Two women have just been elected to the artists’ bodyAosdána: Shelley McNamara, the first architect to beadmitted to the group; and Amelia Stein, one of just afew Aosdána members to specialise in photography.They tell Gemma Tipton about their lives and works

The work of Amelia Stein(photographed right byCyril Byrne). This page,from top: ● OlwenFouéré, photographed topublicise the play Lessness● Stein’s shot for Dancingat Lughnasa. “Rather thanshowing a close-up of thecouple, I included thesecond sister looking onwith knowing and longing,and the third staring withthe same longing butdisengagement. In theatre,you have to tell the storyof the play in the photo”● In the 1990s, Israelairlifted Jews out ofEthiopia, and Stein visited“absorption centres” inIsrael shortly after theirarrival. “In this photo, Iwanted to put across theidea of one culture beingcarried by another”

S et up in 1981, Aosdánawas the brainchild ofthe writer AnthonyCronin, then cultural

adviser to the taoiseach of theday, Charles Haughey.Established by the Arts Council,it is an affiliation of artists“whose work has made anoutstanding contribution”,including writers, film-makers,musicians and, this year for thefirst time, an architect.

Aosdána now has 220members, although the poet andAosdána member Theo Dorganpoints out that “there are artistswho are not in who are at leastthe equals of their peers”.

Members may apply for astipend, called the cnuas, which,if they earn less than a certainamount of money, gives them¤12,180 each year (for five years),to make work as artists.

Perhaps it is the cnuas that isat the heart of some of thebegrudgery that has afflictedAosdána in the past, but it ismore likely to be that destructive“who do they think they are?”sense of aggression we typicallydirect at anyone appropriatelyhonoured for doing well.

Although funded by the ArtsCouncil, Aosdána is autonomousand self-electing; its firstmember, invited by Anthony

Cronin, was Samuel Beckett.Dorgan describes it as an“association of honour” with noparticular lobbying role,suggesting that it would be amistake to take on the role as aninfluencing group, except by“standards of commitment”.

With no official role, however,there is also a sense of a missedopportunity, an idea that thiscollective of brilliant artistsmight find a voice that would belistened to. There are some smallsigns of this.

At its recent general assembly,as well as electing 12 newmembers (including Stein andMcNamara), Aosdána notedtheir opposition to the proposedmoves of both the NationalCollege of Art and Design, inDublin, and the CrawfordCollege of Art, in Cork, tolocations outside theirrespective city centres.

These well-madeinterventions suggest that whilewe need to get used to beingproud of our exceptionalcitizens, they might alsoneed to get used to theresponsibilities that come withhonours.

A full list of Aosdána members isonline at www.artscouncil.ie/aosdana

CailíníDána

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AMELIA STEINWorking on a project to computerise her archive ofmore than 30,000 carefully filed photographs, AmeliaStein has come across some images of her parents.They are black-and-white photographs from the 1950s,showing a time that would otherwise be fading frommemory. “Look at this one,” she says as a picture of awoman picking a flower by the river at Powerscourtwaterfall, in Co Wicklow, comes up on screen. “Myfather took this of my mother. You can see how muchhe loves her from the way he has taken it, the way hehas composed it.” There is another image of Stein’smother, this time on a holiday in Bray. She is in herteens and stands with her sister on the stony beach,with Bray Head in the background. Fishing boats aredrawn up on the shingle. Stein points out her mother’shand, clenched with excitement, the smile on her

lipsticked lips. Noticing the importance of these detailsis one of the things that has made Stein such a brilliantphotographer herself. As Josephine Kelliher of Dublin’sRubicon Gallery, who shows Stein’s work, puts it: “Shesees through her subject to the heart of the matter.”

Stein’s father, Mendel, was an optician. For yearsStein’s was a well-known spot on Harcourt Road, Dublin2, with its famous eye-shaped shop front. Today Stein,who, as well as being a photographer, followed herfather into business as an optician, carries out her workon Grantham Street, Dublin 8. The link between thelens of a pair of glasses and the lens of a camera seemsan obvious one to make, so does she see a connectionbetween her two roles?

“If there is one, it’s about relationships. People cometo you with the hope that, whatever you’re going todo, you’re going to do it right. You’re going to listen tothem. The more time you spend listening to people,the better the job. It’s the same when you’rephotographing somebody for a portrait. You’re notgoing to walk in, photograph them and walk back out.”

It is this kind of understanding that has seen Steinphotograph actors and artists, musicians, writers andopera singers. As well as working with the Abbey, theGateand Wexford Festival Opera, she is working with anumber of rock musicians, in collaboration with thedesigner Steve Averill. She is also completing a series ofimages of Elvis Costello.

