Our Cork 2040: Space for artists
Artist and musician Eileen Healy writes from the heart about the struggles of Cork city's arts workers to make rent in an increasingly expensive city, and about her new plan to secure her own home.
Welcome to part five of Our Cork 2040.
Cork city is set to double in size by 2040 under the government’s Project Ireland 2040 plans, with huge impacts not only on city-dwellers but on the whole county.
With these ambitious plans comes lots of talk of “stakeholders.” This often seems to mean private developers, multinational employers and politicians. But who really holds a stake in the future of Cork? We believe it’s the people who live, work, raise families and face all of life’s challenges here.
What kind of Cork do YOU want to live in?
Our Cork 2040 presents a variety of writers with different areas of expertise, experience and interest.
Our Cork 2040 is an opinion-based series. Tripe+Drisheen doesn’t necessarily share these opinions, but we do feel they should be heard. If you would like to become a contributing writer in this series, drop us a line! Our contact details are here. If you like what you read and want to support quality, independent local journalism, subscribe below.
Our Cork 2040: Eileen Healy
Eileen Healy is an artist and musician based in Cork city. She was a studio member of Cork Artists Collective, and then Backwater Studios. She’s participated in numerous exhibitions and residencies both in Ireland and abroad. Her landscapes feature in The Crawford Art Gallery’s permanent collection and her work is also in the art collections of University College Cork and The OPW. She has taught painting and life drawing at the Crawford College of Art for many years. Her website is here.
As a musician, she has performed with The Polskadots, The Ladybugs, The Armadillos, Ditherum, Broom Bezzums, The Pop Up Klezmers and The Critters, as well as at many sessions throughout the city.
Cork has a thriving music scene - but can musicians afford to live here?
Cork has SO much potential. I think it’s going to become a super busy, popular place to be, once it recovers from the Covid era.
But I don’t know if artists and musicians will still be able to afford to live here, or if they'll be commuting, or just have to leave altogether. I think musicians and music fans will still flock here regardless, for the very unique live session gig scene experience and for festivals.
To me, Cork has been an environment of changing artistic and musical experiences over many years. From my first time jamming downstairs in The Lobby Bar in the ‘90s, to becoming a member of several bands in the city playing folk and world music, blues, bluegrass, ol’ time and Klezmer, and being invited to get involved in projects and tours outside of Ireland. All of these musical seeds were sown in Cork where, because of a thriving music scene, it’s possible to flourish.
A typical day for me is to try to pack as much creativity into it is as humanly possible. It’s always been this way, as long as I can remember.
Draw, paint, play guitar, sing, write a song, practice fiddle. I was a late starter at the fiddle, which I didn’t start playing until I was 25, so I need to put in the hours, which is head-wrecking, not to mention ear splitting for anyone who had to put up with my scratchy attempts. But with relentless and probably naive perseverance I got to a happy enough place with it, and love to jam with other musicians as much as I can. Learning this instrument has paid off in the form of so many amazing musical experiences, also unlocking a fantastic social scene.
“You’ll never own a house as an artist.”
While I was busy sowing musical seeds, I was also trying to cultivate a career as a visual artist. A bit more tricky and a lot less sociable! So began the never-ending development of my drawing and painting, while constantly battling with the chatterbox inside my head telling me: “this is a waste of time,” “get a real job.” “you’re not that good,” “you’ll never own a house as an artist.”
These inner criticisms persisted ad-nauseum. Pre-internet, I turned to Self Help books and tapes for reassurance that I was following the right path. I even turned to booze for a while, to block out the chatterbox. That didn’t work. The only thing that ever worked, and always works, is to continue doing what I do best and what I love to do.
So I turned up at the sketchbook or canvas every day, booked models to work from life, always questioned my process, and if I wasn’t happy with it, I’d do another. And another. I applied for art residencies to be around other like-minded folks and to create in a safe place, and kept practicing that fiddle no matter what.
To do all this, I need a base, and that base is Cork City. I’ve been so lucky to have been a studio member of Cork Artists Collective and Backwater Studios, where I know I can create and draw and paint in an artistic environment among other artists who are on the same page. I can also store my vast mountain of drawings and sketchbooks safely, frame work and prime canvases.
In 2040, will I even have a home?
2021 is my last year at Backwater Studios. My studio share will be up this Christmas. Where will I store my vast amount of work?
Having already gone through the experience of being evicted from my home once, which scared me to my core, I find myself asking: in 2040, will I even have a home to store my work in, and more importantly, to live in?
I need to feel secure these days to be creative; I don’t need turmoil and uncertainty any more. How will I continue to pursue my creative life? I can, and do, draw anywhere and everywhere, and always carry a sketchbook. But more than anything, I need the assurance that Cork will continue to be my base, my home, my nest.
I’ve been wondering what the future holds for me in the this full-to-the-brim musical and artistic city I’ve called home for over 30 years. The most pressing and dominant question on my mind every day is, will I be able to afford to stay here? And where will I go if I can’t?
