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I have been at this art making craic for a while now, and as the rising sun reveals my wrinkles, I am

 considering what it has meant for me to try and sustain a precarious arts practice over a several decades. An essential part of that has been to seek funding and I confess I am now rather good at this.

However, when I entered art college in the late '70s, the dark arts of submitting funding applications were never mentioned in the five years I spent there. Not once. The Arts Council? Never. And the Visual Artists Association of Ireland? Well, no, never (in fact it had not even been established).

The only guidance that I recall about making a living after graduation was of the indirect variety. I remember distinctly that there was a very definite whiff of disapproval, combined with a kind of sniffy looking down upon the rare artist who might aspire to make a living from their work. Those who sold actual paintings were the bottom of this stinky pile. The notion of the brilliant, dedicated but starving artist eking out an existence in a leaky attic or neighbourhood garage making conceptual art was endorsed by our teachers. And because most were practising artists of one kind or another, I considered that it was implied, by their presence among us, that teaching was the only honourable way for an artist to make a living.

And so, I gave up painting, qualified as an art teacher, and became a practising performance artist. I used photography, and dabbled with teaching on and off. “Performance artist” just to be clear, means mostly that I stood naked in front of people and recited monologues.

Because of this, I travelled the world, got to show alongside Robert Maplethorpe and, by the end of the last century one of my iconic images was included in a book published by the Oxford University Press and was called ‘Beauty in Art, 1750 to the 2000’.

I knew I had made it then, because not only was my image the last one in the book, but I was erroneously described as British, and a short time later, I was described as dead. 

Now, as an artist, being declared dead, it doesn’t get much better than this, does it?

My current project. ‘From the River to the Sea’ is supported by a bursary from Wicklow County Arts Office. My plan is to create a small number of paintings on the balcony of Wicklow Library. 

Phase one of a project which started last summer and despite hitting a big bump on the road, I am hoping it will culminate in a solo show in that building at the end of this year.

I started it early last June and I decided during the application process to push myself way beyond my comfort zone as a painter by live streaming some of my painting sessions from the balcony on social media. While as an artist,  I am a veteran of Zoom, this live virtual engagement on Instagram was a first for me.

I hated myself the day I started it. I mean could I have made it any harder? But in the end, it was easy enough, and in fact, my world didn’t crumble.  

So, on reflection, I would think that the grant application process has made me consider my longer term goals and plan for the future in an uncertain world and as a result, it has been hugely positive. 

It is true that I often feel overwhelmed by what I’ve undertaken to do when my submission is successful. I do a fair bit of groaning when I consider my workload and commitments and often regret making the applications in the first place. But overall, I see these grant applications as essential to the process of pushing myself forward out of my comfort zone, and forcing me to take on challenging, ambitious new projects.

Before I sat down to write this, I searched out the letter that I wrote accompanying my most recent successful application for arts funding. 

I am astonished by what I find. The letter reads as cocky and precocious, promising that if I am awarded funding, I will use it with care and not only deliver it on schedule, but with aplomb.

Most people will agree that it doesn’t pay artists to be backwards about coming forwards, so I guess being cocky and precocious are necessary attributes for surviving as an artist. But for me, not being backwards about coming forward is a huge effort. It doesn’t come naturally to me.

Now I’d really appreciate if you didn’t laugh outright at this point. 

Those who know me well would argue my mother nailed it, when she gave me the nickname Máire Cock at the age of 18 months. But this cocky bum shuffler (I was never a toddler and didn’t walk until I was 3 and a half), feels like a very distant character. At the age of 4 or 5, just as I started in my local school, I developed a terrible stammer and that turned the confident and self-assured kid, into a quiet, reserved child, not willing to speak at all. Throughout my childhood and teenage years, I was mostly silent, awkward, watchful and shy. 

But a life without arms doesn’t allow for someone who wants to have any sort of existence in the real world to be either reticent or retiring or shy. As I grew, I retained my fierce sense of independence and self-reliance that was evident long before I could walk. Now, as I am looking forward next month to my sixty fifth  birthday, I consider my greatest artistic achievement to be making all kinds of art, consistently for well over four decades. 

Working with photography led me to performance.

Standing naked in front of people reciting monologues is a sure fire way to challenge the shy, retiring type to embrace a terrible stammer.

Now, on this Wednesday morning, as it is way past the time for breakfast and more like time for me to attend to harvesting the onions that I planted last spring, I consider that performance art made me who I am.

And for certain, going back to painting made me happy.