A passion for art

Art, design and creation have been at the heart of Phyl Staunton's life in Athlone, since she first came to the town 40 odd years ago. She is a native of Stranorlar, Co. Donegal, where her father was the station master, and her family lived in a house attached to the local railway station. Phyl went to school on a steam train, on a two-mile journey, before she walked another twenty-minute journey, uphill, to her primary school. She liked sowing from a very young age, and made many of her own clothes, which she was encouraged to do so, by her mother, and her father, who Phyl said was very good with upholstery, woodwork, and sowing. "My father was very handy, and he picked up a lot of ideas of making things during the war, and he could do anything, and I was lucky because my aunts, who were tailoresses and dressmakers, showed me how to cut out dresses, and I made jackets and lots of other clothes," said Phyl. Phyl always had a great eye for colour and loved ladies tartan trousers particularly, and was always watching the development of fashion when she was growing up in Donegal. After school, Phyl went to the Grafton Academy for fashion design in Dublin, and was influenced by fashion doyennes like Sybil Connolly and Irene Gilbert, and later on Mary Quant. At this time, Phyl was continuing to make her own coats and other clothes, and was doing knitting and crocheting, and was buying material from the many shops that supplied such back in the 1960s. Phyl finished her degree in the Grafton Academy and was working for a design company in Dublin, when she answered an advert to work in the Athlone Apparel. "I wanted to move out of Dublin and do something different, so I took up a designer job with the Apparel, and the factory hadn't long opened," she said. Phyl quickly got into the social fabric of Athlone, and joined the badminton and tennis clubs shortly after she came to live in the town. The badminton club met in the Ganly Hall, and had many members, and was particularly popular with the young community in Athlone at the time. Phyl's preference was for badminton rather than tennis, and she toured the country with the Athlone team to Westmeath league and Connaught league tournaments. "It was a great sport, and I had a great interest in it, and met some wonderful people through the game," said Phyl. She continued playing until she had her first child in 1979, although she returned for a short time afterwards. Phyl met her husband, William, who is a native of Castlebar, at a dance in the Crescent ballroom in Athlone. William is a well known accountant, in Athlone, and the couple went on to have three children, James, Alan and Triona, all of whom are grown up. "Neither William nor I are from Athlone, but we like it here, and wherever you go to live, you should make the best of it," said Phyl. She fell into painting and artistry, which probably came as follow-on from her clothes design, and fashion interests. She was heavily influenced in her early paintings by the mountains of Donegal, near where she grew up, and she also loved painting the autumn colours of local places, like the greenery of Beechpark West. "I always loved art, but you know I didn't think it was possible that you could draw, and have people buy your work," said Phyl. "I worked on oils in an art course that was on in Athlone RTC back in the 80s, and I got into the Athlone Arts group at the time. In the Arts group, the members were given some classes from artist, Barbara Kavanagh, who lived in Athlone at the time." Phyl used the Athlone Arts Group as an inspiration to her, for her artistry, and along with completing various art courses; she became a prolific and popular artist. She originally painted in a spare bedroom in her house, and in recent years, she converted an old snooker room into an art studio. The studio is purpose-built for her work, and has a lot of natural light coming from its windows. "You have to have an art room where you can leave behind your things and walk away from them," she said. "I painted at night when the children went to bed, until nearly midnight, and I started out doing landscapes, and I was inspired by the work of artists like William Turner, who was very well-known for his depiction of water scenes and sun-rises." Phyl felt that she needed some further tuition to advance her artistic skills, and she did an Open University course on fine art, for two years. At the end of the second year, Phyl exhibited her artwork with the other students, in the Bankside Gallery, in London. She then took on a further six years of part-time study at the Galway Mayo Institute of Technology, doing Fine Art Painting. She found this course amazing, and did drawings, still life, and went on to do a lot of abstract drawing, some of which she sold. "It's important to do different things as you go through life, and I did sowing and design, badminton, art and lately I've gotten into photography," said Phyl. William bought Phyl a present of a digital camera, which helped her develop photography as a new hobby, and she is an active member of the Athlone Photography Club. "There is a very high standard of photography in the club," she said. However she is always pulled back to artwork, because she prefers the easel and canvas, and although it's a difficult hobby, and becoming more difficult to sell work at the moment, she feels it's worth the effort. She works a lot on abstract these days, which she says is about "opening up your mind," and she likes drawing on mixed media or with watercolours. She has also done some beautiful paintings set in peat bogs, many of which feature flowers and cranberries in the bogs, which she finds sell very well. Phyl was a member of Westmeath Arts Movement (WAM) in Mullingar, which was a great group for local artists. The website, http://www.wam.ie shows a sample of Phyl's beautiful artwork, mostly scenery. She has exhibited her work many times in many places, including at the Dean Crowe Theatre, but she hasn't yet had a solo exhibition, although she intends to do so some day. "It's easy to sell scenic pictures outside of Dublin, but I have sold some abstract pictures, and I like sketching, but prefer to paint nowadays, and when you are drawing you are lost in another world," said Phyl. She has also exhibited with groups in the Passionfruit Theatre, the Art gallery in Ballinahown, and the Hazel gallery in Ballynacargy. "I'd like to develop my art again from where I'm at now. I get a picture out of my head, or an idea comes from a scene, or a memory or picture I might have taken. The paint does the work, and rather than forcing it, I just let it carry on," said Phyl.