Rathlin Island art adventures

I recently got the fantastic opportunity to facilitate four childrens' art workshops as part of the Celtic Festival of the Sea, on Rathlin Island off the coast of Ballycastle.
Rathlin is a small island about 7 miles long and home to around 80 people. The centre of the island is at the harbour where the Manor House, above, greets visitors and the island bus ferries them along the singular road to the RSPB bird reserve at the West Lighthouse, the highest point of land. There is one shop, a tiny poorly stocked cabin open only a few hours a day, one bar - open all hours of the day! - and one restaurant. Its sheer lack of civilisation and its remoteness was so refreshing - people leave cars unlocked with keys inside, childen run amok like they own the place and seals lie basking along the coast ! Everyone was so friendly and the place exuded a real sense of community that you rarely come across in normal life.

My brief for the kids workshops was to help them to build lanterns and model boats to take part in the finale of the festival, the launch of a currach being built (above) in front of the Manor House by artist Holger Lonze. I decided we would make lanterns inspired by Celtic art, a dragonboat (above) based on the traditional Viking longboat and a swan boat inspired by the myth of the Children of Lir who reputedly swam in the surrounding sea. The photo really doesn't do the lanterns justice - they were very effective, especially with light inside. We used willow to form the fish shapes, covered with tissue and PVA glue to form the transparent layer - this layer then had Celtic patterns stuck on using string to create silhouttes against the light and washes of watery paint to colour and gold acrylic to detail. The dragonboat and swanboat were also made using willow and layers of waxed paper with PVA. Hard work!

The kids were absolutely brilliant to work with - the three pictures above working on the dragonboat were the real die-hards! I found the experience really inspiring and refreshing in so many ways; the beauty and remoteness of the location, the closeness and relationship to the sea, the pride that the people of the island take in their community, their history and folklore, and the small glimpse I got into the art work that Holger does and the effect it has had on those involved in some of his projects.
An amazing weekend for me - I didn't want to get the ferry home...