Laois art residency leads to collaboration on goddess of Barrow

ECO-heritage artist Angelina Foster from Blueway Art Studio in Narraghmore, Kildare and eco-cultural artist Donna Wright from Australia met by chance at an art residency in Santander, Spain last year, where both artists co-created the concept for a wonderful project for Cruinniú na nÓg in Laois.

The two-part sustainable initiative titled Calling up Berba on the River Barrow, which focuses on Berba the mythological goddess of the Barrow river was enthusiastically taken onboard by the arts department at Laois Co Council.

Both Angelia and Donna are very much connected to the natural world. As part of their Spanish residency, they found themselves in Cave of El Castillo in Cantabria, where 40,000 years old dynamic drawings and paintings of bison, horses, stags, mammoths and lots more from the natural world of the time are in abundance on the cave’s vast walls. The cave was originally carved naturally by a river which has now receded underground, but the fascination of the cave, the vibrant artwork and the ancient river brought Angelina back to her beloved Berba, who she sees as the river Barrow itself.

This meeting of two creative minds resulted in Donna being offered a two-month art residency in Stradbally Arthouse working with Angelina on their exciting project.

Both artists paint using naturally sourced materials such as different coloured stones which are ground into dust and made into inks and colourful blooming snips from various trees and faunas, which are left in sealed jars in water in the sun to create a variety of colourful pigments.

Part one of the project saw a small group meet at Glenbarrow car park on Saturday 30 May. Following a talk by Angelina, who led the group, they headed towards Glenbarrow waterfall on a forage to collect small pieces of what they needed to create a large painting with children for part two at Stradbally Arthouse on Saturday 6 June for Cruinniú na nÓg ‒ a day of free creativity events for children that takes place all over Ireland.

Donna had prepared a large canvas for the children to paint their thoughts and interpretations of nature onto. They did so by using the inks and pigments created by foraging the woods around and the Barrow at Glenbarrow waterfall. During her residency at the county’s arthouse, Donna also created a wonderful piece titled A Breath Away from Gone.

The Laois Nationalist was invited to Stradbally Arthouse by Laois arts officer Muireann Ni Chonaill to chat to the artists in advance of the two-part project.

At the Arthouse, Donna, Angelina and Muireann all commented on the project.

Donna said that her grandparents are originally from Ireland. She said: “I have been a practising artist for over 35 years and I have a series of degrees up to a PhD which specifically looks at the land, the way it speaks to us and, in more recent years, the way we have colonised the natural environment and ecosystems, what that tells us and how it changes our mythologies.

“My work in Australia has been formed by my connection to the indigenous communities and because my heritage is in Ireland, I felt that it was important for me to come back and understand the stories of my own heritage. I come back every year to build those stories of places in Ireland. Then I met Angelina last year at an artists’ residency in Spain. She suggested that I come and explore the river Barrow and the goddess Berba. The opportunity to bring up and to revive those stories really resonated with me. That’s how we connected on that level. Now I’m here working with Angelina and it is great.” Angelina said: “I do lots of socially engaged work with communities around ecology, rivers and looking at our old stories to see how we can change the narrative on climate change. I research folklore by going back to our roots on what our ancestors would have believed.

“The story with Berba came from a project that I did through the climate innovation award with Kildare Co Council, which I was lucky enough to get two years ago. With that award, I was able to research. I used the idea of sense of place and how important it is for us to anchor ourselves as individuals with nature and with the land and I researched the creation story for the river Barrow.

“All of the great rivers of Ireland have similar creation stories, but because Laois and the east of the country were highly colonised, lots of our stories are either lost or completely fragmented. While searching for the story of Berba, we found fragments of lots of different stories, so we rewrote a new adaptation.

“Instead of just rewriting the cast, we included eco-literacy into our version. Everyone knows that the Barrow is the second longest river in Ireland, so in our story Berba is the second longest river and she is searching for her sisters.” Continuing, Angelina said: “Berba is past, present and future. She doesn’t change ‒ we change. She is a witness to everything and we have to save her for future generations.” When asked how the arts office became involved, Muireann said: “Our purpose is to facilitate visiting artists who are doing interesting projects. When Angelina approached our assistant arts officer Monica Flynn about Donna and about the Berba story it was relevant and important to us. We really value projects like this.

‘‘Everything is a circle, nature, nurture, art, community and that is the beauty of it. We value these residencies and we’re really happy to be able to help. Because of the relevance of the story locally and with it falling in with Cruinniú na nÓg, it made sense for us to be able to offer an opportunity to the artists to communicate their wonderful story to the people of Laois and further afield.” Angelina Foster can be contacted through her website www.bluewayartstudio.ie and on Instagram. Donna Wright can be found on LinkedIn.

See two pages of photos from this event in next week's Laois Nationalist on sale from Tuesday in all local stores or online.