“WELL, I MEAN, JUST LOOK AT all…this…” Cormac Boydell, one of Ireland’s foremost ceramic artists, laughs and flings his arms wide. “You can’t possibly be dishonest, can you?…Untrue to yourself…your creative self—in a place like this…”
And what a place it is. Just past an amazing geological tangle of scalloped rocks and “curled strata” constantly being carved out by furious ocean surf, we’d found this modest cottage tucked away at the end of a narrow rocky boreen off the Allihies-to-Eyeries Road. It was virtually invisible and set in a rocky cleft filled with a tumultuous tropical riot of bamboo, palms, huge explosions of rhubarb-like Gunnera with leaves as big as elephant ears and nine-foot-high clusters of something strangely giraffelike. Add to this Edenic environment a chuckling but barely visible stream, a constant chorus of birds, soft ocean breezes that make the brittle palm fronds chatter together, and deep shadowy enclaves behind the huge plants. Then you begin to understand the broad smile that appears on Cormac’s lean face when he watches our reaction to his hidden haven of peace and creativity.
“I don’t really encourage visitors,” he said almost apologetically, as if guilty at having this amazing place all to himself and his artist wife, Rachael Parry. “It’s not that I’m antisocial or anything, but I get so easily distracted and time just seems to leak away. And I honestly prefer the selling and whatnot to take place in the galleries—not here. After all, I’m not making mugs with people’s names on them. I need all the focus and quietude I can get just for the creative work…”
Rachael emerged from the house bearing a tray of tea and homemade ginger biscuits (some of the best we’ve ever tasted). She was a small, lean woman with an aquiline face and large, melt-your-heart eyes that made me immediately want to pick up a pen and sketch her. She’d heard Cormac’s comments and laughed softly. “Oh yes—he certainly needs all that. And he gets it too! Have you seen his little hotbed of creativity yet…?”
“Yes,” said Anne. “We snuck into his studio for a peep on the way up from the car. Powerful stuff in there!”
Cormac smiled bashfully and pulled his Aussie outback canvas hat tighter over his wild mop of sandy hair. The hat was a throwback to an early life as a geologist in Australia long before he met Rachael at a transcendental meditation workshop in Ireland in the 1970s.
“That poor little shed. It’s been around for decades. Hardly enough room to swing a cat. But at least I’m going to get it insulated. I’m too old now for the winter cold. Rachael’s got her own shed”—Cormac pointed to the rocky crest of the cleft—“and hers has views.”
“When did you actually move here?” I asked.
“After Australia. In 1972. Pursuing the self-sufficient life, which actually turned out to be harder than we planned. But eventually we got things in focus. Rachael and our two children were wonderful. And my father too—Brian Boydell. His life was always an example to me. He also gave up geology for his real love—music. Became a pretty celebrated composer and professor of music at Trinity College in Dublin. And my mother, Mary, is a prominent authority on Irish glass. That’s her real love. So in 1983 I decided it was time to pursue my own real love of—clay! Our gorgeous, rich, chocolaty Irish Wexford clay. Using my hands as my only tools…and, well, I guess I was lucky. Very lucky. Galleries started to feature my work almost from the very start! I expected I’d have to go through the standard ‘starving artist’ gauntlet, but somehow I managed to skip that challenge, and doors opened and lo—I was an ‘Artist’! People started buying all my colorful creations.”
“Similar to what we saw in the shed?” I asked. “All those wonderfully primeval slabs of fired clay painted in brilliant wild Fauvist colors…”
“Similar. Maybe not quite so bold and carefree as now…and maybe not so tongue-in-cheek and humorous. But sometimes I’m surprised by the consistency because…well, I’m very fluid in the way I work. I don’t really know what I’m going to create with each piece until I knead the clay in my hands—like baker’s dough…letting the work lead me to new possibilities and forms I didn’t know I wanted to make. I’m usually inspired by prehistoric and tribal art and the New York abstracts of the 1950s and I guess all the incidental abstraction that surrounds us. Particularly in a place as powerful as Beara. You sense a great spiritual centering here. Magic in the mystic misty silences. And then the colors—well, that’s my latent geologist reemerging. I mix my own colors mainly from minerals and whatnot. You get some pretty unique shades and textures. And it doesn’t all happen at once. I know they might look simple—even primitive—but each piece goes through a complex series of color layerings and firings…”
“I love their brightness—their vibrancy,” said Anne.
