Bernie Goldbach in Limerick | Artwork by Sophie
I WATCH OUR four-year-old draw special places so I've a special insight to the work of 160 primary school students as they do the same.
Their work is part of a photoset curated by James Kennedy in support of an end-of-year art contest sponsored by the Sarsfield Credit Union in Limerick, Ireland. Some of the work forms part of the grand narrative of My Home. My School. My Place, a meme started by the credit unions in Ireland. I like the challenge of defining the look of those places through the eyes and hands of pre-teens.
In Sophie's work at left, a little arrow defines her room at the top of the house. I don't know if that's a real location or an imaginary place far away from spiders and prying eyes. In our home, I've often wondered what it would be like to have an attic cubbyhole, sleeping right up against an insulated roof with an observation window to watch the International Space Station overhead. As a teenager, that's something that would catapult me into a world of my own, far away from the pressures of growing up with hormones ravaging my judgment.
We'll have a short list of best artwork at the end of June with six lucky winners announced in the first week of July 2012. And if the reaction is positive, we'll do a similar programme this summer with the help of other credit unions in County Tipperary and County Cork.
Bernie Goldbach curates creative work.
