FIRST ENTELECHY
Ms. Scally INSTALLATION 1952 1953
I was born on the 31st March 1947, the third child; by the time I was four my mother had three more children and I was sent to Golden Bridge Convent.
In the second year a Miss Scally came to teach us. One day she made an announcement…" children, we have an artist in the class; Kieran, will you please come up and do a drawing on the blackboard for us" She showed me the smaller side blackboard and asked me to choose from pink, blue yellow and white sticks of chalk and a chair for me to stand on. I chose an unbroken piece of white chalk and quickly worked out how I could draw in white on a black surface; having only ever drawn with pencils on white paper before. I immediately hit upon a technique of using the side length of the stick to make a profile face of a man… it was surprising and very effective; I panicked when i didn't know how I could draw the eye having already used white…so I used the tip of the chalk to draw the white of the eye; it also worked surprisingly well… now I had the problem of how to draw the hair and came up with the idea of a hat (I had been studying how to draw hats) I chose a soft shape with a turn-up at the back The drawing was up for the whole year… it was the first and the most important validation of myself
The side of a stick of chalk rubbed sideways on a blackboard for Miss Scally 1952
1952 the origin of PorousPlane: first installation drawing
Born on March 31st 1947, i was sent to school at the age of 4 years to Golden Bridge Convent. The first year was a shocking experience of terror and violence felt atmospherically allover; from the Sisters of Mercy nuns who set out to immediately mistreat the children from poorer families;
witnessing this invalidation of individuals in favour of the institution and that mysterious status ranking still has a sickening effect on me...even now as i write. Unfortunately, snobbery in all its guises is never in short supply ... and i saw straight away aged 4, how one human being in a position of power could quell the vitality of another persons life. From Golden Bridge i was sent to St.Michaels Christian Brothers school where this reign of terror and violence continued...in between this seemingly endless sentence of torment...when i was 5 and went from low babies to high babies class, a great bit of good luck came my way in the 'miraculous' appearance of Miss Scally; who taught us for that year 1952-53. She rode up to the school on a beautiful motorized scooter...no helmet to obscure her raven-black hair, she looked like my mother on a Sunday. She noticed me, she saw that i has something in my eye and came close to me to
examine it... her breasts were within touching distance her perfume scented but natural, and with her own hankerchief she cleaned my eye.
Then one day she stopped the class and said "...children, we have an artist in the class, Kieran, would you please come up and make a drawing on the blackboard for us