Cormac smiled, bashfully again and rubbed his fingers together, as if slowly mixing soft clay. “Well—I blame that on where we are.” He flung his arms out again to encompass the surging tsunamis of vegetation around us. Pieces of his sculpture peeked out from the greenery. “I mean, look at this corner of Beara—beautiful rocks, the ocean just down the track, this jungle of a garden, the light, the sky, the colors all around…Then I combine all that with memories of wonderful bold images I’ve seen—Minoan sculpture, cave art…anything and everything!”
“And then on a couple of plate-forms, I saw a cartoonlike portrait of Van Gogh…and the two Skellig islands on another,” I said.
“Yeah, odd, isn’t it. I never really know what will appear. But whatever comes seems to sell. I think the humor in some of the pieces appeals—the enjoyment and play of art as a medium of communication. Also the sense of authenticity in the basic clay material and, well, I suppose what you might call an aura of primitive spirituality without overanalyzing…Also, I’ve never really cared that much about money…or celebrity. I’m honestly happiest just being here, working by myself and with Rachael. We work on multimedia pieces together—and I’m happy if my work just makes people feel happy. That’s success to me. If you’re driven by money concerns and desires, then you’re setting yourself up for failure. Your work becomes dictated by these elements—and you end up more concerned about what’ll sell and you start producing strings of sausages or objects that don’t particularly enhance your own life—or anyone else’s. So what’s the point? You project bad karma…”
“Ah, another Beara Buddhist!” said Anne with a laugh.
Cormac chuckled. “Actually, you’re right. I’m very involved with the center. Have been for years. Ever since I met Peter Cornish, the founder, and his late wife, Harriet. And before that Rachael and I were teaching transcendental meditation workshops. So I guess art and Buddhism play a large part in our lives—they’re interchangeable really. I guess the Buddhist way of looking at things influences my art too…unconsciously. Being ‘present’ and ‘mindful’ can produce a kind of immediacy and freshness in what I try to do. Meditation is important to me too, primarily for pragmatic reasons. It helps eliminate distractions and keeps me in the ‘now,’ to use that much overused—and misused—word. It’s very contrary to our normal habits and scattered minds, so it’s something you have to work on…”
“And karma…you mentioned karma,” asked Anne.
“Well…I certainly understand the concept of karma…everything you do has an effect on the universe. But it’s also another very misused—and misunderstood—word…”
“And reincarnation?” I asked.
“Ah, well, that’s…well, let’s just say…I’m still working on that concept!”
Rachael’s fabulous ginger cookies were almost gone from the tea tray now, and she gave us all a forgiving smile and went back in the house to bring more. Silence settled, and a cool breeze tumbled over the lip of the deep cleft in which we, the house, the shed-studios, and the riotous vegetation were all cozily cocooned. I smiled as the air brought momentary relief to the warm sunshine, and then I realized we were all smiling together. Rachael laughed as she rejoined us (with another brimming cookie plate). “You all look as if you’ve just finished off a whole bottle of sherry together!”
Bees buzzed about; the birds were still chattering away; the stream chittered down over the rocks in the deep shadows behind the big tropical leaves; another cool breeze slipped over into our cleft. And we all smiled again. Together.
And I began to understand some of the many influences floating behind the works of Cormac Boydell.
EVENTUALLY—WHEN THE SECOND plate of Rachael’s ginger cookies had been devoured—Cormac excused himself and retreated down through the dense foliage to his reclusive cavelike studio. We wondered if we should leave too, but we were curious about Rachael and her own creative work.
“Oh well—he’s the famous one in the family…,” she said with a wry grin. “Compared to Cormac, my work’s more like a hobby—I don’t even have a permanent gallery yet.”
“Yes, but you’ve had a load of shows, according to something I read in our local paper,” said Anne. “They were very complimentary. And they mentioned your studio here—something about it feeling like being in a floating balloon!”
Rachael chuckled. “You want to take a peep?”
“We’d love to!” (in unison).
