Deirdre Walsh had a summer job as a student, working in the kitchen at the Sacred Heart Hospital in Castlebar, Co Mayo. Little did she know then that she would end up back there just 20 years later. She was hitching a lift one day after her car broke down, and a man picked her up. She told him of her life as an artist, and her experiences in running a programme in an inner-city New York high school.
She didn't even ask the driver's name, but several days later he phoned her. He introduced himself as Pascal McDaid, programme manager with the Western Health Board, and asked if she would be interested in setting up a programme for people in care.
The result is the second of two exhibitions, comprising work by patients of the Sacred Heart Hospital, aged between 60 and 95 years.
Walsh started working with a group in the Sacred Heart Hospital in 1999, and the support of the Western Health Board was backed up by Mayo County Council. It appointed her as artist-in-residence. When she arrived with her art kit, paint and brushes, she says, she wasn't sure how people would react to her. Many of the patients told her that painting was "for children" and that they wouldn't be able to, or didn't think they would be any good if they tried.
However, they were soon distracted by the materials provided at Friday-morning sessions, which became "very social" with "banter, chat, laughter, stories" and a good atmosphere. The latter provided the key to the success of the experience. As Mike White of the University of Durham says in the book published to mark the second exhibition, "A key requirement for a successful arts-in-health project is the provision of a congenial space".
Walsh has provided a safe space for her pupils, believing that if people are afforded this they cannot fail. The provision of quality materials, including professional framing, by the health board and local authority has also made a difference, she emphasises. She is convinced that there is an artist in everyone.
"The artist may not always be a painter, but I have a conviction that everyone can be taught to paint," she says. "I think learning to paint is about learning to see." One woman in St Anne's Dementia Unit in the hospital summed up the initiative when she turned to Ms Walsh after finishing a piece. "I don't know what it is, but it's beautiful," she said.
The first exhibition, entitled Through the Looking Glass, was shown in the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology's Castlebar campus and in the Linenhall Centre, Castlebar, in January 2000, before travelling the country.
The second exhibition, entitled Creative Reverie: Meeting the Person as an Artist, is now on show until the end of this month (apr) in three venues: the Mayo Education Centre, Castlebar; Castlebar Library; and St Fionnan's Community Nursing Unit, Achill Island, Co Mayo.
A Great Little Woman is the title of a comedy by Michael Foley, which is running this week in An Taibhdhearc Theatre in Galway. The Yelof Productions performance is directed by Peader de Búrca and has a combined professional and amateur cast.
The Society of St Vincent de Paul benefited from the opening night last week. Admission to the 90-minute show is €13 or €7 for the unwaged, and tickets can be bought at the theatre or by phone/credit card from 091-563600.
"Artoons" is the title of an exhibition of original work by Tom Mathews which has just opened in the Kenny Gallery, Middle Street, Galway. Mathews, whose work has appeared regularly in this newspaper and in many other publications, has already had 16 one-man shows, including three exhibitions of paintings.
He has also illustrated a dozen books, written a novel, produced two collections of cartoons and lists his hobbies as "drinking stout, writing verse and talking too much about James Joyce". Many of the works in this current show appeared in The Irish Times and the Sunday Independent.
They marched 50 people across the Great Wall of China last year, and now the Simon Community in Galway is heading for the 80 million-year-old Namibian Desert. The 10-day trek from August 17th to 26th aims to raise money for the homeless in the west of Ireland. Each participant pledges to raise €3,175 for Simon.
Sinead Taylor has more details at 091- 588056 or
e-mail sintaylor@eircom.net