James Joyce at the Ha'penny Bridge - Roger Cummiskey

CHILDLIFE 2010 is a Charity Auction being held to raise funds for two very deserving charities:

1. Childline

2. Enniscorthy Athenaeum Restoration Fund.

65% of all proceeds raised will go to Childline  and 35% to The Athenaeum Restoration Fund.

Auction ChildLife 2010 will take place in The Riverside Park Hotel, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford at 4 pm sharp on 21st November 2010.

Internet bidding will be accepted.

Contact the Organizer/Fundraiser – Anne McClean <childlife2010@gmail.com>

The Irish Society for the Prevention of cruelty to Children.

Roger Cummiskey, Artist.

Ahoy there!

We are off on a seven night cruise of the Western Mediterranean on the Royal Caribbean Adventure of the Seas cruise ship.

I know nothing about knots and I cannot relate to tons of metal.

Adventure of the Seas.

Where are we going?

16/10     Málaga

17/10     Cruising

18/10     Cagiliari (Sardinia) Italy      (Grazia Deledda won Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926).

19/10     Civitavecchia (Rome) Italy   (A major cruise and ferry port).

20/10     Ajaccio, Corsica, France.     (Napoléon Bonaparte was born in Ajaccio).

21/10     Palma De Mallorca, Spain    (Football is the most important sport on the island).

22/10     Cruising

23/10     Málaga, Spain         (Pablo Picasso and Antonio Banderas were born in Malaga).

This is our first cruise.

We’ve taken cruising to a whole new level. Enjoy one-of-a-kind features like an ice skating rink, the Royal Promenade and a rock-climbing wall, just for starters. How did we accommodate all of these innovative ideas on one cruise ship? Simple. We built a bigger ship.

What have you got?

Ice skating rink Rock-climbing wall In-line skating Royal Promenade (open 24 hours) Johnny Rockets® ’50s-style restaurant Portofino Italian Restaurant Themed bars and lounges Casino RoyaleSM Golf simulators Nine-hole miniature golf course Adventure Ocean® youth facilities Day Spa & Fitness Centre Full-size basketball court

Ouch! I´m 66 and my wife is in her late 50´s so I guess that we will have to pass on most of these activities. Our Superior Ocean View Staterooms offer a gorgeous view, a sitting area and a vanity area. They also offer a mini bar and private balcony among their amenities. I guess a stateroom is one´s bedroom! Come back to hear about our Adventures on the Sea!

Just back now after an action packed trip. For now, here is the one and only painting that I did during the week.

Joyce the Pluralist - Roger Cummiskey

I have been invited to exhibit at Communic’Art, 18 rue de Gergovie, 75014, Paris in 2011.

I am thinking about it!

Invitation to Put on an Exhibition at Communic’Art: Paris, France.

Under Construction

Hi Roger,

I just came across your art on your personal web site using the Dublin.ie site and I especially like how you blend your colors.  I saw your James Joyce portrait and am personally impressed because I’ve worked with watercolors (only recreationally of course) and know that it’s quite difficult but you make it look easy!

Wonderful pieces. I am writing to you because I represent a humanitarian art communication project called Communic’Art located in Paris, France and am wondering if you would be interested in either a private or group exhibition in our gallery?  We would love to host one of your exhibitions!  I have
January 2011, February 2011, and April 2011 available as of right now.
The space is 100m2.  We also have a location on our website for artists to display their work, if that is an interest.  The location
is: http://www.communic-art.com/main/concours2010/reglementation_uk.php

Please feel free to contact us or visit our website for further details.  We look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Rebecca

–
Rebecca Holman
Assistant in Communications
Communic’Art
18 rue de Gergovie 75014 Paris
Phone: +33.01.45.40.72.56
E-mail: communic.art@wanadoo.fr
Web site: http://www.communic-art.com

Roger in Marbella

1. Tell us more about your background in art, and how you discovered and developed your unique style?

I have had a lifetime interest in art – since I was a child. My fascination increased when one day my father brought home a painting by numbers kit which he painstakingly filled in using oil paint over a couple of weeks. He let me and my brothers watch. I thought it was magic.

