Mark Garry
In this talk Mark gave an insight into his methodology of getting a piece made, and spoke about both his public and non public art pieces. We got the artist’s perspective about Public Art projects from Mark. Mark has a lot of installation work and so he gave discussed how he brings his installations all together.
He discussed some of his artworks with us. For one piece in the mattress Factory in Pittsburgh he gave us an insight into the materials he used and the costs and logistics etc. 80 colours of threads, 3.50 each, the cost of transport, installation etc.He makes use of the help of assistants, in this piece he used 3 assistants for 12 days.
He discussed his public art project “Sending Letters to the Sea” and he said that this was an unusual model for public art, as the artist is usually given a specific place for example a motorway and asked to work around it. The brief was to respond to Fingal and to suggest, physically or theoretically, facets of Fingal’s society, culture, heritage, and geography and to widen the idea of public art and role of the local authority as a commissioner of new practices.
Mark wanted to connect in a local context but also have the scope to communicate with a much broader world in general as well as Fingal. Mark has done a lot of research in Ireland’s culturally Catholic tradition. He looked at the connections between music and religious celebration from different perspectives. This became a collaborative musical project that included pieces of Mark’s research. His title was inspired by a Mexican artist who “sent” a letter to the “ocean” every day which were all either returned to him or not, related to the idea of faith. Mark brought together a diverse collection of musicians and released a a CD recorded in St. Columba’s Church, which made it kind of repetitive, meditative in nature. The whole thing was realized as part of Fingal CoCo’s series of public art commissions, funded by the Government’s Per Cent for Art Scheme. I found this project interesting as it broadened people’s perceptions of public art as being about big sculptures, etc. It interested me that this more unusual medium of art practice was widely acknowledged as Public Art. It was interesting how he didn’t respond directly or predictably to the brief.
Another piece which shows Mark’s interest in music as an artform that brings people together in a mixture of geographic, social and historical influences is an outdoor performance on Sherkin Island -“Drift”. Mark Garry, and composer, Sean Carpio, worked with a boat builder on Sherkin Island to turn a wooden sail boat into a floating Aeolian wind harp. Access to this performance was by a special ferry only.
There were problems with money according to Mark, for this project and there were 3 commissioners for the project to find a way of paying for it. Time span was 2 years which is a “bad amount of time compared to the 35000 budget.
I like how he makes a lot of his public art projects truly public, involving a wide variety of craftspeople and making exciting community events out of them.
Wind Harps is a permanent public art work commissioned by Leitrim County Council, it is four aeolian wind harps in the River Shannon, Co. Leitrim. 
For this project, Mark went to New Mexico to windharp maker. He researched a lot- the Greeks invented the windharp in the 6th century and they were popular in the renaissance and then they disappeared for a while. He learnt marine engineering as it was cheaper to DIY than getting a contractor. He talked to the county council about how deep the water was, how soft the clay was, the river bed, etc. For this particular project there was a budget of 110,000, and Mark got to keep a substantial portion of this, as he was the artist, designer, and engineer all in one, however he needed qualified engineers to sign off on it and had to source materials as far afield as California.
He was full of helpful hints for us, as young artists if we ever want to apply for a public art commission. He talked about how the artist is usually asked to break down the budget before a job and to make sure that you as an artist are sufficiently paid, as a lot of young artists forget to factor this in. Take about 20 to 30 percent of the fee. Instead of using contractors in the city go to the countryside as they’re usually about half the price. There are a lot of little factors artists forget about- per diems (people working for you), administration, phone calls, etc.
Mark has released music by independent musicians as part of his curatorial practice., including A Generous Act recorded in the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh. Mark was a member of a band called A=apple which performed in a number of conventional music venues and mainly art institutions. I admire his diverse art practice.
katieewing 