Lifestyle
Dorothy’s art gives death new lease of life
Lifestyle – Judy Murphy meets an innovative artist whose art works challenge the notions of beauty and ugliness
Early in her career as an artist, Dorothy Cross visited Norway, where she saw a cow’s udder being used as a sieve. The udder was stretched over a circle of timber, in the way a goat’s skin is treated here in Ireland to make a bodhrán.
That sight opened her eyes to a part of the cow’s body that most people would only ever regard as being useful for producing milk . . . assuming we were to think about it at all.
“That use of an animal was so functional and so economical and showed an appreciation of every aspect of the cow,” she says. It struck Dorothy as being humorous and tragic, and was also slightly surreal to someone seeing it for the first time.
That was a long time ago, but since then, animals – among them, sharks, jellyfish, crabs, cows and humans – have all featured in Dorothy’s art. Her sculptures, films and photographs encourage us to reassess our relationships with the world around us, challenging notions about what we deem beautiful and what we regard as distasteful.
Her work is beautiful, surreal and often challenging but nothing is done to shock or be grotesque, she says. In person, she is warm and quirky and that’s reflected in the art, where there’s a sense of mischief and gentle humour.
“There has to be,” says Cork-born Dorothy who lives just outside Tully Cross in Connemara, with seas, mountains and islands on her doorstep.
Her work is about exploring aspects of life, she muses, sitting in her purpose-built studio that looks onto the Atlantic, as two dogs lie at her feet. One is hers, the other is a neighbours. Dorothy’s studio, which was added to an existing bungalow she bought in the early 2000s, was built at an angle, to maximise the view while limiting exposure to the weather, and it’s a ‘wow’ place.
Much of Dorothy Cross’s work centres on marine life – her love of all things maritime began at a young age. Reared in Montenotte in Cork City, her family had a small house by the sea in nearby Fountainstown, where the family spent a great deal of time. Her parents had met while boating, so the sea was in her genes. Dorothy and her sister were champion swimmers and she is still passionate about swimming. The main reason she settled in Tully Cross was that Scuba Dive West is right beside her, which offered her an opportunity to continue the scuba diving that she had begun in the South Pacific. Scuba Dive West are brilliant, she says.
Her studio, which houses everything from mannequins to a two-ring stove where she is melting wax, is dominated by a ‘currach’ hanging from the ceiling. She hung it there to tidy it away, she explains. The piece is titled Basking Shark Currach and has the skin of a basking shark stretched over a timber frame similar to a currach’s. This piece looks like a currach, but its skin isn’t as you’d expect and its timberwork is exposed, meaning the viewer must examine it several times over see exactly what’s going on. The body of the shark used here was found washed up on a beach in Waterford and she had it transported to her studio.
Another work, Everest Shark, is based on a blue shark, which was supplied by a fishmonger in Northern Ireland.
She made a model of that blue shark and cast it in bronze. Then she created Everest on its back. This bronze sculpture was her way of examining time and the way humans perceive it. Sharks have existed for over 400 million years, and Everest rose from the bottom of the sea 60 million years ago, she says. The arrogance of the human notion of time in relation to geological time is something she challenges.
While sharks recur in her work, it’s getting more difficult to obtain them now that killing shark for food is illegal in Ireland – something she’s happy about. Dorothy’s work uses these creatures to explore the world around her; “the relationship between the beautiful and the rugged . . . and our attitudes to things”.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
Over 1,000 people are expected to attend the 50 Plus Show in the Galmont Hotel on the 6th and 7th of June.
The lifestyle event for older people which is organised by the publishers of SeniorTimes magazine has been running all over the country for over 20 years, but this is the first event in Galway since Covid.
The show will be a mixture of displays demonstrations and exhibits covering health checks and talks, holidays, rights and entitlements, personal finance, valuations of antiques and collectables including notes coins and stamps, cooking demonstrations and celebrity guest appearances.
A new feature to the event will be a ‘Jobs Wall’ staffed by Intreo the Employment Relations Team at the Department of Social Protection where attendees can get details on current vacancies and provide support with recruitment and training for people over 50.
Highlights of the event include cooking demonstrations with JP McMahon, baking demo’s with Kate Wright and former RTE GAA presenter Michael Lyster will be interviewing a Galway GAA legend.
Admission to the 50 Plus Show is free by registering at www.seniortimes.ie or calling 01 496 9028. Opening times are 10.30 -4.30 each day. Companies interested in exhibiting at the show can contact Brian McCabe at brian@slp.ie
1923 – Housing shortage
It should scarcely have been thought necessary for the Government to have set up a Departmental Committee to investigate the Increase of Rents (Restrictions) Act for the obvious decision that the committee could have come to was to recommend a continuance of control and this they have done, extending the period of control to 1926.
The conditions that existed during the European war in regard to housing have not only changed but rather have been intensified. The argument in support of control is that the large house shortage has increased rather than diminished.
This was apparent to the average man in the street who oftentimes knows a good deal more about the conditions in the country than the paid politician who affects to know everything.
Here in Galway the housing problem is more acute than in perhaps any other city in Ireland outside Dublin. Whilst the Government, with the limited financial resources at its command, is making a genuine effort to provide the working classes with houses, it does not seem to have entered into the minds of our administrators that a great deal more could be done if a scheme were devised whereby money would be advanced to enterprising private persons of means to carry out the work of reconstruction of existing derelict buildings of which there are great numbers in every town in Ireland.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
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Taking a walk to combat loneliness back in 2007 lit a spark for Keara Sheeran that led to her founding the IGNITE Gospel Choir, which has evolved from a five-strong group 15 years ago to 60 members today, performing in different churches and for special events in Galway. Some of the biggest names in gospel music have come here to work with IGNITE and the choir has been invited to sing in cities across Europe. Keara tells STEPHEN CORRIGAN about her passion for song and why gospel music is for everyone.
Feeling lonely, Keara Sheeran set off on a walk around Renmore one evening in 2007 that would change the course of her life.
The Castlepark-born choir director had just returned to Galway City, having been living in the countryside from the age of 15.
Seeing a light on in the surrounding darkness set Keara on the path to founding the IGNITE Gospel Choir.
“I took a walk one evening from my bedsit . . . I was just feeling desperately lonely and the lights were on in Renmore Church. I was being nosey so I went in to see what was going on. It was the tail end of Mass and the priest was Fr Murchadh Ó Madagáin – a young lad, around the same age as myself,” she laughs.
The pair got talking and she explained her background, having run a youth choir in Tuam Cathedral just a few years previously.
“The first thing he said to me was ‘you’re an answer to prayer’ because they were looking for someone to provide music at masses.
“I felt this would put me back in a place where I would meet people, plus I would be using my skill for the community,” recalls Keara.
Music and community had always been part of Keara’s life, her dad Peter having led the folk choir masses in the Jesuit Church on the city’s Sea Road throughout her childhood.
After spending five months in Renmore, Keara found herself returning to the place where it all began – the Jes – only to find that the music was gone.
She immediately offered her services, beginning to do as her father had done before her, and it was a chance meeting after mass one evening that planted the seed for IGNITE.
“A young woman came up to me and she said ‘if you’re looking to start something . . .’ She was interested in joining, even though I had no intention of starting anything.”
Keara was thinking about emigrating at the time and knew if she committed to a choir, she’d be going nowhere.
“After some time, I decided to start a choir and left behind my plans to leave. We started as five, and one of those was my sister,” laughs Keara.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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