2.       Why do you have this fascination with poetry and prose and fuse it into your work?

As a boy my friends and I used to swim at the forty foot bathing hole in south county Dublin at Sandycove. There was a tower there and one of the gang knew a little about the background to the tower. It had been rented by James Joyce and his friend Oliver St John Gogarty in the early part of the 20th century. Joyce went on to feature it in the opening chapter of his famous book, Ulysses.

When I started painting seriously I chose to make paintings that took their themes and titles from Literary and Historical subjects as I could combine my dual interests in my paintings. I became a recognized Joycean painter and my paintings had their own particular “look” that became popular.

I painted poems where I used the words from James Joyce´s Ecce Puer and Chamber Music series of poems. I lifted quotations from Ulysses and put my own spin on the subject matter. I have also painted poems based on Patrick Kavanagh, Samuel Beckett, Yates and Behan. These always give me a good excuse to re-read tomes produced my these Literary luminaries.

3.       You’re from Dublin, so what was you early live (your early life) like in Ireland? Do you come from an artistic family?

As a boy and young man Dublin was a great place to live. The weather was always good, we swam, participated in sports and hung out with lots of friends. We lived initially in Blackrock in south County Dublin. My parents were well off so we all (5 boys) got a very good private education before going on to University. I qualified with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in 1965 from University College Dublin. I would like to think that my father was very creative in his thinking and his actions.

4.    You split your time between Spain and Dublin – where do you call home now?

I really do not go back to Dublin too often now. My wife does. About 10 years ago I stopped the 3 months here and three months there way of life as I am retired and have reached the milestone of being a healthy Old Age Pensioner. Spain is now my home. I am resident here.

5.      What brought you to southern Spain?

My parents first brought me to Spain in 1964 with two brothers. We stayed in hotel Tres Carabellas in Torremolinos. I came back in 1969 and couldn´t find the hotel as the area had been developed so quickly. In those days we used to go to Málaga City to the bodegas or to the Alhambra Palace for a day out. My parents loved Spain and particularly Fuengirola where they bought a small apartment on the seafront. I used to go there with my children for 7 weeks in the Summertime every year from about 1979. I would also try to get there for a week or two at Easter and Christmas time.

Spain sorta grew on me to such an extent that I claim it is my second country.

6.       You’re part of the Andalusian International Artists Group – what are the groups aims? Does one need to be an artist to be involved?

A small group of six artists came together six years ago and decided to form a loose alliance in order to seek out venues for exhibiting and displaying our artworks. This has worked out very well over the period. We have had members from all over the World join us for short periods as the population on the Costa del Sol is very transient. We have strict criteria that we follow and insist that our members put some effort into the continuing success of the AIA-Group. We have a number of non-artist members who assist as mentors and helpers and who bring a wealth of past experience to our small group. If I told you their backgrounds you would wonder how such former high fliers could be attracted to such a simple group of artists. We are a voluntary, self help, not for profit group (www.aia-group.net).

7.     Are you involved with other ex-pat groups here on the coast?

Five of us are members of NADFAS. Several are members of other groups east of Málaga. I am also a proud member of Asociación Española de Pintores y Escultores – AEPE. Celebrating their centenary this year. I exhibit with them and also I am a Member Asociación de Acuarelistas de Málaga – AAM. I also exhibit with Stephen Howes Fine Arts.

8.      Are you getting involved with Malaga’s bid to be European Capital of Culture 2016?

Both personally and as a group (AIA-Group) we have formally pledged our support for the Málaga  to become the Cultural Capital City of Europe in 2016. To win this accolade will be a great honour for both the city and a huge stimulus not only from a Cultural point of view which will benefit all the citizens of Málaga Province, both Spanish national and international.

9.     What do you think of the arts scene here in Southern Spain?

The arts are well served by the Ayuntamientos but they must cater for everybody. I am afraid that this subject will have to be discussed another time as it is too vast for a couple of lines.

