Carr returns to old stomping ground for Bluett's exhibition

Recently Eamon Carr returned to his old stomping ground and dropped into Syd Bluett's exhibition of type-based paintings in the Courthouse in Kells.

Carr grew up in the Meath town, one of five members of the Carr family born to Mary and Joe Carr in Carrick Street, Kells. His mother came from the local Ginnity family that also included Fintan, who served as chairman of the Meath GAA Co Board for 20 years, as well as Kevin, Vinny and the well-known comedian Noel V Ginnity.

Eamon moved on to carve out a niche in the history of modern Irish music by becoming the founder and drummer of the distinctive, ground-breaking band Horslips.

He also worked in a variety of other roles including writer, journalist, poet, playwright and art historian. He is also the author of the very highly regarded 'Showbusiness with Blood: A Golden Age of Irish Boxing.'

Syd Bluett is a sign painter, cover designer of books and records. He also describes himself as "an occasional writer, book publisher, editor and reviewer."

Bluett designed album sleeves for a variety of well-known bands in the 1970s and '80s such as the Bothy Band. He has a particular interest in the painting and restoring of old shop front signs.

From Kilkenny he began painting letter and images on wood when he was 14. He has been an art director for many Irish magazines, including In Dublin, Magill, Technology Ireland, Image and Image Interiors, Wine Ireland and It's Friday.

He has, as his website underlines, "hand printed and sometimes hand-cut - and gilded - many Dublin city signs and fascias" most notably for Marsh's Library and St Warburg's Church in Dublin's historic quarter, Books Upstairs in D'Olier Street, McCormack's Celtic Jewellers among other well-known locations.

Bluett's exhibition continues until Thursday 22nd August with the doors open from Monday to Friday, 9-5 and Saturdays, 9-4.

Syd Bluett's life & career - in his own words

I was born 1951 in Kilkenny. My father, a shoe-factory worker and part-time sports physio, who had beautiful copperplate handwriting and could draw things, died when I was 10.

I was a loner and often in trouble for being late for school, dawdling to watch tradespeople working, picking up on tricks they had: signwriters especially as they painted beautiful swirly livery on vans and lorries for local business such as Smithwick’s Brewery and Molloy’s Bread, and Kilkenny Remoulds. Sometimes the painters would let me paint little parts. In exchange, I also learned from them how to clean their paintbrushes…

The first and only ‘formal painting’ lesson I had was when I wandered in off the street one day and saw a man in a wheelchair up on stage in Kilkenny’s Friary Hall. He was Christy Brown, the unhappy star of a Disabled Artists tour. All I needed to do was watch him work.

Unfortunately, at that time, it turned out that I was too strategic at studying for school exams, and won a scholarship to Rochestown Capuchin College in Cork and, dammit, then had to go there.

Thereafter I spent some short years at Trinity College, Dublin, as a hopeless student, and left that to go working on the railway, and meanwhile also got into promoting concerts with Gerry Harford (now manager of Therapy!) and, knowing no designers, I began hand-drawing posters myself for the concerts. I also painted occasional small shop signs and notices for people.

And that’s how I became a wide-ranging self-taught graphic designer and print illustrator, becoming so unexpectedly successful that I found myself with enough spare money to try publishing books – of other people’s cartoons, and poetry and a book about art.

I guess I would have designed hundreds of album covers and book covers during those years…

I then switched to laying out magazines and ended up being Art Director of Image magazine. After that I worked on other magazines, finally on a weekend magazine for the Evening Herald – and being made redundant in 2007, just in time for the Recession.

There was no work for me anywhere, and in 2009 I went on the Dole and then luckily got myself onto a Fás course, for – signwriting!

There I learned that I already knew most of the course basics, since childhood in Kilkenny, and thus, with concentrated practise, became a qualified working signwriter.

I painted and hand-cut many signs in Dublin. My goal while doing them was to make them look as if they had always been there (not too slick or flashy or graphic-designish). That involved teaching myself some other decorative-art tricks, which, I then discovered, could, when all combined, be used in one-off paintings on wood: paintings that I could paint, frame, exhibit and sell.

Which is what I do now.

My paintings are a mixture of lettering and illustrations and architecture-drawings (ideally I would have liked to be an architect). And most of them are cheerful.

Life nowadays, for a lot of people, is glum and the future looks mighty threatening for various reasons. Problems are too enormous and too global for any ordinary individual to fix.

I don’t believe there’s any use in reflecting or reinforcing that outlook. That would be too easy.

My function, I believe, is entertaining people, reminding them how to smile, if only wryly.