Trip from Tipp

Miles 128
Carbon Footprint 36kg
Expenses 6.50 food

Today was the day that I organised for local artists to travel en masse by coach to Limerick to see the EV+A show. This was something that I had agreed to do in the Aims and Obejctives that I set out at the start; it was an attempt to involve local artists and initiate some discussions and networking opportunities - building capacity as the jargon goes.

I had arranged a gallery talk with Paul O' Reilly, a former curator of EV+A and present coordinator. There were 12 artists plus Martina Finn and myself. We met up with Clive Moloney in Limerick who has just graduated from LIT and is possibly interested in working with me a bit on the Silvermines project.

Clive's work was really interesting; it's just amazing to see how younger artists are engaging in a complex way with the rural. He actually quoted from and referred to Ground Up and the Shifting Ground website - that's so significant from my point of view, because it shows that the project has a life, has had some impact on the thinking of younger artists in an ongoing way.

I made a successful application to the Arts Council to establish an alternative art journal, one that will critically engage with the notion of West; that's West as metaphor for the non-metropolitan discourse. It's going to be very interesting to see what effect that has in the longer term; I'm so tired of the art press ignoring all of our work.