Louise Walsh

Landscape view of Cois Mara

Louise Walsh was commissioned through Wexford Co Council’s Percent for Art scheme to make a public artwork for Cois Mara, a new public authority housing estate at Rosslare Strand.

The brief asked to develop a piece of art while the houses were still at a construction stage, but there was concern with how a group of people can take ownership of an artwork sited in their home place. Louise evolved a project intended to re-orient people’s experience of public art away from passively looking at things, and instead towards more active participation in the process of creating art for their own environment.

Walsh selected and purchased seven huge pieces of Co. Wexford granite and got them to Cois Mara. Through meetings and art workshops, Walsh and local artists Paula Mc Carthy and Niamh White, worked with residents to explore drawings and writings to be inscribed onto the stones and placed around the public greens.

A community centre was being built on the estate. They got access to the building and tried to get it to work as a kind of headquarters for the art workshops. They hoped that these might function like icebreakers as well as providing the drawings for the stones. Walsh invited everyone in the Estate to meetings, a Launch party and to the six art workshops. The take up of the workshops were lower then envisioned, partly due to the great beach weather. In the end, it was mostly children and their parents who availed of these creative opportunities. The results were the most wonderful paintings and masks being made, as well as the quirky line drawings, which would be carved onto the surface of the granite.

Walsh made presentations showing examples of public art, Irish stone carving and landscape design and these all contributed to the discussions as to where the stones should go and what images would go onto which surfaces.

A core group of artists formed. They were a handful of young budding artists who turned up regularly to devise together a large drawing of a hand, asking drivers to slow down at the entrance to the estate. The project was completed in 2007.

Niall Deacon supplied the stones

Walsh talking with James, Paula and Niamh 

Walsh helps the children with their paintings 

One of the children's artwork

Eoghan Daltun hand-carved the drawings into the rocks 

One of the many designs for the rock

Core groups final hand

 



Mentored Graduate Artists Residencies

Walsh extended her public art commission to facilitate paid residencies for Paula Mc Carthy and Niamh White, both from Co Wexford. Walsh devised and ran a mentoring programme for these two recent graduates from the Sculpture Department of the National College of Art and Design where she lectures. This provided both of the graduates with a wage, space to make and exhibit their own work, a budget for materials and a small catalogue each. Both had a studio in the community centre of the new public authority housing estate.

This eight week programme was designed provide the graduates with an opportunity to assist the lead artist for 6 days on the main participatory sculpture project. The public art programme coordinator James Moran and others from Wexford County Council’s Arts Department also supported Paula and Niamh during their residency in Cois Mara.