Jo Melvin is a professor in fine arts and feminisms at Chelsea College of Art in London, director and curator of the Barry Flanagan estate. Jo is also an art historian, a writer, a lecturer, a filmmaker, a curator and an exhibition maker.
"I speak as a woman who wears many hats, academic, scholar, teacher, mother, alongside the simultaneous development of my artistic, curatorial and exhibition making practices."
In this episode of The Warrior Artist, Jo Melvin chats to Éadaoin Glynn about:
Read the blog.
Follow Jo Melvin on Instagram
Follow Éadaoin Glynn on Instagram.
Support The Warrior Artist on Patreon
Podcast edited by Bren Russell of Podland.
Leah Hewson is an abstract artist who works in layers of complex patterns, in vibrant neon colours. She studied in Dun Laoghaire College of Art and Design. She has exhibited extensively, including solo exhibitions in the RHA and Hillsboro. Fine Art. She has had residencies in New York, LA Berlin and Dublin. She has won several awards, including the whites award for painting in the RHA. Her work is in many public collection and has also been auctioned at Sotheby's
In this episode of The Warrior Artist Podcast, Leah chats to host Éadaoin Glynn about :
Read the blog
Follow Leah Hewson on Instagram
Follow Éadaoin Glynn on Instagram
Support the Warrior Artist on Patreon
Podcast Edited by Bren Russell of Podland
In this episode of the Warrior Artist Podcast, host Éadaoin Glynn interviews Ciara Rodgers, a visual artist based in Cork City who works from her studio at Backwater Artists Group. She has a BA and MA from Crawford College of Art and Design and works in an expanded drawing practice which includes polaroid photography, installation and performance. Her work is often site specific, with the defunct and disappearing architecture of the urban landscape as her starting point.
Ciara discusses:
Read the blog
See Éadaoin's work on her website and Instagram.
See Ciara's work on her website and Instagram.
This episode was edited by Podland
In this episode of the Warrior Artist Podcast, host Éadaoin Glynn interviews Leah Beggs, a visual artist based in Galway.
Her work is semi-abstract landscapes and she is represented by the Solomon Gallery in Dublin and the Kenny Bookshop and Art Gallery in Galway.
A graduate of Dun Laoghaire College of Art and Design, her work is in public collections including the Department of an Taoiseach, Trinity College Dublin and the National Concert Hall.
Leah discusses:
Read the Blog post on my website.
Follow Éadaoin Glynn and Leah Beggs on Instagram.
In this episode of the Warrior Artist Podcast, host Éadaoin Glynn interviews Debbie Godsell, a visual artist and art educator based in Cork. Her work is primarily lens based, but has evolved to include sculptural forms and video.
A graduate of Crawford College of Art and Design and Limerick School of Art and Design, she is a member of Cork Printmakers. In 2018, she was shortlisted for the Zurich Portrait Prize. She has won many awards and her work is in public collections, including the National Gallery of Ireland, the OPW, and the Crawford Art Gallery.
Debbie discusses:
See Debbie's work in her upcoming solo exhibition 'Flail' in Source Arts Centre, Tipperary, 14th September – 19th October 2024
Full show notes available here
In this episode of the Warrior Artist Podcast, host Éadaoin Glynn interviews Irish visual artist Aideen Barry, who shares insights into her expansive practice that includes performance, sculpture, film, text, and experimental lens-based media.
Barry discusses her personal journey to becoming an artist, the themes in her work such as domestic labor, environmental changes, and human vulnerability, and her unique approach to engaging with varied mediums. She reflects on the significance of international collaboration and how her work resonates on a global scale, touching on social and political issues.
Highlights include discussions on her projects, 'Oblivion' and 'The Song of the Bleeding Tree,' as well as her approaches to art as a form of protest and responsibility. Barry also discusses upcoming projects, her thoughts on art's role in society, and her efforts to support emerging artists and diversify representation in the art world.
00:00 Welcome to the Warrior Artist Podcast
00:12 Introducing Aideen Barry: A Visual Artist's Journey
00:48 The Early Desire to Create: Aideen's Path to Art
01:55 Exploring Artistic Mediums: A Journey Through College and Beyond
03:17 Building an International Profile: The Importance of Global Connection
06:10 Folklore and Identity: Diving into the Archives
10:26 The Bleeding Tree: A Metaphor for Environmental Awareness
13:37 Oblivion: Music as a Medium for Message
14:11 The Role of Artists in Today's World
19:26 Collaborating with Peter Gabriel: Art in Popular Culture
20:43 Klostes: A Feature Film Collaboration
27:06 The Power of Non-Verbal Communication in Art
29:31 Exposing Injustice Through Art: The National Gallery Controversy
30:22 Championing Women's Representation in Art Institutions
34:29 The Power of Artistic Protest and Representation
36:11 Advocating for Equality and Diversity in the Art World
41:08 The Artist's Life: Balancing Creativity, Family, and Activism
48:34 Future Projects and Collaborations: Expanding Horizons
53:28 Final Thoughts and Advice for Emerging Artists
Read the blog post here
See more details on Aideen Barry on Instagram and her Website.