“You have to ask yourself what you are taking thephotographs for,” she says. “Is it for the here and now,for the newspaper we’re all rushing for on the day andthen it’s gone? Is it for an academic book that’s going continued overleaf

● Above: Much of Stein’s work has been in the theatre. “This is one ofmy favourite pictures, from The Bog of Cats. I adored the play. Hereare Tom Hickey and Fionnuala Murphy coming out onto the bog, she inher wedding dress . . . Monica Frawley’s set was so exterior, somagnificent – a gift to a photographer” ● Below: “This ornament sat inmy parents’ living room. She died first. He died three and a half yearslater. The house was closed up, and their whole life together had to beput away. This figure used to sit on the mantelpiece in their home. Nowshe dances out of the darkness in my photograph”

FEBRUARY 18, 2006 THE IRISH TIMES MAGAZINE 17

Continued from previous pageto be read by 300 people? Is it for a glossy coffee-tablebook? Or do you photograph the play so that you lookback on The Bog of Cats, for example, and say: ‘Thatwas an amazing drama’?”

Showing another image, this time of the artistStephen McKenna, Stein describes how she felt takingthe picture. Each of her photographs is a clear reminderto her of the moment it was taken.

It is only relatively recently in Ireland thatphotography has been seen as a valid art form, worthyof collection and exhibition. Josephine Kelliherdescribes the development. “Newer Irish art collectorsare finally following the trend, well established inEurope and the USA, in realising the value andcollectability of photography. Aosdána has invited intotheir membership some of the more important artistsworking in that medium. It’s exciting for everyone.”

In addition to artists whose work has includedphotography, such as Willie Doherty, Gene Lambertand Alice Maher, Stein remembers the late FergusBourke as a member of Aosdána. “He is the great Irish

photographer, and my hero. He’s a tremendous loss; I’mwondering when the big book on him will be done.”

Stein is planning her own big book, a publicationbased on the series of photographs she took at thePalm House in the National Botanic Gardens. Showingsome images, she picks out the velvetiness of theleaves, the contrast in the spine of a frond, certainplants and stalks and the way the light catches them.

Alongside Brendan Sayers, John Banville is to writethe text. “He is one of the people who writes bestabout photography,” says Stein.

Stein came to photography by way of her father’sinterest. “My dad always had a camera, and I liked it. It’skind of an obsession. You fall in love with it, and youlearn along the way.” Her work is now consideredalongside that of the most significant artists in Ireland.“If my parents were alive,” she says, considering herelection to Aosdána, “it would be an honour that youcould take to them, that you could say: ‘It was you whotrusted me enough to do this.’ ” ◆

See Amelia Stein’s work on www.rubicongallery.ie

SHELLEY McNAMARA“One of the important questions about a building is:How does it make you feel? Does it engender a senseof well-being? Does it lift the spirit?” says ShelleyMcNamara, the first architect to be elected toAosdána. At a time when people are excited about theworld’s incredible art galleries, and simultaneouslysceptical of the anonymous apartment and officeblocks and the tracts of ill-considered suburbanhousing, it’s an interesting moment for an architect tobe so honoured.

At Grafton Architects’ offices in Dublin, models forbuildings, both built and imagined, are fascinating andbeautiful sculptures of Perspex and wood. On the walls,intricate plans and dramatic photographs show howsome of these models have come into being as realoffices, schools, galleries, theatres and homes.

Born in Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare, McNamara grew upin the west of Ireland. She describes her interest inarchitecture as coming from a family tradition; herfather was a builder. “And once you get into it,” shesays, “you’re hooked.” McNamara graduated fromUniversity College Dublin’s school of architecture in1974. “Things weren’t so bad in the 70s,” sheremembers. “It was in the 1980s that we had nothing.Yvonne [Farrell] and I set up our practice with only oneyear’s experience of working in an office. It was a crazything to do.”

Crazy or not, McNamara and Farrell developed apractice that has influenced the shape ofcontemporary Ireland. So do they have a particularstyle? “There are connections between one project andthe next,” McNamara explains, “but our practice ismore to do with a way of thinking than a style. We’realways trying to push boundaries.”

Many of us come to famous buildings, those icons ofarchitecture, by way of photographs, the coffee-tablebooks and Sunday-supplement spreads of the latestplaces in New York, Cork, Los Angeles or London. Butbeyond the glossy photographs, architecture is alsosomething that affects every aspect of how we live,work and relax, and although a building might lookamazing in a book, someone also has to work in it,sometimes to live in it.

“It’s a thing that struck me recently,” says McNamara.“I was visiting someone in an apartment block, and Iheard children laughing. I realised that wasn’t normal inan apartment building in Dublin. These kids werevisiting, and their laughter took me by surprise. InMarseilles, when I visited Le Corbusier’s apartmentbuilding, the kids were riding their bicycles down thecorridors into the lifts, which they take up to therooftop, where they have a place to play.”

McNamara is excited by such buildings as a sciencecentre that seems to defy gravity, in Wolfsburg,

● Top: Palm House in the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin ● Left:Elvis Costello, with whom she has a long-standing friendship, during hiscollaboration with the Brodsky Quartet ● Above: the artist StephenMcKenna. “Stephen invited me to his house, and the photos were madeafter a very good lunch. He was the one who spoke for me at Aosdána”

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