miss Kerr”, we changed the name to Red Kettle Theatre Company.
The truth is, of course, that while I was in school – scribbling and playing accordian, I had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up, so I decided to stay in school for as long as possible and then get a job as a teacher. So I went to Art School to become an art teacher and while I was there I discovered that I loved painting – more than being a teacher – more than being an actor – more than playing bthe accordion – and in a way that’s how I think of myself now – I’m a painter that sometimes designs set, that sometimes writes plays for children, that sometimes teaches Art, sometimes teaches Drama, but mostly, I’m a painter……….
I hope this answers all your questions and you grow up to remember Scoil Lorcáin as fondly as I do. Oh, and by the way – the most I ever got for a painting was £3,000 – so start scribbling!