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Orla: You’re joking, right? I live in IRELAND. Very few people here actually make a living from art, although many make good work that does sell, but it’s very very hard to make a living solely from your art here. I myself work as a freelance translator/proofreader from home, so when I don’t have a job on, I don’t need to be stuck behind a desk pretending to be busy. Yes, Ireland does have an Artists’ Exemption when it comes to taxing earnings on their income from art – but the thing is, only 2% of artists who are listed as exempt from paying tax on their income actually have a taxable income here – and if they are earning that much, they move to Monaco or Switzerland.

Whopple: How many hours a day do you create?

Orla: What exactly do you mean by ‘create’? Because I’m always coming up with something, even if it doesn’t involve picking up a brush or a pencil. I aim to paint for 10 hours a week, otherwise I’m scribbling down ideas and stories, taking sketches and photographs, mulling things over, reading. Creativity is ongoing. Making a finished piece is only a small part of it.

Whopple: How did you pick your creative medium?
Orla: Why did I go to painting and not writing? (Here I am making up my own questions. Sorry.) Because with painting, you articulate a different language, one that’s deeper than words. The visual and the human being’s reaction to it and exploitation of it goes back to a time before verbal language. Paintings have remained useful in instructing illiterate populations, just look at the religious works created during the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. And of course the more Pagan works by Botticelli, for example. And how history and epistemology are brought into play in works by Contemporary artists like John Shinnors. I love working with paint, and use oils, acrylics and watercolors. I also love to draw because you can be so controlled yet so expressive – and the reason I can pull of that particular balancing act is because I put a lot of work into my drawing over the years, I think it’s crucial if you’re an artist to be able to draw. I add text because text is another ‘language’, if you like, but still open to interpretation – which is dependent very much on the mindset, background, epistemology, etc. of the viewer. Plus, of course, there is the verbal language element in the title of a piece, which can explain a lot about the piece itself. That said, I might get back into writing more again, right now I’m coming up with a lot of childrens stories, and naturally they are very visual. I have this other idea about tractors and aliens …. but I was writing more until late 1998, when my father died I found I just could not write …. so I made a lot of paintings around that time.

Whopple: What are your inspirations?
Orla: Storytellers. Other people who create things. People who don’t let the begrudgers get to them. People like Tina Turner, Lady Gaga. And my own parents, who were both extraordinarily talented and resourceful individuals. I am in awe of people who, when confronted with someone with a clipboard telling them they can’t, just shrug their shoulders, say ‘feck that’ and get on with their own thing anyway. People like that, with ordinary, everyday courage.

Whopple: How do you recharge when your creativity hits the wall?
Orla: That never happens. It might veer off course for a while and bring me in a different direction, but it never hits the wall. I actually have trouble keeping up with it, I keep thinking that someday it’s going to grow up and decide to move out and get its own place. Hahaha.

Whopple: What was your first job?
Orla: Outside of the family? I was a waitress in a dive of a place in South County Dublin. I was DESPERATE at it! I mean terrible!

Whopple: What are your favorite snacks when you are creating?
Orla: In the same way John Cleese as Basil Fawlty says ‘Don’t mention the War’ (if you haven’t seen this, look up Fawlty Towers on YouTube, it is classic British slapstick comedy), with me you have to say ‘don’t mention the snacks’. In the past 10 years I have become rather annoying to my family as I really cleaned up some bad eating habits of my own, and rarely take alcohol. For health reasons mainly – I am sugar sensitive. But I do like fruit, and a favorite snack is a nice sweet pear or apple with some mature Cheddar cheese. But not every day. I don’t take tea or coffee into the studio with me anymore, because so many times I’ve mistaken t
he mug of hot beverage with the jar of turpentine and dipped my paintbrush loaded with all kinds of peculiar things in it into the drink to clean it – perhaps it’s no wonder after all that my liver and kidneys are not what they used to be, hahaha – and then taken a swig of the hot drink and NOT TASTED THE GUNK IN IT!!!! I would only realise what I had done much later, when I’d see the paint residue at the bottom of the mug. EEEUUUUUWWW!

Whopple: What gives you hope in the world?
Orla: When people pull together to help others out. Like the Haiti situation, or the Tsunami a few years ago. However, I think it’s awful that so many people die in such situations, and so many children left alone and helpless. But I suppose it does give people opportunities to be useful, but it a pity there is the price to be paid.

Whopple: What do you wish you could do?
Orla: As an artist, it would be really, really useful to be able to do basic carpentry well. I seem to be allergic to right angles. And sewing. I wish I didn’t find sewing stressful, but I do. Very stressful. I had to learn sewing from the nuns in Ireland (I was a convent schoolgirl) and couldn’t understand why I had to sew from left to right. For me, right to left is much more natural, but it used to drive the nuns up the wall. I procrastinate for days if I have to sew on a button. I have a friend here who is a quilter, and I get sweaty palms just thinking about what she does, even though I admire her pieces. My poor mother would try to get me to sew clothes with her … and it’s the only thing I ever gave up on as a bad job. I really cannot sew, nor can I bring myself to sew. I would muck out horses, get compost for the garden, clean out the innards of chickens to prepare them for the oven, butcher cattle for the deep freeze, sweep chimneys, dig potatoes, help the veg perform an operation on a cow – anything, as long as I didn’t have to sew. (I sat on the cow’s head. She only had a local anesthetic, you see.)

Whopple: What are your artistic goals?
Orla: Right now, get more done, continue with the ticking over of ideas, working them out, culling what won’t go anywhere. 2009 was terrible for everyone, I stopped trying to get into galleries because it was really futile, but now I have a Dublin-based gallery interested enough to give me a shot in an art fair in February. I’m happy to continue exploring, but wouldn’t mind getting into the RHA (Royal Hibernian Academy) in the course of my career as an artist.

Whopple: What has been your most exciting moment as an artist?
Orla: Most exciting? I suppose going to the launch of a solo show and seeing red dots by paintings – the fact that people like them enough to buy them was exciting. It’s nice to have validation like that. But prior to that, I suppose for me personally what was more important was recognizing that I COULD trust my own judgment. Like spending ages working on a piece, being stuck on one part of it and “effin’ and blindin’” (Hiberno-English: Muttering rude words to no-one in particular as a way of venting frustration) over this one detail, and turning away from the piece in a huff, walking away from it, turning around to throw something at it and realizing that it’s actually …. fine just the way it is. A good feeling. And later, people telling me their reactions to the works – see the question regarding the creative medium.

To See More Of Orla Clancy’s Artwork Please Visit The Following:

http://orlasart.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26811601@N03/
http://www.artwanted.com
http://www.b-uncut.com
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/
http://www.newirishart.com/
http://artid.com/
http://www.gofigurative.com/

These Interviews With Artists Are Copyrighted To Whopple.com.

Classifications:  Figurative Artists