Mary McCarthy: Jewtown, National Sculpture Factory
Title
Mary McCarthy: Jewtown, National Sculpture Factory
Subject
Cork's Built Heritage
Description
Mary talks about the establishment of the National Sculpture Factory, and the history of the building that houses it.
The sculpture factory was founded by four artists who wished to work collectively, and their project was supported by the city authorities and by the Arts Council. She talks about the building’s wider hinterland, including an area known as ‘Jewtown’, where the city’s Jewish community lived.
Note: this interview was conducted for the DVD If the Walls Could Talk.
The sculpture factory was founded by four artists who wished to work collectively, and their project was supported by the city authorities and by the Arts Council. She talks about the building’s wider hinterland, including an area known as ‘Jewtown’, where the city’s Jewish community lived.
Note: this interview was conducted for the DVD If the Walls Could Talk.
Date
25 October 2013
Identifier
CFP_SR00500_mccarthy_2013
Coverage
Cork City; Ireland; Built Heritage; 1770s-200Os;
Relation
If the Wall Could Talk: Stories Of Cork's Heritage Catalogue Numbers:
CFP_SR00492_herlihy_2013;
CFP_SR00493_walsh_2013;
CFP_SR00494_butler_2013;
CFP_SR00495_faris_2013;
CFP_SR00496_osullivan_2013;
CFP_SR00497_ryan_2013;
CFP_SR00498_holland_2013;
CFP_SR00499_hartnett&osullivan_2013;
CFP_SR00505_healy_2013;
CFP_SR00506_gleeson_2013;
CFP_SR00507_miller_2013;
CFP_SR00492_herlihy_2013;
CFP_SR00493_walsh_2013;
CFP_SR00494_butler_2013;
CFP_SR00495_faris_2013;
CFP_SR00496_osullivan_2013;
CFP_SR00497_ryan_2013;
CFP_SR00498_holland_2013;
CFP_SR00499_hartnett&osullivan_2013;
CFP_SR00505_healy_2013;
CFP_SR00506_gleeson_2013;
CFP_SR00507_miller_2013;
Published Material:
If the Wall Could Talk: Stories Of Cork's Heritage (2013) DVD
If the Stones Could Speak: More stories from Cork's heritage (2015) DVDD
Source
Cork Folklore Project Audio Archive
Rights
Cork Folklore Project
Language
English
Type
Sound
Format
1 .wav File
Interviewee
Interviewer
Duration
14m 55s
Location
National Sculpture Factory, Albert Rd, Cork City, Ireland.
Original Format
.wav
Bit Rate/Frequency
24bit / 48kHz
Transcription
The following is a short extract from the interview transcript, copyright of the Cork Folklore Project. If you wish to access further archival material please contact CFP, folklorearchive@gmail.com
M M: Okay. I suppose it was a, its kind of interesting thinking back to that point, it was like mid eighties in Cork, and its kind of interesting being in the middle of another deep recession now what’s happening and in Cork in the mid eighties most of the cultural organisations that we now have were actually founded like Corcadorca, ourselves the National Sculpture Factory, Blackwater Studios, you know they were all kind of founded in the late eighties, early nineties so four artists who were graduates of the Crawford College; Maud Cotter, Ailish O’Connell, Vivienne Roche and Danny McCarthy who were very well known sculptors were kind of looking for somewhere to work collectively. They had all been travelling abroad, doing their masters, they knew that the moment was right to have a collective facility ‘cause as we know working as artists is very isolating and they are generally on their own, in their studios so this building was identified, it was empty at the time, Civic Council were using it for storage of, those big hairy Christmas lights that used to be on Patrick Street, used to be in here on the floor. Astroturf, the possessions of people’s houses, who were repossessed, it was a real storage territory and they approached the city manager who was Joe McHugh at the time and Joe was very visionary actually, he decided to take a risk, yeah, and gave it to four artists on a long term lease to set up this organisation. And the Arts Council came in then, in 1989 and supported the organisation financially so really it was set up out of five artists, it was an artist lead initiative to look for kind of a building that would give them collective space to work in so they could begin to acquire collective equipment which they could never afford to have in your own studio and that would enable people to work large scale. So they were very visionary actually these four artists and they stayed involved the first few years, and then obviously the organisation grown quite a lot since then its gotten, you know we’ve adapted this building quite a lot, we’ve put in a new roof. This mezzanine that we are sitting in, is an award winning piece of architecture from Tom de Paor who worked with Robin Lee architect in the new entrance