Bringing passion and imagination to Athlone

"We've brought dragons to Italy, 15ft street puppets to Luxembourg, stilt-walkers and fire breathers to France." So goes the life of Athlone woman Sandy Hughes, Manager of Tonnta, Athlone's street theatre and community arts group that adds colour, vibrancy and thrills to many festivals, parades and carnivals around Athlone, Ireland and Europe. It's obvious that Sandy's leadership skills, determination and talent has helped to keep Tonnta alive and relevant since its formation 16 years ago in 1994. It originally was a local FÁS initiative. "There was originally a larger group, around 12 to 15 of us part-time. We were based at the Docks where the old Methodist church was, before it become La Chateau restaurant. Mrs Hanley gave us that, it was a fabulous space. Then we moved to Grace Park Road, thanks to Athlone Town Council and we still use that place now, and store all our stuff in there, and then we have the sewing rooms here," said Sandy, indicating her house and workshop on Retreat Road where everyone gathers to brainstorm. Now Tonnta is funded through a Pobáil community development programme and the five staff are fulltime. Ideas and inspiration comes from everyone involved, Sandy said it's essential that people work well together. "Everything is done on a group basis, there's no point unless people want to do it. The process is everybody's input." While funds are limited, creativity is infinite, and Sandy is a huge believer in 'waste not, want not'. "I like to recycle as much as we can. We need to reuse objects or there would be no room. From costumes to puppets' costumes, you can't just throw things out. I've been doing recycling for years before it was popular," she laughed, listing off the second-hand shops, charity shops and pound shops in town she uses to source materials and props. From St Patrick's Day parades in Athlone to the famous Notting Hill Carnival, Tonnta has a breadth of experience in performance art and multi-cultural celebration. This is something Sandy relishes and notes as the best experiences in her career. "I get rejuvenated by working with other people. You learn new ways, new concepts and ideals. I feel very privileged... Athlone parades are just fantastic, the Notting Hill has an audience of nearly two million and you're parading for eight hours, that can be fun." After attending Our Lady's Bower until Inter Cert, Sandy transferred to Athlone Community College, however they didn't teach art so her former teacher from the Bower arranged for Sandy to take her classes in Summerhill College. Sandy then studied graphic art in college, both in England and Ireland. "I was always interested in costume but the training here in the graphics course was excellent," she said. "For me it's about being accurate. If you're doing something then do it to the best of your ability. I wanted to do fashion design for theatre and that's kinda what I'm doing now... From day dot, I knew exactly what I was going to do." She stressed the importance of being disciplined and professional even though she's in a career notorious for its flaky, scattered approach by some. "Sometimes it's nice to be disciplined. If the performers are booked for 2pm, there's no point in arriving at 4pm. Whether the weather is good or bad, we still show up. It's up to those who booked us to cancel, not me. Discipline is good. We still have deadlines, we need to be professional." Sandy's colourful career has allowed her to travel far and wide, yet she still manages to be active within the local community, teaching classes and exhibiting work. Whether it's after-school projects with Athlone Community Taskforce and Harmony, painting a mural with the students of St Hilda's or running craft workshops in Brideswell, Sandy appreciates the experiences gained by working with a broad range of people. She loves working with kids because of their imagination and with older people in Loughloe House or St Vincent's or active retirement groups, because they enjoy getting stuck in! Now Sandy and her co-workers are working on the Euro Festival, taking place in Athlone the last week in July, when 14 other European countries will visit the town to take part in sports competitions, culture, music and the arts. Tonnta has in return, travelled to many of these participating countries as part of the Athlone contingent. This year, Tonnta is organising a fringe festival, making a 20ft dragon with trainees in Cornamaddy's Work Therapy Unit and hosting an art exhibition. Puppets can be made in a week, depending on the size, however carnival costumes can be "quite fiddly" to make, with the sequins and detail needed. Satire, mockery, beauty, story-telling and nature are all used to inspire Tonnta's projects. However, with the Irish jobs the group has an unlimited resource of inspirational material. "We could never bring Podge and Rodge to Luxembourg, or Dustin the turkey with Dana or the heads of Brian Cowen, Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore. Irish humour and culture is different, I like it." After the Euro Festival, Sandy will turn her thoughts to Athlone's Halloween parade, when things can get really "macabre". Halloween parades are her favourite. "Anything goes, we can have puppets from Michael Jackson to goblins in all shapes and sizes... You can go over the top and we'll be getting the kids involved to paint the puppets. We could even have a puppet with three heads, you can make them as scary as you like, kids love to be scared!" After nearly two decades in her job of parades, carnivals, imagination and creativity, Sandy, not surprisingly, remains enthralled. "I love it, I never get bored of it," she beamed. "There was a parade in Mullingar a few weeks ago, a sports one, and we'd two puppets in it and we just joined in, it was great fun." In fact, she's so passionate about the arts and accessibility to the arts, she's proud of the fact that she once had one of her paintings stolen from a premises in Athlone where it was on exhibition. "I'm up there with the likes of Picasso," she laughed.