The village of Ballycastle in North Mayo is about five miles from the Ceide Fields. Functional, not picturesque, it is a traditional Irish village, free from the cloying effects of gentrification. The village was founded as a market town in 1797 by a local landlord and retains many of the original buildings which were completed around 1820. Even allowing for the passage of time, there is an immediately discernible sense of its original form. This is a community where 350 people live, not a seasonal stage set for passing tourism.
Its history lies in the dramatic surrounding scenery. Stark, melancholy and rugged, the landscape is dominated by bog and is characteristic of the West of Ireland, overlooked by magnificent, ever-changing skies. The light is wonderful, luminous. When recently washed by rain, it is even more beautiful. The region defies the vagaries of season and weather. This is an inspirational place for painters. As Sean McSweeney says: "there's a framework: out in the bogs, the shoreline, the light, the sky."
Walking the fields overlooking the sea or turning inland along the Ballinglen river towards the glen from which it derives its name evokes a powerful feeling of the generations who have lived and died. Spirits linger here. At times it is possible to walk for hours and see no one. Solitude, however romantic, also has a darker reality. Practical economics decides survival and until recently, Ballycastle was desperately in need of economic revitalisation. Buildings had fallen into disuse; the village was dying.
Help came in the form of an arts foundation, something not usually associated with financial recovery. By the end of this year, more than 70 artists, mainly Irish, English and American, including McSweeney, Norman Ackroyd, Nancy Wynne-Jones, Tom Hammick, Mary Lohan, Hazel Walker and others will have come to work here by invitation or application, experiencing a unique landscape as well as availing of the purpose-built, sky-lighted studios designed to blend in with the existing streetscape.
The studio space and administration offices are so unobtrusive it is possible to drive by them. Which is exactly what happened - until a group of familiar paintings caught this seeker's attention. The only other pair of eyes on the lookout that quiet Saturday afternoon belonged to a clever sheep dog pretending to drowse.
Art dealers, Margo Dolan and Peter Maxwell, both from Pennsylvania, have had a long association with Ballycastle, having first come here on holiday in 1981. They eventually decided to settle and their holiday cottage became home. In 1992 they established the Ballinglen Arts Foundation as a residential centre for visual artists to work and live in. A registered Irish charity, supported by the Irish Council, the Ireland Funds, Mayo County Enterprise Board, Mayo County Council and individual American contributors, it is a far different world from the arts scene they were involved in, in Philadelphia and New York.
Coming from an art history background, Margo Dolan (52) worked in the museum at the University of Pennsylvania, and from 1970 to 1978 was the director of a non-profit organisation devoted to educating the public about original prints, as well as supporting print-makers.
The son of a collector of American and European prints and paintings and an amateur painter mother, Peter Maxwell (67) is a trained artist but has worked mainly as a designer. He designed the studios here, deliberately creating a community environment. The couple began dealing as Dolan/Maxwell in 1984. Within four years of opening in Philadelphia, pressure from several of their artists anxious to be shown in New York led to Dolan/Maxwell establishing a gallery there. It was a large space, 8,000 square feet in Soho. By 1990 however the Gulf War had seriously undermined the international art market, they closed the gallery. They "retrenched to Philadelphia" where they still had a large gallery space. Easter 1991 saw the end of its lease. Rather than go about establishing a new public space in Philadelphia, they decided to pursue an idea which had struck Maxwell on their first visit to Mayo, while retaining Dolan/Maxwell as a private gallery which still operates. The project was to establish a residential centre for visual artists. The risks were obvious. Dolan, a precise, cautious person who is also extraordinarily single-minded, stresses their entrepreneurial tendencies. "We thought very carefully about the project and discussed it with many people. We believed in the project but also wanted to know we could do it."
