Autumn has brought a sudden and welcome epidemic of art to Waterford. A number of projects aimed at involving the public - particularly the young - with the work of Irish artists has come to fruition. The significant event on the visual arts side is the arrival of the AIB Art on Tour project, which has opened up sections of the bank's massive collection of contemporary Irish art to Waterford audiences at a series of city venues.
Part of this is the "Open Minds" project, in which 10 Waterford teenagers were invited to curate an art exhibition from the 900 pieces in the collection.
Their choice of work - along with their comments on it and their views on art in general - has opened to the public today for three weeks at Waterford City Hall.
Annette Clancy, artistic director of the Garter Lane arts centre, describes it thus: "A model of how people can interact with modern art in a way that is not threatening and which is stimulating, interesting and ultimately enjoyable."
The teenagers have been working, in their own time, since late last year with Catherine Marshall, curator of the permanent exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin.
They perused the AIB catalogue and studied hundreds of photographs in making their selection. Curiously, in spite of the huge collection, their choices coincided more than once.
Two, for example, quite independently selected the same painting by Martin Gale of children in a forest. Margot Phelan, one of the young curators, commented on the air of mystery behind the beauty in Gale's work: "I believe this painting is a reflection of how a child, who is innocent, must face the world and realise it is not quite what they expected."
Brendan Feeney selected a huge triptych by painter Jonathan Wade, who died in an accident in 1973. Called Urban Landscape II, the image is dominated by hundreds of intricately connected tubes.
"I decided it was about life and social structure - put quite simply, we are all connected," commented Brendan.
Robert Healy selected a John Behan sculpture, Two Warriors, because "it has a very definite Celtic feel", and Neill Wade chose a hand-carved and painted wood piece, Don Quixote 1980/81, by Brian Bourke, "because it was bright and funny and very quirky".
The IMMA curator, Catherine Marshall, notes that the Open Minds group "were refreshingly interested in the art object without the baggage of theory or criticism".
Other selections from the AIB collection have been put on display in the bank's three main branches in Waterford, though these works are quite difficult to appreciate as they have to compete with the usual bank clutter of promotional placards, computers and other office paraphernalia.
In another approach to involving people with artists, the big amateur Waterford Art Group was invited by Garter Lane to choose an artist from the AIB collection to work with them over a period of six months.
The idea was that the amateur group should respond to the work or ideas presented by the artist and come up with their own body of work that could be exhibited alongside the bank collection.
The group chose Trevor Geoghegan, who challenged them to diverge from their usual repertoire of still lives, water-colours and oils. Instead, they were prompted to work on a larger scale and in black-and-white charcoal, and the results of their labours have gone on show in the Garter Lane centre for the duration of the other exhibitions.