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PUNK PIGEONS BY PAUL GONNELLY IS AN EXAMPLE PAINT-A-BOX STREET ART IN CONTEXT

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NEAR 30 MANOR STREET – THE PIGEON HOUSE

On Manor Street in Stoneybatter, a traffic light control box features “Punk Pigeons,” a vibrant piece of street art by Paul Gonnelly. This work, part of the Dublin Canvas ‘Paint-a-Box’ project, is a colourful tribute to the area’s well-known, and often pesky, pigeon population.

The artwork is inspired by a complex local story. A nearby house at 30 Manor Street became informally known as the “Pigeon House” due to a resident who enthusiastically fed the local feral pigeons. Over time, the excess food also attracted rats, leading some to dub it the “Rat House.” Gonnelly’s art playfully references this notorious piece of Stoneybatter history.

This specific location has a history of artistic transformation. “Punk Pigeons” is the latest piece to adorn the box, having replaced Joseph O’Connor’s ‘This is Cowtown’ (2020) and, before that, ‘Batterbricks’ by Cathal McCoy (2015-2020), showcasing the dynamic nature of public art.

I’M A TEAPOT – IT IS ACTUALLY THE NEWELL TEAPOT OR IF YOU PREFER THE UTAH TEAPOT

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LOCATED NEAR THE SMITHFIELD TRAM STOP

  1. HTTP Status Code 418 I’m a Teapot. In the context of web development, the HTTP Status Code 418 I’m a Teapot is a client error response code that indicates that the server refuses to brew coffee because it is, permanently, a teapot. This code is often used as a joke or a way to indicate that the server is not functioning properly. It is not a standard HTTP status code, but it is recognized by many web browsers and servers.
  2. Children’s Nursery Rhyme. The phrase “I’m a Teapot” is also the opening line of a popular children’s nursery rhyme. The rhyme is about a teapot that is short and stout and can be picked up and poured out. It is often used to teach young children about the basic parts of a teapot.

The two meanings of “I’M A Teapot” are often combined in memes and jokes about the internet. For example, a programmer might say “The server is throwing a 418 I’m a Teapot error,” which is a way of saying that the server is being difficult or refusing to cooperate.

  1. The real explanation. This is located in Smithfield, Dublin rather than Smithfield [Utah]. It is close to the LUAS Tram Stop.

The Smithfield Square Lower commission invited artists to propose an artwork that promotes meaningful interaction between people and place through contemporary sculptural practice. It asked artists to consider how public sculpture can define a space and re-focus people’s attention, enabling a deeper and enduring relationship between residents, workers, tourists, commuters and a city-centre neighbourhood.

The Utah teapot, or the Newell teapot, is a 3D test model that has become a standard reference object and an in-joke within the computer graphics community. It is a mathematical model of an ordinary Melitta-brand teapot that appears solid with a nearly rotationally symmetrical body. Using a teapot model is considered the 3D equivalent of a “Hello, World!” program, a way to create an easy 3D scene with a somewhat complex model acting as the basic geometry for a scene with a light setup. Some programming libraries, such as the OpenGL Utility Toolkit,even have functions dedicated to drawing teapots.

The teapot model was created in 1975 by early computer graphics researcher Martin Newell, a member of the pioneering graphics program at the University of Utah. It was one of the first to be modelled using bézier curves rather than precisely measured.

Alan Butler is an artist living and working in Dublin. Educated at NCAD, Dublin and LaSalle College of the Arts, Singapore, he works across a range of media to primarily explore digital cultures and video games. His work has been exhibited widely in museums, galleries and arts festivals around the world, and is part of many collections, including The Irish Museum of Modern Art, The National Gallery of Ireland, and the Arts Council of Ireland. He is part of the multi-disciplinary collective Annex, which will represent Ireland at the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2021.

Note: Smithfield is a city in Cache County, Utah, United States. The population was 9,495 at the 2010 United States Census, with an estimated population of 12,025 in 2019. It is included in the Logan, Utah-Idaho Metropolitan Statistical Area, and is the second largest city in the area after Logan, the county seat.

ORIGIN BY ANA DUNCAN

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SCULPTURE IN CONTEXT 2023 CATALOGUE REFERENCE No 5

Over the years I have come to recognise Ana’s sculpture and I find her work to be attractive but this was somewhat different to what I have seen before (maybe because it is not bronze).

Ana Duncan was born in Dublin. She works primarily in bronze and ceramic from her studio in Churchtown. Though the female figure has been a subject of focus, a recent body of work was inspired by patterns and forms in the natural world. Her main influences are the work of Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Botero, Picasso, F.E McWilliam, among others, and the simplicity of Brancusi.

POEM BY JO SLADE AND SCULPTURE BY SIMON DONNELLY

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MALAHIDE AUGUST 2023

Today when I visited Malahide I came across an number of wood sculptures and I assumed that they were by the well known Richie Clarke but when I checked on Google Maps they are shown as being by Simon Donnelly. Unfortunately I cannot locate any information relation to Simon Donnelly. There is a Simon Donnelly who is a static and kinetic sculptor based in Dublin and he may be a member of Visual Artists Ireland.

Painter-poet Jo Slade is a Limerick-based writer who studied at the Limerick National College of Art and Design. Her painting informs and colours her poetry and her work has been exhibited in both France and Ireland. Jo Slade’s collections of poetry include In Fields I Hear Them Sing (1989), The Vigilant One (1994) and Certain Octobers (1997), which featured English and French poetry. Her work has been translated in French, Spanish, Romanian, Russian and Slovenian. Her most recent work features a sequence of poems about the Welsh artist Gwen John.

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