terenure Archives - Kevin McSherry Illustration

An open . Monday November 30. 2015

Reproduced from the ‘Our Community‘ page in the top menu.

I’m writing an open letter because you’re almost impossible to find. I think it’s vital that the environment in which we live contains art. We have plenty of places to eat. We can drink buckets of coffee. There are lots of shops where we can buy provisions. We have great pubs, enough accountants and enough solicitors and many estate agents. We all live together and share this locality.

What we have very little of is Beauty in our environment. Why not do what you can to make this place look better. Little things matter a great deal: just take a look at what Terenure Office Supplies do with their fabulous window displays for the children around Christmas and other significant occasions during the year. Magnificent. They deserve our full support.

This does matter. This activity brings joy -and that’s what will motivate people to turn up to our village centre and maybe even buy stuff -or rent our vacant properties!

Here in Terenure, (and indeed all over Ireland) we have lots of empty commercial buildings. Some have been vacant for many years. Why not use Art to show how a village could look? Just a thought. Use Art to create a buzz around the place. Show how the buildings look when in use and lit brightly. Give something back to the people who we rely on to support the businesses in our locality.

Take a moment to think about how it could be if we all pull together. Of course, I’m asking that this be done as a community service. I don’t have any money to pay for premises. I hardly have the money to pay my own mortgage; I just have my art, my enthusiasm and great connections to many wonderful, joyful artists with global reputations. I’m willing to muck in and organize a fantastic show for nothing; including sourcing print, putting together an opening party, publicising the event and manning the show for the duration of maybe a month. Will you muck in?

Have a look at the splendid video below, produced by the wonderful Sophie Spendel who’s over from Holland, a country where they celebrate creativity and beauty and community activism. It’s hard enough when the economy bursts -and then the clouds burst above us as they’re doing as I write. Why don’t we just celebrate life? Create something to see that takes us outside of mundanity? That’s why we work, isn’t it? To fund our lives outside of work.

I didn’t set out to write a letter like this; I was only going to have this page for the video but I became moved to do so after so many rejections and expressions of indifference. We owe this to ourselves, because we all have to live here. It can’t be that difficult.

Kevin
086 247 0737

6 Pack Dublin City from Sophie Spendel on Vimeo.

The Terenure Dirigibles. Oils on canvas 10″ x 12″

Somebody told me recently, that before the rise of the GAA, cricket was the most popular sport in Ireland. Interesting. I was never that interested in cricket. I could never understand why people got excited by such a ponderous game. I much preferred football and as a child, always dreamt of scoring the winning goal for Manchester United or Chelsea; I can’t remember which.

Meandering about a field on the off-chance that a very lethal ball might fly your way sometime in the next week just didn’t do it for me. However, now I’ve gotten older, I can see the attraction more and I wouldn’t mind standing on a grassy surface for a few hours -and then retiring to a clubhouse for a beer. Or I could just go for a beer.

I don’t single out cricket for a mild ribbing due to any particular dislike; I see all sports the same way. I realise that this is probably why I’m shunned by society; it’s hard to be with a crowd of Jeremy Clarksons in a pub and have to ask them which sport they’re talking about, about an hour into the conversation.

“Huzzah for Terenure,
O land of beige and taupe,
Our genetic ability for dirigibility,
And hiding our money ‘neath the soap”

Sport always generates an inordinate amount of seriousness, and a serious amount of hot air. It’s worse than art. Many people seem to have an almost religious observance of the details and forms of sport. And an unlimited capacity for reeling out sporting anecdotes about events dating back to the 12th Century.

Mostly, though, the media and advertising seems to be pathetically obsessed with sport and what it thinks it’ll do for sales figures -hence, those fantastically overwrought TV introductions to sporting events that scream excitement, excitement, excitement! Then they get some elite sports star, who’s the personification of derring-do on the field of play, to endorse a product, only to have them drone through their script in a monotone, passionless manner. God knows how they think this will help them link sporting élan to car insurance or National Cement in the minds of the public. I always think of the poor creative directors of many of these ads whose dreams are broken on the wheel of sports-star dullness. It always makes me smile. Thank you sport, for making me smile.

The above painting will be showing in Terenure Sports Club’s Culture Night event on Friday 18th September. That’s this Friday, folks.
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