Slugs, dandelions and magpies are protected species in the garden of Olivia and Gerry Staunton-Uhlar's gate lodge home near Bray in Co Wicklow. "When I saw that birch in the garden, I decided I had to have this house. I saw an ad in the paper for a cottage and when I opened the gate and saw my tree, that was it," says Olivia about the pretty gate lodge which she and her American husband Gerry bought on their return from the States a couple of decades ago.
"I've never used a spray and I've no slug killer," says Olivia. "I've put a sign out `all slugs are welcome'. Everyone says dandelions are weeds, yet you can eat them. I made the dandelion sun dial to tell the exact time to an inch. The hands of the clock are the seeds. And I made the bronze garden table in the shape of a dandelion. In the summer, I let all the natural flowers pop up and the place is full of little yellow poppies. They're natural wildflowers."
An artist of some note, Olivia is currently travelling the coastline of Ireland and recording it on canvas. The foot and mouth crisis called a temporary halt to the project, but she has now resumed where she left off in Co Cork. "Gerry's retired, so we keep each other company. We never eat formally, just picnic everywhere we go. I don't wear cushioned shoes, just tennis shoes because I find them easier on rocks. Sometimes I have to strip down to a swimsuit, 'though I try to do the walking when the tide is out. All the information is blended into my pictures." Olivia grew up in Dublin, attending Pembroke school and Loreto on the Green. When she left Ireland in the 1960s, she swore she'd never come back.
"My husband was an engineer and we took a year's sabbatical from America in the late 1970s to travel around Europe in a camper. We did it from a child's point of view, setting off in a Russian liner and going back in a Polish liner.
"We arrived in Ireland in winter and took a cottage in the west. Right away, Gerry my husband said: `This is it'. The cottage was owned by Lord Altamont and they held the stations in the house while we were there. The women made sandwiches and the guys came with bottles of Scotch. The minute the priest went out the door, out came the whiskey and sandwiches. We sang love songs and Gerry was just charmed. I call him `Paddy' because he loves Ireland so much."
The gate lodge outside Bray where the Uhlars settled was built in 1852. At that time, it had only two rooms and housed a family of 11. It was later bought by writer Peter Somerville-Large, who built an exact replica of the house in Delgany after he left. "When we moved in we extended the kitchen and put in a fireplace thrown out by builders who were renovating an old house - it shows the value of things in Ireland in the late 70s. We brought all the floor tiles from the US and had to redo everything from the top down."
Olivia's studio above the kitchen is reached by a steep winding staircase and the branches of the old tree stretch across to the windows, creating a tree-house effect. Photographs of her journey around the coast are tacked to the walls for inspiration. It's a private space, a "room of one's own" which every parent would envy.
The bedrooms and bathroom are off a long corridor on the ground floor. Sitting on the "throne", visitors are confronted by a huge magpie painting which Olivia says is her homage to the king of the birds. Their cosmopolitan upbringing has strengthened their three children, says Olivia.
"The education system here is unbelievably good compared with America. Our children, Antoinette, Cedric and Clarissa were born in California. Cedric is working in Boston now, Antoinette is about to have a baby and Clarissa is getting married in July. "They've grown into their own people. Khalil Gibran wrote that children should be strengthened like a bow. The more you pull the bow, the further the arrow flies. This shows you've done your job well. You're both stronger in the end."
Olivia's life has gone full circle and now she's rediscovering Ireland. When her artistic record of the coastline is finished, she plans to hold exhibitions of her paintings in each of the four provinces. "We found William Penn's castle in Shanagarry and passed through Cloyne where the philosopher Berkeley was bishop. Five miles down the road is the home of Boyle of Boyle's Law - all near Youghal. "I've struck gold with a book on place-names. Clogherhead in Co Louth means `stone of gold'. I found a jagged rock and there in the middle was a golden stone! I was chased by a bullock twice and nearly fell off a cliff.
"It took three days to walk the seven heads of Clonakilty. Each point has a Martello tower and you can look down every point to the next tower. . .
"Every one of the stones on the beach are older than us and the sea rules us. I've another three years of walking and a year to get the paintings together. I'm trying to do one or two sculptures to go with it."
Olivia painted all her life, but really started in the 1960s, doing two years in art college in London and living in France for a while afterwards. "It takes so long to get a name. I'm lucky and privileged to paint what I want to paint. I've seen people destroyed by having to sell because they have to paint to order. I have had one or two commissions and they're extraordinarily hard. You're putting your soul on the line and you get stripped naked." Just returned from a visit to the Cameroons, Olivia has a love affair with the colour and the people of that continent. A collection of paintings, inspired by a previous visit to Egypt, is being shipped to Cairo in October for an exhibition sponsored by the Egyptian Ambassador to Ireland - an admirer of Olivia's work. She is hoping to persuade a shipping or airline company to sponsor the transport of the paintings. "For great art, look at the Egyptians. They say everything is a reflection of the sky and the planets. I sailed up the Nile about seven years ago and I haven't recovered yet from the beauty. Going along a lane in Egypt, you see a person on a donkey and you could be back in Christ's time."