Follow Éadaoin Glynn on Instagram @eadaoin_glynn and her website.
In this episode of the Warrior Artist Podcast, host Éadaoin Glynn shares her recent experiences and lessons learned from preparing for two solo exhibitions. Éadaoin discusses the process of creating a new body of work, from initial opportunity to final execution, highlighting challenges such as finding inspiration, embracing experimentation, and the importance of documentation and promotion. She offers advice on trusting the creative process, seeking feedback, and lessons learnt on documenting and curating exhibitions. Éadaoin also shares tips for artists on how to maximise opportunities.
Follow Éadaoin on Instagram @eadaoin_glynn and on her website www.eadaoinglynn.com
References / Names mentioned:
Limerick Museum
In this episode I share what I've learnt about artist websites. I've just finished my third website iteration. Each time it's been PAINFUL!
I procrastinate about it but like everything I learn by doing. We'd all prefer to be in the studio creating, but having a website is essential. I hope this helps motivate you because if you wait for the perfect website, you've waited too long. Put something up and then edit! Good enough is good enough!
Links:
For those in Ireland, you can avail of a business grant of up to €2,500 to pay a web designer help you build an e-commerce website. Click here for details
I use Artwork Archive to manage my inventory and to send curated rooms to curators, collectors, especially useufl when I was updating my website. Click here for 20% discount
Connect with me on Instagram
Nuala O'Donovan builds sculptural forms in porcelain clay based on the patterns and geometry of living organisms. She has won many awards including the Golden Fleece award and her work is in many important public collections including the Irish National Art collection.
Nuala chats to Éadaoin Glynn about her early career in architectural design as a facilitator of travel, returning to Cork and doing a self-directed MFA, how the regular irregularity of the geometry of nature inspires her and her deep love of pattern.
Nuala expresses her ideas by creating sculptural structures in porcelain clay. She loves the plasticity, affordability and transformative quality of clay. Her work explores pattern and form, taking patterns from nature as her source material and working within rules and constraints of classical geometry to build it.
Nuala describes her studio and how she plans to work there by creating a dialogue between pieces. She talks about the challenges of funding, writing about art, rejection and her advice for emerging artists.
instagram: @nualaodonovan
Instagram @eadaoin_glynn
Self-taught painter and ceramicist Bernadette Doolan chats to host Éadaoin Glynn about imposter syndrome, falling into art, her intuitive approach to painting and being inspired by the resilience of children.
Irish visual artist Rachel Doolin chats to Éadaoin Glynn about the challenge of taking the leap to become a professional artist, how materials inspire her, her slow research-based, collaborative approach and why she likes writing grant applications.
Rachel graduated with a BA in Fine Art from the Crawford College of Art & Design and has received many awards, grants and residencies. Rachel's multidisciplinary approach merges art, experimentation, and ecology. She collaborates with artists, NGOs, community and professional organisations to create meaningful artworks in response to social and environmental issues.
In this episode Rachel talks about:
Read the full blog post.
Resources and links:
Archaeologist Clíodhna Ní Lionáin explains why Dowth is the most important megalithic find in Ireland in the past 50 years on YouTube.
Cal Flynn - Islands of Abandonment
Rachel Doolin on Instagram
Rachel Doolin website
Éadaoin Glynn on Instagram
Vanity galleries are parasites who feed on emerging artists' aspirations to show their work. They make their money from artists' hopes and dreams.
The origin of the name comes from vanity publishing. They were a last resort for authors whose books were not deemed commercially viable by traditional publishers. They would publish any work at the right price. Authors could claim to have work published, but they had paid for it.
With vanity galleries, it's a little bit different because the artist is duped. The artist thinks it's genuine and an an investment worth risking.
A vanity gallery charges the artist fees to exhibit the work and they make their money from the artist rather than from sales to the public.
Vanity galleries are not curated and they will exhibit anyone who pays. They may charge a fee to join them, charge the artist to send their work, to exhibit etc. It's all about money. It's pure commercial operation.
Commercial art galleries get their profit from sales of artwork and spend years following artists before inviting them to join them. If the artwork sells, the gallery makes a profit, and the artist is then paid.
Vanity galleries have no incentive to sell art, as they have already been paid by the artist. Vanity galleries are not selective because they do not have to be.
They are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their approach. If you're wondering if an approach is genuine, google ' is x a vanity gallery?' There are websites that show lists of vanity galleries and the many different names they use.
Resource: Howsmydealing
Have you any vanity gallery experiences?
Follow Éadaoin on Instagram.