And so we left the craggy confines of the garden and the “jungle” deep in the rocky cleft and climbed up a series of steep steps to a high ridge. Suddenly the still, moist air around the house was replaced by the invigorating thwack of sprightly sea breezes redolent with the briny bouquet of ocean spray.
And there it was—Rachael’s small, compact studio perched resolutely atop the ridge with vast vistas of seascapes, cliffs, and the mountainous spine of Beara retreating eastward into a golden afternoon haze.
“Beautiful!” gushed Anne.
“Fantastic!” I said. “I want it!”
Rachael laughed. “Well, maybe you want it now. But on stormy days when the wind’s trying to tear this little place apart and you wish you’d roped the thing down as you kept promising yourself you would, or when that deep winter chill really sets in and you just can’t get the place warmed up…you may not be quite so enthusiastic!”
“Oh I guess I’d learn to cope,” I said. “Beara seems to teach you that—the power and beauty of places like this seem to overwhelm all the hardships and inconveniences. We’ve met quite a few people here living in old cottages without any running water, using clapped-out generators for electricity, peat for fire fuel…just like the last century, except that the livestock, if they have any, now at least they have their own accommodations! No more pigs under the beds and fighting the family cow for a space by the fire…”
“Oh, that’s so true. You should have seen our place when we first moved in. It’s a palace today compared to how it was…But, even now it’s still pretty basic…”
“Well, this place certainly isn’t,” I said, admiring the meticulously organized appearance of her small studio. There was everything an artist would need to generate, intensify, and satisfy almost every creative urge. I particularly admired her eclectic collection of CDs—Tibetan Buddhist chants, Modern Jazz Quartet, Monty Python, Tracy Chapman…
“Ah well, they’re all a part of me, y’see,” Rachael said softly. Then she started to pull out a series of drawers filled with a bizarre miscellany of objects to be used one day in her works—poppy seed heads, bleached skeletal bits and pieces from animals and birds, chunks of copper ore rock from the nearby mines, clusters of sharp, dark hedgehog’s spines, knots of ancient “bog oak,” pieces of dried fish skin, whole bird wings with hundreds of meticulously colored feathers, bunches of wizened red chili peppers…
Rachael was watching our amazed faces as we wondered how she intended to use these remarkable repositories of nature in her creations.
“I told you—all parts of me.” She chuckled. Her comment reminded me of one of KofiAnnan’s sayings: “We all have multiple identities.” “Maybe you should read this first before I start showing you some of the actual pieces.” She pointed to something she’d written herself pinned up on the wall:
I make things that symbolically denote a special act, rite of passage, or shared human experience. My choice and use of materials are intrinsic to the work. Often the work is about my life and my friends’ lives, but I also use images from stories—especially mythology and other “teaching stories”—which have potent universal themes.
I nodded. “Well, it’s not the usual gobbledygook you get at many art exhibitions. Tom Wolfe ridiculed all that esoteric arty verbiage that nobody really understands in his biting little book The Painted Word.”
Rachael laughed. “Yeah—there’s far too much mumbo jumbo surrounding art. You can instill depth and resonance in what you create without having to make it exclusionary—elitist. I mean, people may not always know precisely what I’m trying to say in some of my works, but they’re often so intrigued by the actual objects themselves—their uniqueness and strangeness—that they invent their own stories. And that’s just fine. It’s all about perception and interpretation—the more interpretations a piece stimulates, the more successful I think it is…”
“Well—I guess it’s time we saw some of the actual objects,” said Anne, although both of us had been sneaking glances at the potpourri of strange and seductive works around the studio, some complete in meticulously crafted boxes, others still at an initial assembly phase. One major piece, displayed in a series of carefully shaped containers in the shape of a rib cage—a “healing chest”—possessed a variety of tiny hearts fashioned from such diverse and bizarre materials as hedgehog spines, baby thrush feathers, turf ash, and glass—all reminders of tenderness, vulnerability, and “the extinction of passion.” Despite the work’s strangeness, it possessed an aura of silent healing.
