By Claire Corrigan
After a disastrous fire engulfed her home in Mullingar last November, talented artist Clare Kelly was left homeless and without work. Clare was devastated when she lost nearly all her worldly possessions in the fire, including baby pictures of her son, Luan, pictures of her late mother, and all her art equipment and materials, and work she had finished for clients.
At the time she told Topic, “We have nowhere to live. We’re staying with friends and I’ve been staying with students of mine from my Friday art classes, who are usually elderly people. They’ve lived on their own for most of their lives and you feel that you are putting them out.”
Clare is a well-known, talented Irish artist, living for years in Mullingar, who specialises in creating portraits from photographs to produce life-like pictures from a single or several photographs and she is a recipient of funding from the Arts Council of Ireland through the Westmeath County Arts office.
However, following the blaze, self-employed Clare stopped giving art classes due to the stress caused to both her and her son from the terrifying ordeal.
Clare said that, because she worked from home, she lost all her paintings, including a number of pieces she had completed for an upcoming exhibition. “In Abbeylands I didn’t have anywhere to work so I worked from home and all my artworks for an exhibition called ‘Midlanded’ that I was going to have in November were burnt. There were scenes of Mullingar as well as portraits that I was going to give to my friends for Christmas. They were all around the living room where the fire started, so they were completely destroyed.”
LOOKING BACK……
Four months later, Clare, who is currently living in an apartment at the Elms, Ballinderry, Mullingar, talked to Topic and clearly, things are looking much brighter for the Donegal native. “I have a great faith in humanity from this experience. You know who your true friends are, at a time like this. My son, my dog and myself are just lucky that we survived.”
Clare is hoping to resume her art classes this spring and has also resumed her painting.
“I’m involved in a couple of 1916 exhibitions which I will do jointly with other artists and they will take place at Witch’s Hill in Oldcastle and Dublin. Countess Markievicz is one of my heroines so I’ll be doing portraits of people like that. I’m looking forward to it.”
Since the fire, Clare has also found an ideal work-space at a house called “Windy Gap” in Ballinea. “The man was doing nothing with it, so he let me use it. He’s going to put a fence on it and give me room to grow vegetables. I hope to move there in May when the weather improves. I’m an outdoor person and I love nature, so it suits me.”
Clare has also begun a ‘Start your own Business’ course which is run by Westmeath Community Development Enterprise Supports under the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance (BTWEA) and is thinking of setting up an Art and Healing centre at the property.
“I’m going to graduate as a ‘Soul Healer’ in April. It’ll be a great place for people to come for healings because there is lots of light and it’s very tranquil. It’ll also be very good for art classes.”
Despite all the hardship she has endured over the last several months since the fire, the artist has taken some positives from the accident. “I have great faith in humanity from this experience. Most importantly, we have to get on with our lives. My large record collection is gone and a lot of my photographs but some of them survived. Some of my artwork was in folders and they got singed around the edges so I was able to just unseal them and the marks even added to them. Now I won’t be working from home all the time and working non-stop, which is what I used to do. The fire has also been a spiritual journey. I was very down and had all my things crammed around me. I have been told that I’ve changed since it happened.”
Clare thanked the friends who provided her with shelter during the five weeks she was homeless. She also wants to thank the Coláiste Mhuire people, who replaced her son’s uniform and books.
Clare said that she wants to make people aware of the danger of tea-lights which were the cause of the fire. “When they get really really hot, I usually put something underneath them, but I didn’t on that occasion and it melted through the whole record player into the electrics and took hold.”
The artist has plans to restart the Midlands Art and Craft Association (MACA) and is planning on holding a cultural event in the Druids Chair around mid-March. “ It will be an evening of poetry, song and story-telling to revive the culture and heritage of Ireland and I would like to ask fellow artists, poets, story-tellers, musicians and craftspeople to feel free to get in touch.”
Contact Clare on 087-2263423