last year, so we are always layering new things onto the building. But I suppose something that we as an organisation are very protective is the fabric of the building actually, nothing that we’ve done has changed the building very much, we’ve enhanced it we would think, we’ve added things in but actually we could, if we were to vacate this building it wouldn’t change that much. You know we’ve put in this big door at the back and some new kind of equipment but our, our imprint is quite light and we respect the building’s capacity in that way. I suppose we are very excited to be in this building because it is a very distinctive building in Cork and its on a great site on a corner. Its also we would say we were one of the first buildings in docklands, in Cork docklands so its gives us a very kind of landmark position in the city. And we are also aware that the citizens in the city only get in occasionally ‘cause it is a work space that’s why nights like heritage night, culture night or when we do events for the film festival, they are important that the public get to come in actually and see what’s going on.
M M: Okay. I suppose it was a, its kind of interesting thinking back to that point, it was like mid eighties in Cork, and its kind of interesting being in the middle of another deep recession now what’s happening and in Cork in the mid eighties most of the cultural organisations that we now have were actually founded like Corcadorca, ourselves the National Sculpture Factory, Blackwater Studios, you know they were all kind of founded in the late eighties, early nineties so four artists who were graduates of the Crawford College; Maud Cotter, Ailish O’Connell, Vivienne Roche and Danny McCarthy who were very well known sculptors were kind of looking for somewhere to work collectively. They had all been travelling abroad, doing their masters, they knew that the moment was right to have a collective facility ‘cause as we know working as artists is very isolating and they are generally on their own, in their studios so this building was identified, it was empty at the time, Civic Council were using it for storage of, those big hairy Christmas lights that used to be on Patrick Street, used to be in here on the floor. Astroturf, the possessions of people’s houses, who were repossessed, it was a real storage territory and they approached the city manager who was Joe McHugh at the time and Joe was very visionary actually, he decided to take a risk, yeah, and gave it to four artists on a long term lease to set up this organisation. And the Arts Council came in then, in 1989 and supported the organisation financially so really it was set up out of five artists, it was an artist lead initiative to look for kind of a building that would give them collective space to work in so they could begin to acquire collective equipment which they could never afford to have in your own studio and that would enable people to work large scale. So they were very visionary actually these four artists and they stayed involved the first few years, and then obviously the organisation grown quite a lot since then its gotten, you know we’ve adapted this building quite a lot, we’ve put in a new roof. This mezzanine that we are sitting in, is an award winning piece of architecture from Tom de Paor who worked with Robin Lee architect in the new entrance last year, so we are always layering new things onto the building. But I suppose something that we as an organisation are very protective is the fabric of the building actually, nothing that we’ve done has changed the building very much, we’ve enhanced it we would think, we’ve added things in but actually we could, if we were to vacate this building it wouldn’t change that much. You know we’ve put in this big door at the back and some new kind of equipment but our, our imprint is quite light and we respect the building’s capacity in that way. I suppose we are very excited to be in this building because it is a very distinctive building in Cork and its on a great site on a corner. Its also we would say we were one of the first buildings in docklands, in Cork docklands so its gives us a very kind of landmark position in the city. And we are also aware that the citizens in the city only get in occasionally ‘cause it is a work space that’s why nights like heritage night, culture night or when we do events for the film festival, they are important that the public get to come in actually and see what’s going on.
Citation
Cork Folklore Project, “Mary McCarthy: Jewtown, National Sculpture Factory,” accessed April 18, 2024, https://corkfolklore.org/archivecatalolgue/document/14.