Annie Hogg is a visual artist based in Co. Tipperary, Ireland. After graduating with a Diploma in Fine Art from the Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork in 2001 and a BA in sculpture from Aki College of Art in The Netherlands in 2002, Annie worked and lived in environmental protest camps and learned organic horticulture.
When Annie Hogg was in art college, her interest in the environment was dismissed as not being 'real art', causing her to abandon her art practice. Twenty years later, her work gravitates around the themes of solastalgia, ecopsychology and transformation. She uses plants, soils, stones, shells and found bones in her art practice, creating pigments and charring foraged objects from the landscape as a votive action to create paint and sculpture. She has won several awards, residencies and art grants, most recently was the winner of the K-Fest Arts Festival in Killorglin Co. Kerry.
Annie talks about:
Annie also teaches workshops both online and in-person. Contact Annie or see her work on:
www.instagram.com/anniehogg_thewidhedgeinkco
Full show notes and images available.
Contact Éadaoin on instagram.com/eadaoin_glynn and www.eadaoinglynn.com/podcast
Artists who inspire Annie include:
Pierre Soulages
https://www.pierre-soulages.com/
Jesse Jones
https://www.jessejonesartist.com/
Aideen Barry
Books:Caroline Ross - Found and Ground A practical guide to making your own foraged paints
https://www.instagram.com/foundandground/
Heidi Gustafson - Book of Earth A guide to Ochre pigment and raw colour https://www.instagram.com/heidilynnheidilynn/
'Dreamtime' by John Moriarty
https://www.lilliputpress.ie/author_post/john-moriarty
Contributors to LOST:
Natalia Beylis sound artis
thttps://www.nataliabeylis.com/
https://www.instagram.com/nataliabeylis/
Adrienne Diamond glass blower
https://www.glasssocietyofireland.ie/user/adiamond/
Sinead Brennan of Glint Glass Studio
https://www.instagram.com/sineadbrennanglass/https://www.instagram.com/glintglassstudio/
Mick Wilkins on bronze
https://www.instagram.com/mick_wilkins/
Other mentions:
Flora Arbuthnott of Plants & Colour
https://plantsandcolour.co.uk/
https://www.instagram.com/plants_and_colour/
James Horan was the friend to whom our lecturer told“You have to put in the work to make the work”
https://www.jameshoransculpture.com/
https://www.instagram.com/jameshoransculpture/
LOST exhibited atSouth Tipp Arts Centre (as a result of Residency Award ‘22/’23)
https://www.southtippartscentre.ie/K-Fest
blood bone rust & stone exhibited atLily Gallery Beara
https://www.instagram.com/liligallerybeara/
And Cahir Arts
Annie attended a three-week soil research residency in 2023 with
I blocked myself from creativity for decades. I didn't go to art school even though I had a place. Perhaps I felt I had to pursue something more sensible in life? Perhaps I just didn't give myself permission at that time to become a painter?
Distraction
I used to distract myself from this gap in my life..the void of not being creative. I used to distract myself by buying things. I think that was filling something inside me, because now I no longer have that impulse.
Motherhood
I wasted a lot of time trying to be a perfect mother. ... I spent a lot of time baking. I made very elaborate birthday cakes... all that creative energy was going into baking, into cooking. Since returning to painting, I've abandoned the concept of perfectionism.
I painted privately in my home for a long time before I had the courage to share my work. I felt very shy, very private. I wasn't brave enough to share my work.
'The Artist's Way' by Julia Cameron
When I was struggling to find my way back into some kind of creative life, having never lived a creative life, I read Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way. The first time I read her book, I tried writing. It seemed the obvious choice having studied literature. I had a Masters in French literature. I spent years trying to write poetry and fiction. It never came easily. I was using my laptop, it felt very much like work. I was at a desk, I was distracted by email. It felt very like my work life, my day job, it just never flew, there was never any flow.
Years later, I started Julia Cameron's book again and this time it resonated differently with me. She includes several exercises about trying to tap back into what resonated with you when you were a child.
"[For me] it was painting, it was always painting. And for whatever reason I didn't give myself permission to paint before...when I started painting again, I felt so true to myself. It felt so real in a way that nothing else in my life felt real. It was like as if I was acting, performing in so many parts of my life. And when I painted, it was my authentic self."
"I've been masking my whole life. I have been imitating others, trying to behave like others, trying to fit in. Painting in my studio is the only place where I don't mask, where I am completely myself."
Creative Blocks
Other things that block me include:
I experience a low point after completing a body of work, especially for exhibition. For me the wheel of creation was spinning very fast as I worked hard towards my fixed deadline. Afterwards the wheel stops, there's no momentum. There's a lull, a fallow period while I feel very uncreative. I'm exhausted, depleted. I need to rest, replenish, find inspiration again.
