Jason Hicklin | From the Edge of Europe: West Coast Ireland, Mayo, Donegal, Kerry 1996 - 2021

 This was the first residency I was invited to take part in. I arrived in Ireland on a cold December day; I was one of the first participants and was lucky enough to be invited back again the following year. The accommodation was a small cottage just big enough for one, and the Foundation had organised access to studio space in the village of Ballycastle. It was in this studio I made my first series of big drawings; they were the first large-scale pieces I made (and sold!). One of the strongest memories I have of my time there (apart from the landscape of course) was working through the night, listening to Atlantic Radio -  the song Night Swimming by R.E.M. was played hourly.

This was a teaching residency on the Bloody Foreland, as it is known in English, in the village of Gortahork in County Donegal. Clo was a centre of cultural activity, hidden away in the mountains and had a print studio, library and a gallery.  It was an artist-led initiative providing creative exchange between artists from the Gaeltacht community and artists from all over the world.  As at Ballinglen, I was provided with accommodation, the ubiquitous small cottage, and access to a print workshop. And again, like Ballinglen, I was invited back the following year. Each day I would walk from first light until dusk and later, in the early evening, teach etching to the local community.  When those classes finished, that was the time I worked late into the night making etchings based on the drawings I made during those long walks. These etching plates remain the only plates I have made outside the studio in England, so there was a special resonance. The memories I have of my two stays at Clo, apart from the walks, are Monday night music sessions in the local bar and mainly living on Guinness.

I first saw Tory Island from the coast of Donegal during my earlier residences at Clo. The combination of bad weather and time restrictions meant I was unable to get to the island in 2006 or 2007. But it stayed in my mind, and when the chance to collaborate with another artist, Daphne Astor, arose, I suggested we should take a trip and pitch our tents on Tory Island. Unlike the previous residences, there was no cottage or access to a studio but my previous experiences helped me to overcome the lack of a traditional studio and added to the sense of place. Days were spent walking on this Gaelic-speaking island surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. An island with its own king!  And evenings were spent in the bar of the only hotel on the island. Following my time on the island, I made ten etchings.

Started in 1991, the Cill Rialaig project began as the rescue and restoration of the ruins of a small pre-famine village called Ballyskelligs on Bolus Head, situated at the very end of the Iveragh Peninsula, with the aim of creating an artist’s retreat. The ruins were eventually restored into several cottages overlooking the Atlantic Ocean; the road leading to the cottages is known as the last road in Ireland. So by the time I arrived in 2011, the project was well established. This residency was an amazing experience; I felt absorbed by the landscape and felt I was on the edge of the land, walking and drawing during the day and then in evenings and late nights making monotypes on Japanese paper in front of a wood burning stove, with a small glass of Irish whisky to keep off the chill. As at Ballinglen and Clo, I participated in two residences at Cill Rialaig, returning in 2012 and over the two visits made fourteen etchings and around sixty monotypes.