Spotlight - Cathy Henderson
"Dealing with the physical challenges I have had since my accident has made me more determined to make progress with my creative endeavours"
In October 2002 I had been a professional artist for several years and I had established an independent studio with a print workshop and gallery space and I was also teaching part-time when I had a serious road accident in which my right leg was crushed. Afterwards I had a hospital stay of several months followed by a series of complicated reconstructive operations over the following six years. Ultimately the reconstructive work has not been a success and I am currently due to have my leg amputated and a prosthetic fitted in the next couple of months.
Throughout the period of recovery, having a creative outlet was of tremendous benefit to me. Being able to turn my mental energy towards making pictures really prevented me from being overwhelmed by the physical difficulties and frustrations of a long recovery. Having that creative outlet – even a mental one - was enormously reassuring as it kept me absorbed; my mind stimulated and occupied in a focussed and positive way. The drive to continually focus on ideas for pictures felt vital to me.
I had been working on large canvases around the time of the accident (around 4 x 5 feet) but afterwards for practical reasons, I naturally had to work on a much smaller scale to begin with. I had never much liked working on small pictures but I did find the change in approach stimulating and the enforced adjustments gave a creative drive to my work. I just had to think about what I was doing in different ways. Early on I had some paints and canvas brought into the ward and I made pictures of other patients, visitors and staff. I felt an urge to get back to painting and dwelt a great deal on ideas and approaches in my mind when I wasn’t up to actually drawing or painting.
I had always primarily been a painter but I had also been growing more absorbed by different printmaking disciplines; mostly by relief printmaking but also by etching. While I loved printmaking I had always found the process a kind of exacting labour for which I had rather limited patience, however following these long periods of hospitalisation and low physical activity I found my patience enormously increased.
With the aid of a grant from The Art Councils Arts and Disability Award scheme, I took an inspiring workshop with the Chinese artist, Wang Chao, at the Belfast printmakers workshop. I learned a great deal from him about technique and approach. I began working on a series of woodblock prints using images from what I saw each day: the cherry tree outside the window, crows, starlings, rooftops viewed from the train window. I could sit at my bench to work on these and the slow exacting process of cutting the block required a lot of concentration but not much actual creative energy, once the initial drawing was done and I found it very absorbing and enjoyable. Because I couldn’t sit at my easel to paint for long at a stretch it also helped me physically to be able to switch from painting at my easel to working on a wood block.
I made a series of prints which I editioned and showed at the Art and Disability Forums gallery in Belfast. I felt a strong sense of achievement in learning and refining those techniques and completing the prints. Around this time I was spending a lot more time painting though as my health was improving and I was gradually becoming more mobile.
My longest stretch in hospital had been at St Vincents Hospital where I became familiar with a long corridor lined with rather dark antique portraits representing senior consultants and board members from the hospital’s past. With the notable exception of Mother Mary Aikenhead, the hospital’s founder, all these pictures were of men. Although undoubtedly good and worthy people who were deserving of recognition, I felt the balance needed to be redressed in favour of the large number of anonymous hospital support workers I saw everyday. I hoped to do such a series in St. Vincents or Tallaght Hosptial where I had spent long spells but it was in fact St James’s where, with support funding from ADF and Evans Arts Supplies, it eventually went ahead.
Just before the hospital series I had completed a series of portraits of Dublin City Council’s cleansing workers - on a similar theme of acknowledging the anonymous workers on whom we all depend to keep things clean and functioning. As with the St James’s series, each portrait comprised a painting and a recording of an interview with the sitter in which they present themselves in their own words. Both these exhibitions were successful in terms of sales and have brought more attention to my work and have lead to a number of commissions.
It took a long time to get these institiutions to agree to support these projects but both series were ultimately very well received and the overall response was overwhelmingly positive. I am currently starting a structured evaualtion process of the St James’s series to document the response of staff, management, visitors and patients to the exhibition and to try and assess the value of such a project in a major health care establishment.
In 2006 and 2008 I took part in the Great Northern arts festival in the Canadian arctic and have recently undertaken a number of artist-in-residence projects including three recent workshops through the Arts Council Artist in Prison Scheme and a two month residential project in the Yukon Territory in Canada.
I feel my stubborness to deal with the physical challenges I have had since my accident has made me more determined to make progress with my creative endeavours. I have had periods of deep frustration and a number of setbacks in my recovery but along with all the support I have had from my friends and family, I am convinced that having a drive to make art and outlet has been really crucial factor in my recovery and continued well-being.
Cathy Henderson lives and works in North Wicklow. She graduated with an MA from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin in 1993. Her work is included in an increasing number of private and public collections in Ireland, the UK, the US and Canada and she has worked to commission for many private and corporate clients including the ESB, Guinness, Bank Of Ireland and the BBC.
