My Journey to the Royal Academy: Part II
Dublin – A Beginning
I dare to look back and revisit my Irish roots.
Where does it come from that power?
That power your place of birth holds over you.
It never fades
That power to draw you back instantly to its fold
Such a big road of memory
Art Etcetera Theme: Memory & Time
As memory and time hold our attention, let me pick out and explore a key word in the title of this article: ‘Journey’ – my creative journey. All artists undertake this odysseyin their own way as they chart a unique path leading to individual self-expression and, for me, I’ve travelled along a meandering highway of creativity filled with self-discovery. Setbacks and successes for sure but thank goodness for photography and writing: working with pictures and
words keeps me going. From somewhere deep, let’s call it my imagination or my subconscious, there is this quirky creative essence like an ever-rolling stream that’s been with me since early childhood. And it’s still there after more than 60 years spurring me on.
How A Gift Helped To Overcome A Setback
I open my memories, and something echoes from way back.
It’s the early 1960s. I’m about seven years old when my beloved Scottish grandmother does something I’ve been grateful for all my life: she gives me her leather bellows camera she’s owned since before the First World War. I’m over the moon. Under her careful guidance, I learn how to deal with the peculiarities of this antique, such as a tiny viewer presenting you with an image laterally reversed and upside down and loading the fiddly 127 film roll sideways into the camera without it unravelling and being exposed. Even though each film only delivers eight black and white photos with compact measurements by today’s standards of 6 x 4 cm (2.4 x 1.6 inches), I am thrilled with the results.
Despite some mishaps on my part, I got the gist of it and soon this ancient bit of kit became my passport into a wondrous place: the exhilarating limitless universe of photography which I’ve been exploring with gusto ever since.
A simple, exciting realisation early on in life:
A camera can create something of beauty: a picture
A camera can seize a special moment: a picture
Around the same time, I was attending art lessons in my junior school. One day, I recall the teacher sending me to the back of the class in disgrace as she declared “You can’t draw. You’ll never be an artist.” That stung – especially as I was trying so hard to master the skill of drawing. I can recall the intense shame and disappointment at being labelled a failure at such a tender age but something contrary in me rebelled against this injustice. Even though I was a youngster, I point blank refused to allow the harsh judgement of another person to put me off. I remembered I had the camera from my grandmother, and this was my saviour moment as I knew I could make pictures.
