Perseverance is Key. Kaye Maahs, Visual Artist

Kaye Maahs, Church Mountain Farmstead, 2021, oil on paper; image courtesy the artist.

THE SUN IS shining, and I am sitting in my studio that smells of oil paint – a smell I relish. I say studio; really it is our guest room. I really need a dedicated studio space, but for now this will do. Isn’t this what we artists do? We adapt to whatever life throws at us.

The pandemic certainly has thrown more than enough at everyone over the last two years, and we all have had to adapt. I was already blindsided before the first lockdown. I spent the first part of 2020 recuperating and now live with permanent nerve damage. A bitter pill to swallow and yet I feel I got off lightly considering what other people went through. I am grateful though that I got the right neurologist and had the best support team around me.

Honestly, there were days when I wondered if I would ever paint again. For those that don’t know me, I came to painting late, only graduating from college in 2015 at the age of 45. I consider myself an emerging, early-career painter – one who really only found her groove the year after college. I am a very physical painter. I can stand for hours on end, and when I put the earbuds in, I have a tendency to go with the flow of the music. I admit I am not averse to dancing around the studio either. Whatever it takes! I usually complete a painting in one sitting and if I am not happy with it, I will erase it. This is how I roll as a painter, and I love it. So, as you can imagine, returning to painting with nerve damage was slow and painful. Nevertheless, I have learnt to adapt, and work with the condition rather than against it, happy that I still can paint.

With everything postponed or cancelled, I got time to find my strength, learned to pace myself, and got back to the basics of painting.

Nature has always been my touchstone, so I struck a balance between painting and spending time outside. Given the limitations of travel during this period, I went back over photos taken of places where I had been. These photos help spark the work; however it is my intuition I follow when painting. Memories and feelings feed my work. I am a studio-based painter. I like the solitude.

I have a strong work ethic that I credit to my parents, so I kept going and I kept painting. I did miss my family, my painterly friends and going to exhibitions. For me nothing compares to standing in front of an artwork, especially if it is a painting. Nevertheless, it was great to see galleries and art organisations adapt and see supports put in place for artists.

Towards the end of 2020, I admit I felt a little lost. It happens to the best of us. Then an email popped into my inbox from glór in Ennis. They were offering the Clare Artists’ Mentoring Scheme in conjunction with Creative Ireland and The Arts Council. Although I dithered for a bit, I crossed my fingers and toes, and asked Una Sealy RHA to be my mentor. Thankfully she said yes. I like Una; she is a hardworking talented painter, who shoots from the hip and says it straight. Honesty is a trait I admire most in people. I rolled the dice and thankfully we got selected!

Having Una Sealy RHA as a mentor meant hard work and she pushed me to go big. Also in the mix was the services of life coach, Mary Byrt. The direction and support of these two professionals was invaluable. With the wind in my sails, I applied for the Arts Council Agility Award in early 2021, looking for support while developing a new body of work from my time in Iceland, supported by the Thomas Dammann Junior Memorial Trust Award. This is where I am currently at. My body may be in Ireland, but my mind is lost to Iceland. To date the works are small, but I am slowly going up in scale – watch this space!

Kaye Maahs is a painter based in the Burren, County Clare. kayemaahs.com

Kaye Maahs, Kerry Gorse, 2021, oil on paper; image courtesy the artist.

Kaye Maahs, Achill Garage, 2021, oil on paper; image courtesy the artist.