TED RYAN: Me and my art
Art has always been a big part of
my life, and I have drawn and painted for as long as I can remember, but I have
never earned a living from producing or making art.
I qualified with a degree in Art
and Design, undertaking supplementary and post graduate qualifications in design
and community learning my initial employment was in education, youth and
community work, and later community development and regeneration.
I had a number of exhibitions in
the late 70s and into the 80s but my substantive income was not from art.
Being engaged to develop and
manage public projects, supporting community led programmes and project, managing
community learning programmes, Saturday and holiday learning opportunities for
primary aged children, ensured that I reduced by ‘formal’ involvement in art
activity.
Some of my community engagement
ensured I remained involved with other arts activity. I have worked on stage
design and production management on a feature film and a community festival,
and on community arts production within local and city-wide communities.
While my substantive, paid work
took up significant time, my art was always lurking in the background. I used
art whenever I could in community events, and continued to draw, paint and
build sculptures whenever the opportunity rose. Time was the enemy - time spent
on earning a living or time spent on art - art always suffered, and over a
period of 30 years I have been restricted to small sketches, hardly completing
a final piece, while starting lots of them.
Here therefore is a selection of
drawings form the distant past, 1970s to some recent experiments with colouring
felt pens.
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Middle room 1975
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Carlton Avenue, Liverpool 1977
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City Scape 1982
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| 1984 |
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Newtown Row 1984
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WWI Welsh Troops 1986
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Ireland Road 1999
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After the Tornado 2005
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Digital Cafe 2009
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Christmas Card proposal 2010
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Child and Coca Cola fridge 2012
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| We will remember them 2015 |
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Just sitting here 2021
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| 2021 |
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Green Lady 1984
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