“Pieces like this—I think—emerge from a fantastic trip I once took in a camper van all around New Mexico,” Rachael told us, her sharp, bird-bright eyes flashing as memories flooded in. “One place in particular—the old adobe church in Chimayo—was a real center for spiritual healing. The place was full of votive offerings, symbolic gifts of thanks, and a wall full of abandoned crutches no longer needed after successful healings had taken place. Oh! and a sacred ‘sand room’ for deep prayer. You had a feeling that people who came here seeking recovery and renewal were tapping into really deep and ancient forces. They used objects—especially natural objects of wood or rock or feathers or seeds—as tokens. Ways to enter the spirit world and use its healing powers. Ways of linking themselves to ancient myths, folk beliefs, and rituals that for eons of time have offered solutions to all the ailments we have to deal with throughout our lives.”
I smiled as she described this remarkable place. I had spent a couple of days there a few years back while writing my “Hidden America” series of articles for National Geographic Traveler. The power and ethos of healing and gratitude there were almost tangible. I still have a small vial of “blessed sand,” which I regard as a protective token (so far—so good!).
It was not easy to absorb all the rich symbolism of Rachel’s creations, but their diversity and uniqueness were unforgettable: amusing “creatures” created from meldings of birds’ feathers and wings, skeletal heads, and snakeskin legs; one alarming kneeling figure with a huge ejaculation of wire wool “fire” from his huge mouth; a series of “clothes for the spirit,” including the lacy delicacy of a pair of gloves made from fish skins; “fire shoes” made from dried chili peppers and desert berries delicately sewn together, and an “earth hat” constructed of translucent skins shed by snakes and bound with handmade paper.
Her skills in glass and metal casting, weaving, spinning, and sewing permeated her creations. But perhaps the most amazing—the one that made both of us gasp in admiration—was Rachael’s “Veil.”
It was a masterwork requiring a definite “suspension of disbelief.” Made entirely out of spindled threads of spiderwebs arduously collected by Rachael from the rafters, windows, and doors of barns on the Beara Peninsula, “The Veil” was meticulously spun and woven into a heavy, platinum-colored headdress. Like most of her works, it possessed a powerful potpourri of symbols—a thick, impenetrable “female” veil, but crafted in such a dense manner that it also resembled a warrior’s chain mail helmet. One review pinned to the studio wall suggested that “its interconnected, yet separate components, represent a possible healing between the male and female psyches…The importance Rachael Parry attaches to the mythical, the personal, and the metaphysical, particularly where women and their relationships with themselves and others are concerned, is clear in all her works.”
Anne was obviously moved by the power and symbolism of Rachael’s creations: “I think it’s a combination of the loving, empathetic female spirit with a harder, more perceptive, less forgiving energy…Even your softer, more sensual objects have a little sting in the tail…”
Rachael laughed. Her finely faceted face sparkled. “Actually, that’s the exact idea I’ve been playing with recently—the ‘sting in the tail’ idea. Softness with a sear of pain. The eternal dichotomy…”
“You can’t have one without the other,” suggested Anne.
“Well, I suppose you could—but wouldn’t life be boring? Far less colorful.”
“Ah!” I said. “So that explains the explosive vibrancy of all Cormac’s plates and bowls. You keep life colorful—dichotomous—for him!”
“I’m not sure he’d describe it that way…” Rachael laughed.
“Well—I’m sure he’s in good and loving hands. I mean, look at what this reviewer writes,” I said, pointing to a clip pinned to a wall by her CD collection. ‘Her work is imbued with a desire to promote healing.’”
“Well yes—that’s true right enough, but sometimes it’s a matter of ‘healer, heal thyself’ too…Look, let me show you something I’m working on. It’s still incomplete, but when our daughter, Molly, left home recently, I recognized a sort of ending of motherhood by casting my own breasts. Then I structured them, using ground-up turf on the outside and soft white gannet feathers on the inside as a lining—a symbolic kind of relining of my ‘breast nest’…”
It was a delicately entrancing work with, once again, a striking dichotomy between the rough earth turf exterior and the softness of the interior couched in the gentle shapes of female breasts.
We stayed talking with Rachael a lot longer than we’d intended. In fact we were there until Cormac finally rejoined us (surprised to see us still hanging around) and insisted it was time for more of her ginger cookies. And so we stayed even longer…