Overcoming Creative Blocks
"Keep believing in yourself . Believe that with every painting, every body of work, your work is getting stronger. Keep following that voice inside you that's leading you."
I hope this has been helpful and given you some suggestions If you have any other suggestions of things you do when you're blocked, I'd love to hear them.
You can see my work on instagram: @eadaoin_glynn and on www.eadaoinglynn.com
"The art world is slow. It is not fast. There's no ten steps to make it in the art world...Some people have two steps, some have 400 steps, some have 20 steps, some have 30 steps. The art world moves at its own pace. And at the end of the day, it's all about the work"
Ty Clark is a visual artist, film maker, sculptor and writer based in Waco, Texas. He produced an award winning film, Jump Shoot and is currently working on a documentary series. He began a Mentorship Programme in 2021, through which he has mentored 49 artists from 17 countries. He recently wrote his first novel. He has exhibited extensively and is represented in many major US cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.
US artist Ty Clark chats to Éadaoin Glynn about:
Ty's two person exhibition, 'Of Warm Impermanence' with Vy Ngo, runs until 22 July 2023 in Arts Center Waco, Texas.
Show notes available in the blog. See more of Ty's work on Instagram: @tynathanclark and his website: www.tynathanclark.com.
Contact Éadaoin on Instagram: @eadaoin_glynn and her website: www.eadaoinglynn.com
Cork based Orla O’Byrne explores overlooked histories of sites and artefacts. She works across a variety of media and techniques such as drawing, photography and sculpture. Orla rebelled against going to art college after school, travelled and lived abroad, before having children, setting up a bakery business and eventually went to art college aged 35. She has an MA in Art & Process and a BA in Fine Art from The Crawford College of Art and Design. She is a member of the board of directors of the Backwater Artists where her studio is based. Some of her awards include The Lavit Gallery Student of the Year and the CIT Registrar’s Prize. Orla talks to Éadaoin Glynn about:
Full shows and images available in the blog.
Instagram: @orla_o_byrne
Contact Eadaoin
Instagram: @eadaoin_glynn
I've talked about entering open calls and managing rejection in episode 6. In this episode, I talk about going to exhibition openings.
When you get a yes, when your artwork, painting or sculpture is accepted, you have to celebrate because they're so rare, those yeses...If at all possible, you have to try and go to that opening night.
Opening nights are a way of meeting other artists. I believe you have to get outside of your studio and try and connect with the art world in some way, no matter how scary it is. I'm an introvert and shy but I'm motivated to meet other artists.
In this episode, I share:
Full show notes available
Contact Éadaoin on Instagram @eadaoin_glynn and www.eadaoinglynn.com
Galway photographer Enda Burke gave a TED Talk on creativity and has been featured in The Guardian, Rolling Stone Magazine, Forbes Magazine and The Observer. He has been shortlisted for the Sony World Photo awards , The Zurich Portrait award and Saatchi Art Visions of the Future. Recent Awards include the international Bartur Photo Prize, Profifoto “best of new Talent award” 2022 and Lens Culture Home 21’.
Enda's practice entails building elaborate sets filled with props from everyday life and with narratives played out by his family and friends . His work is saturated with vivid neon colours and it is nostalgic, kitch and humorous.
He chats to Éadaoin about:
Full show notes available.
Follow Enda on Instagram @enda35mm and www.endaburke.com
Follow Éadaoin on Instagram @eadaoin_glynn and www.eadaoinglynn.com
Aoife Nolan's successfully operated her own fashion business for over a decade before going to art college. Aoife describes this change like a switch, like shutting one door and opening another. In the Crawford College of Art and Design, she was awarded the RHA student access programme and her graduate show received several awards. She has exhibited in Ireland and in the Endicott College, Massachusetts in the US.
Aoife describes her work as the merging of interior and exterior landscape and her work is inspired our need for connection and for connection to the earth.
Aoife's practice includes experimental processes, such as corroding copper, making her own pigments from natural materials and harvesting rainwater.
Aoife chats to Éadaoin about:
Full show notes and images are available.
See Aoife's work on Instagram @aoife_nolan_
Contact Éadaoin on Instagram @eadaoin_glynn and www.eadaoinglynn.com
My time in the studio is my most precious resource. When you're an artist, you're self employed. You probably have a day job. Your time in the studio, your creative time is really, really precious.
There's so many things you have to do apart from the creative side. There's so much admin involved in being an artist - managing and tracking applications, submissions, sales, paintings and marketing.
In this podcast, I share my top admin tools. I'm not into perfectionism. I want to do admin as efficiently and quickly as possible. These are the tools I use every day so I can spend less time on my laptop and have more time in the studio.
Go to www.artworkarchive.com/warrior for a 20% discount and to try it out for free.
Read the show notes for more detailed tips.
Contact Éadaoin on instagram @eadaoin_glynn and through her website www.eadaoinglynn.com