After months of deliberation, the person who effectively began was the then local priest, Father Moyles, since retired, who was aware that Ballycastle National school was moving from its old two-room building on the main street to new premises, suggested the use of the soon to be vacated school. The first two artists, both Americans, arrived that July; print-maker Catherine Kernan and sculptor Bill Freeland - the latter now spends about the half year here. Built on the site of a original building which was unrestorable, "a monument to rising damp", the centre's new, two story building houses four small studios complete with sink and work space. It is intimate, a factor which appeals to some artists. Others probably spend more time sketching outdoors, seeking, what Sean McSweeney describes as "the places from which pictures can be made." Based at Ballyconnell, Co Sligo, from where he can see Ballycastle jutting out towards the sea, McSweeney has found a unique kingdom to explore artistically, but points out the excitement of working at the shoreline at Lacken, about four miles from the centre. "It's very exciting for a painter to see places which have never been touched. I also enjoyed working at Downpatrick, a bit closer, about a mile nearer. It is a great cathedral-like cave under Downpatrick Head", looking out towards the Dun Briste sea stack. "These are wonderful places to work in." His Downpatrick captures the mood and energy of the place, as well as the element of danger involved when exploring a cliff shelf.
Mentioning his friend, the painter Pat Harris who is based in Antwerp but is currently working at Ballycastle, McSweeney says: "it is wonderful for city-based artists to be able to go to a place like Ballycastle." Back in Belgium where he teaches, Harris is at work painting the dykes. The landscape there is bleak, rather dour. For him Ballycastle is about the injection of light. It is his third visit. He wants to paint the North Mayo landscape in the contrasting moods and light of the seasons.
Downstairs Dolan and Maxwell's books are still waiting to be unpacked. In time they will form an art history, design and architectural reference library. The design of the building, with its communal dining area, is ideal for artists who enjoy the sense of community. For visiting artists, particularly non-Irish ones, it also offers an opportunity to experience a small village community. At the back of the centre, a wilderness is waiting to be eased into a garden. The young Scottish artist Hazel Walker whose superb Tracings reflects the influence of the North Mayo sky and light, and is part of the Ballinglen archive, has offered to work on it. Also visible from the back porch area is Ballycastle's tiny Protestant church. Built about 1820, it is a beautiful building shrouded in ivy and history.
Living accommodation for the artists is provided by the foundation in various houses around the village. As Dolan points out, the artists contribute to the local economy by living in the village, even by the act of buying something in a shop, or having a drink. The most visiting artists at any one time to date has been four.
The combination of work space and landscape has proved important for many visiting artists. Many of the works in the permanent collection reflect this. Nick Miller's rugged, large oil of rough bog yielding to cliff, Ceide, shows how he was affected by the beauty of the bleak, deserted landscape. He has chosen an area of about 20 miles west of Ballycastle to work within. Co Donegal has provided the inspiration for much of Mary Lohan's dramatic, abstract landscapes. When working at Ballycastle she actively used the motif of emigration as a way into her large open spaces. The large oil, Untitled - Mayo, now part of the collection, expresses the sheer physicality not only of her work but of the area. Erica Lansley, an English artist, has brilliantly depicted the dramatic, layered topography of the Ceide Fields in Settlement, worked in oil and wax on canvas. There is no mistaking the glorious skies and light of Tom Hammick's elegant, mood-driven study of the same ancient farmland area. For Peter Brook (37), an American artist living in Vermont, his experience in Co Mayo altered his understanding of the horizon. "It gave me a sense of visual vertigo. I lost touch where I was standing. Bogs and cliff are so different from the trees, hills and woodlands of Vermont. Suddenly I had a tremendous sense of space. It is such an open and expansive landscape, this land-mass sloping down into the North Atlantic." After his first visit, Brook returned to the US with about 70 works. A day spent walking Shralagagh Bog inspired the oil on board work of the same title which now hangs in the foundation's small gallery which is housed in Ballycastle's multipurpose exhibition space/public library; an area which also hosts the district court when it sits here. The Ballinglen collection offers an interesting cross-section of artistic styles and perceptions. Of central interest, of course, is the individual responses to this unique landscape. Norman Ackroyd's delicate aquatint series of the area, or Nancy Wynne-Jones's The White Farm express the diversity of a mysterious world. Nephin Mountain also exerts a presence. Artists working here have given back something of what they have discovered. Margo Dolan, in her dynamic, pioneering way, is pleased at the exchange.
"We're happy to be here", she says, and she and Peter Maxwell seem pleased to be giving back something in return for the pleasure and excitement of seeing an exciting dream become a reality.
