Midland Arts and Culture Magazine | WINTER 2010/2011
Talks, walks and forks First impressions and lasting intentions for a two-week bursary at The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig TWO IS my lucky number. At 2.22pm on the Sunday, my 21-year-old Honda came to rest in the car park at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. A gentle friend, who had been here to do her paintings, had told me, ‘It will change your life’. My journey had begun in brilliant sunshine but as if in symbolic shrouding of the prediction, a deepening mist had settled down upon the roads and countr yside. It heightened my excitement. With no wrong turns, my progress went surprisingly well, until Newbliss – here I knew I'd need local directions. At a garage shop it was with Newbliss Oblige that the local TD, with a shaving cut to his right ear, gave me the number of left turns and sharp bends to take, in a pleasant chat over his shopping basket. As I thanked him he added cheerily, ‘I hope the gates won't be locked when you get there.’ Once off the main road, following a sign for Annaghmakerrig Lake, I drove back and forth on forest roads, past farms and scatterings of dwellings with no humans, nor lake in sight. Outside the houses and cottages all the dogs made eye contact in a friendly manner and a nod of ‘You look like the new lost artist’. Such was their apparent thought that in half a blink I nearly stopped to ask them for directions. According to the brochure that good soul had lent me, Heaney, Enright and Tóibín as well as McCabe, Banotti and Byrne were among those
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who had found their distinguished ways to this artists’ retreat: ‘They must have had copies of the treasure map’, thought my dipping spirits, ‘for am I not a mere poseur from Offaly?’ But it was thanks to a wee black dog, a ginger cat, and the man who opened his door, that close to an hour later I did at last pull up at the low, metal gates. Ah! those low, white and black metal gates, with the ver y small, discrete sign, that I’d obviously bypassed several times: those unopenable gates, and the sinking feeling that a TD could have slipped the truth out. I rang the bell. It remained so quiet but for the dripping trees. Then, in barely five minutes, a white car appeared and pulled over as if to welcome me. ‘I know the magic code’, she said. But that was mere luck, for the departing artist and I would not meet again. A drive edged by old woods and a fork, with stone outbuildings to the right. Creak and
“But it was thanks to a wee black dog, a ginger cat, and the man who opened his door, that close to an hour later I did at last pull up at the low, metal gates.”
“Sliding back the glass doors the full aroma of divine cooking and merry chatter burst out. I had found the life within!” pop of stone under tyres, and then the Victorian house appeared all Gothicky up on its rise; points and textured sienna emerging from the white cloud. But all other humans had retreated from the artists’ retreat. Stillness. This old bell didn’t call anyone across the oriental rugs in the grand hallway. Should I curl up under the rugs in my car and wait? But then it seemed logical to walk around the building to glimpse through windows. At the first corner sweet aromas of food cooking revived hope. Through the steamy kitchen glass I waved to a chef and he waved back but dived behind his pots. Suddenly, a bearded young man came to my rescue. Sliding back the glass doors the full aroma of divine cooking and merr y chatter burst out. I had found the life within! With the nicest ease, he introduced himself, leaving his lunch to check the room list in the kitchen. He took me upstairs and along creaking corridors filled with artworks and antiques, to my lovely room – mine for the next two weeks – overlooking the
side lawns and Autumn-tinted shrubs and trees. Back down we went, via the grand main stairs, to where around the long pine dining table in front of a flaming stove, smiling faces of different ages and accents introduced themselves. Two sweet, courteous, older gentlemen fussed around making sure I had a plateful of the good Sunday lunch, and that it was hot. Apart from being made to feel instantly welcomed, and at ease, my first positive memories will always include the sight of the meringue mountain-topped trifles. After lunch, the chart was checked again and with his gentle ceremony, Phelim, 'husband of the director' showed me to Studio Three in the courtyard. After a brisk, stretching walk in the dusk, I decanted my little car of all its assorted bags. After all the unpacking between room and studio, by 7pm I was ravenous. It was ever yone's time for fridgeraiding, and the enjoyment of listening and getting to know the writers, dancers, poets, painters, performers... With all my good intentions wired for getting straight into story-writing and illustrating, on Monday morning after breakfast, I dressed for a good walk instead. But, just to check I had not imagined it, I went first to the studio. Up two steps, opened the unlocked door and tears welled up in my eyes. The emotion of being here at last was overcoming me. I turned on the battered radio, retuned to lyric fm and Holst’s Bringer of Jollity filled the space. I forgot ‘work’ and danced and twirled around the huge, bright room with tears bouncing off my second-hand wax jacket. M
by Rosalind Fanning