“Over tea that evening, there were many opinions as to why the Blackbird was now silent”.
by Rose Rushe
‘MATHILDA and the Belligerent Blackbird’ is a Cat’s Tale by artist Carl Doran whose homely yet elegant narratives to his art have led to book format. Whilst a handful only of copies of this vellum soft-back was created so far, expect a publishing launch in six months time – probably from Askeaton, prowling ground of the resourceful feline Mathilda.
If Carl Doran is a new name to you, and visiting galleries not your pulse, you may well have been one of the pet lovers who went along to his Cats’ Tales art show in Sarsfield Street.
“50 per cent of the people who saw it would not got to shows at all,” he recalls with a chuckle. “‘Mathilda and the Belligerent Blackbird’ is a series evolving from the writing information that went on the panels for each work in that exhibition, biographical pieces about each cat’s identity, as with a person”.
His gorgeous suite of art in collage, paintings, drawings was dedicated to the cats in his eyes, a feral population that clings to his riverside cottage in Thomondgate. Love for them is heartfelt, knowledge of their wild and unpredictable scope chronicled.
“The loss of a four legged friend is the same as the loss of a two legged friend. That’s my belief”. It stems from a cat-friendly upbringing in Mullingar. LSAD trained here, Doran is co-ordinator at Contact Studios off Mulgrave Street and teaches art therapy.
What’s the story with Mathilda? It emerges that she belongs to Askeaton Contemporary Arts curator Michele Horrigan – that festival programme is in progress again until July 12. “I stayed out there with Michele and Sean [Lynch, husband and artist] for last year’s festival. Each day this blackbird was harassing poor ould Mathilda and we heard the racket going on….
“And then it ceased”.
More laughter. He went on to make a ‘whodunnit’ of the episode, the belligerent one not seen or heard since. Quote from the book: “Over tea that evening, there were many opinions as to why the Blackbird was now silent”. Illustrations – one per page turned – are prints of Doran’s, scaled to pique the plot.
Skippy the Cat is next in line for public notice, she whose kittens perished one snowy winter. “Possibly a story on Squealer, or maybe Squinter” and definitely one on Cáit, the momma of many whose death was wounding for him. “The stories are getting darker,” he states and agrees cheerfully with reference to Aesop, whose fables were a formative influence.
Digest on www.carldoran.ie until a publishing deal is done for this collectible whimsy.