Gone are the days when you got a one-bedroom flat through word of mouth, from someone who knew someone who was moving out of a reasonably priced gaff. Now it’s: “Oh shit, if the rent is doubled and I get evicted again, can I share at my age? Will I have to share with five people just to meet the rent?”
It’s like going back to the ‘80s all over again, except now it’s 100 times more expensive.
The “train crash” of menopause...and eviction
The last two years was a very dark time for me. A thing called menopause came along and hit me like a train. Beforehand, menopause was a complete mystery to me and all I knew was that it involved overheating a lot!
Nothing prepared me for that train crash that brought horrendous anxiety, depression, self-doubt, low self-esteem, insomnia and more. The anxiety literally had me afraid of my own shadow and was so acute, I couldn't eat without throwing up. The anger was uncontrollable. I hated my artwork and doubted my ability to create anything of worth. It was a living hell. It literally fast-forwarded me to an older self, and presented a very clear and dark future ahead.
I was also dealing with the impending eviction from my home of 20 years during this time, which really didn't help. I felt extremely vulnerable. I wasn’t able to eat properly and was losing weight by the second.
Every day, the anxiety would fade late in the evening, almost by magic, and I’d feel normal once more. Then I'd wake up the next morning gripped by fear and paralysed with anxiety all over again, after very little sleep. Eventually, I reached out for help on the menopause issue, connected with fellow sufferers for a solution, and fortunately found it.
I decided that once I had found a way to fix it and become the “new, improved” me, was that I needed to form a plan and make the absolute most of the time that's left.
I finally realised that Cork is where I want to be but all of a sudden I felt overwhelmed by the sheer impossibility of having a permanent home here due to increasing rents and unaffordable homes. I kicked myself for not sorting this years ago, but years ago I was too busy on my artistic journey. And besides, the banks refused to give me a mortgage.
The Lay a Brick Project: converting artworks to a home.
What to do? Again the feeling of powerlessness persists, that I'm sure many feel in this country today. Artistic folks who contribute so much to the cultural heritage here will continue to create and contribute...but where do we live?
So I put my thinking cap on and thought, hey, why not actually sell all my work before I leave my studio in December? I have a mountain of beautiful pastel drawings and paintings that have accumulated over many years.
My studio sale project is called Lay a Brick. From it, I hope to sell enough work to be able to get my own home, somewhere I’m no longer at the mercy of increasingly insane rents in the city that I call home, and into which I’ve poured so much creativity over a span of 40 years. If I could make 200 sales, I might actually make this target.
At the moment, I’m posting the work that’s for sale on my Facebook and Instagram but I hope to eventually have a physical sale too.
I’ve asked myself if there’s an alternative. Could I move to the countryside? But it doesn’t seem cheaper there and I’m a city gal. In Cork I have my live music fix, galleries, friends and the many relationships I’ve cultivated with students, colleagues and models over the years of teaching. I’d be lonely as hell.
And on top of that, I don’t drive: I cycle everywhere I go.
Where is the space for artists?
I cycle past the new Docklands development on my way into town every day and think, “that could’ve been more pleasing to the eye. Some softer lines wouldn’t have hurt.”
When I heard that another €405 million - €405 million!! - will be poured into the rest of that redevelopment, I couldn’t help but imagine all the homes that could be built for that money. Though I welcome modernisation and I know there is some housing included in that plan, I assume it’ll be financially out of reach for me and others in my profession on an average wage.
I fear it’ll be overkill, with lack of consideration to the artistic community. Are we being included anywhere in this development , are there any public art commissions, studio spaces, music venues, accessible creative spaces?
As someone who works in the arts in this city and is a long-term “citizen” of Cork, I would love to see more city centre green spaces and trees, and an outdoor amphitheatre would be a great addition in the summer for live gigs.
Preserving the R&H Hall, and affordability for artists
I'd love to see the R&H Hall remain as a significant Cork iconic building, and not being replaced by more glass boxes. It would be an amazing modern gallery, like The Docklands in Liverpool for example, and a huge tourist attraction. More visual projections onto the R&H Hall could be incorporated into live events in the Docklands area and a wall of it could also be a canvas for city walls graffiti, which is a very successful project in Waterford city, and the basis of a large open-air annual festival.
I would like to see a purpose-built large venue for bigger acts. What the hell happened to the Convention centre? Is it included in the Docklands proposal?
I fear the walls proposed for the quays in the OPW flood defence plans will seriously deflect from this unique city and I really hope a better solution will be agreed upon, that benefits businesses and locals.
And of course it would be amazing to have access to more affordable artist studios and accommodation.
One lives in hope.
Great piece Eileen. You also speak for many others who have not your creative leanings and output. I know that you are a recognisable member of several communities in Cork and you and many others will be sorely and sadly missed if things don’t change for the better