10.     Do you consider yourself well integrated with your fellow Spaniards on the coast? Do you speak Spanish?

Integration is a difficult subject and I try to compare how immigrants blend in with the native population in Ireland or England and I feel not too easily and not too well. My wife and I get on fine with our neighbours who are primarily Spanish and who treat us with great respect and politeness. We do not have any English TV only Spanish, therefore we know what is going on locally and countrywide. We both studied Spanish at the local Casa de la Cultura over a four year period and we are not so bad at understanding and speaking it. But not too good either! There is always room for improvement menaña.

Also published on Xornal Galecia Mundo Celta 07/10. Views 12,000 + to 10/09.

Roger´s website.

AIA

I enclose a piece written by my old classmate and fellow rugby teammate Professor Frank Convery that might interest you. I just loved it and had no problem empathising with the sentiments!

Frank back row 3rd from right. Me front row 2nd from right.

Age and Sustainability

By Professor Frank J. Convery, Chairperson of Comhar Sustainable Development Council and Director, Earth Sciences Institute, University College Dublin.

Friday, 1^st October 2010

‘Old age is not for sissies’.

Bette Davis provides a characteristic dash of realism to the chirpiness and slightly forced bonhomie that surrounds the positive ageing and age awareness movement. Ageing can be tough, and it doesn’t get easier over time.

And the challenges are both psychological and physical.  A hero in one of Turgenev’s novels observes that: “The young must have generalisations, conclusions…  A perfectly sincere man never suits them.  Try and tell young people you cannot give them the whole truth and they will not listen to you.”

This impatience with incompleteness is one characteristic that divides the generations.  Another is consciousness of the finiteness of time, which is peculiar to the older cohort.

It can induce a certain anxiety and urgency, but it also conveys a sort of liberation.  Hanne Finsen, who curated the late Matisse in the Louisiana Museum in Denmark, observed that: “Once great artists reach an advanced age, they often forget commercial considerations and display extraordinary freedom – an autumn flowering’.

Matisse, Titian and Monet painted into their 80s; Picasso and Chagal into their 90s.

Many of us finally achieve comfort in our own skins, and attain a composure and serenity that escaped us earlier – we have our own autumn flowering.

But Edward Said challenges the notion that old age always confers a spirit of reconciliation and serenity; in the late Beethoven and Ibsen, he discerns instead, “intransigence (the Arab word is ‘sumud’), difficulty and contradiction”, while Jonathan Swift remained, “unsatisfied, unappeased, un-reconciled” to the end.

And, as time becomes more precious, most reduce the hours spent with bores; egomaniacs; poltroons; the gratuitously acerbic; the pompous; the rude; the greedy and the selfish, and instead make more space for family; the vulnerable; the modest; the generous and the perceptive, and especially for those who bring curiosity; wisdom; openness to the surprise, and humour to life’s table.

Beckett had a challenging American friend who was described as “having the knack of putting you ill-at-ease at once”; she too was probably less indulged over time.

Physically, decline can be arrested and even reversed as joints, valves and other working parts are repaired and replaced.  But some ailments are still resistant to being ‘fixed’, and the trend line dips down eventually.  Peregrine Worsthorne took a very qualified view of his good fortune: “People of my age are lucky to be still alive, but only in the same way a lifer in prison is lucky to have escaped hanging”.

Most people of mature years say that they do not fear death, but they do have a horror of extreme and irreversible dependency.  And we know that the last year of life consumes between 10 and 40 per cent of total medical costs, depending on the jurisdiction, amongst rich countries – Netherlands towards the low end of the scale, the US towards the higher end – and on the assumptions about what costs are included.

This poses twin challenges: can we reduce these costs so that the overall sustainability of support can be improved; and how can we make the last year enjoyable?  What combination of interventions would allow us to say (or to think) as we breathed our last: “that was a pretty good last year”.

Engaging with such a thought experiment would include addressing the following: imagine that we reduced intensive care budgets by 10 per cent, and devoted the proceeds to the development and operation of hospice-type facilities?  How different would that last year be for most, and would we judge it to be better?

My guess is that the answer would be ‘yes,’ but we need to compile the evidence, and then act on it.