Artists from home and abroad visit Cork for special symposium

NOW in its 10th year, the MAKE Symposium 2024, curated by MTU Crawford College of Art and Design lecturer in textiles Pamela Hardesty, is open to everyone.

But an event on March 2 will appeal mostly to artists with an eminent group of five Irish and international speakers talking on the theme of ‘Drawing and Materiality’, subtitled ‘The Material Line’.

“My neighbour in Kinsale comes to it; she’s not an artist but loves it, saying that it expands her brain for the day,” says Pamela.

The fee for the day-long series of talks is €65 (€35 for students) and Pamela says that other art conferences can cost more than €100. (MAKE receives sponsorship from within MTU.)

MAKE, which this year is organised with the Crawford College’s drawing research hub, Drawbridge, is very much a flagship event for the college. It attracts art college staff, students, academics, gallery administrators, as well as artists and makers from all over Ireland.

“It brings people physically into our midst. Everything now is digital or virtual. We still believe in the power of physical gatherings. With a theatre in the MTU Cork School of Music that holds up to 200, people can meet and network with the successful people that come to talk to us. We’ll be looking at drawings of different materials like stitch.”

The two Irish artists that will address MAKE are Felicity Clear and Alice Maher.

“Felicity did a workshop with our students in November. She makes amazing drawings with thread in space. They are more like sculptures. Standing in front of her drawings at the Glucksman last year gave me the idea to focus on drawing this year so Felicity has to be part of it.

“Alice Maher does amazing drawings and sculptures and looks at the interplay between them. She often draws materials like hair.”

Pamela says it was a “big coup” to get British artist Cornelia Parker to agree to speak at the gathering as the headline guest.

“She’s a conceptual artist who was a Turner Prize nominee. She does really inventive things across the board with materials. She’s probably best known for the exploding shed. She draws with things like rattlesnake venom and the antidote, mixed together. Using the two, she makes ink blot paintings and says: ‘My drawings will kill you and cure you at the same time’. Her way of thinking is really interesting.”

Another talk will be given by embroidery artist Alice Kettle, from Manchester.

“Alice spoke at our first symposium so we thought it would be nice to bring her back again. Her drawing practice is all about huge stitch line drawing. It’s drawing in a different material.”

The fifth speaker is an academic, Anna Lovatt from Texas.

“It’s not an academic conference where people present papers. It’s about hearing from makers on the frontline. But we always have one academic who gives a context to MAKE. I asked myCleacolleagues to recommend a person in the world who could best speak on three dimensional drawing, drawing as sculpture. They picked Anna Lovatt. She’s young but has written so many books and chapters in books.”

Pamela points out that having all female speakers was accidental rather than planned.

After the symposium, an exhibition called ‘Material Line’ will open at the MTU Crawford College of Art and Design Gallery at 46, Grand Parade. It will feature year 3 and year 4 fine art and applied art, and art textile students, as well as MA students from the Kaunas Faculty of Vilnius Academy of Arts in Lithuania. This exhibition was initiated in November with a talk and workshop on sculptural drawing in space at the Crawford College led by Felicity Clear.

“The students made a room-sized drawing of lines so there were lines going everywhere. It was freeing and really interesting. They used different colours and took photos of it. The students were invited to create an art work in response to that workshop. So I have about 20 entries, drawings and textiles, which will be on show at the Grand Parade gallery. We have three works coming from Lithuania.”

Pamela is an American, originally from West Virginia.

“I trained all over America. When I was in California, I got very interested in Celtic culture. I don’t have any Irish blood but I wanted to get away from ’80s California to a simpler place. I went to Kerry to work with a tapestry weaver. I got married (to an architect now retired) and moved to Cork. I’ve been here since 1990.”

Pamela’s own artistic practice sees her creating using different materials. She doesn’t have much time to pursue her art.

“A lot of it was very spiritual and a lot was to do with nature. I also did a whole exhibition on the Paradiso of Dante. That was in glass, plaster and metal. In the last ten years, my work has been more stitch-based. I had a big show in Norwich Cathedral in 2018. I send work out to international shows. The last one was in Miami.”

Cork is a “good walkable city that is quite vibrant and has a lot of potential. I’ve been here a long time; I’ve seen it changing. It has a village feeling. People here help each other.

“I think we could do with more galleries. There was a period when galleries in Cork were booming.”

But the recession put paid to that.

“A lot of the galleries went online. But there are a lot of art forms that don’t communicate that well in photography. The things we make include tactile sculptural work that you need to walk around.”

Welcoming the Crawford Gallery’s forthcoming facelift, Pamela praises the new library in Kinsale, which has gallery space. “It’s beautiful and it’s great to see money being put into a cultural asset.”

See events.mtu.ie.