The Monthly speaks to multi-disciplinary artist, Zara Lyness – Part 1 – Finding an arts practice later in life

Do you have any early memories of being attracted to the arts?

I used to cut out paper shapes and I would build people and environments. I wasn’t allowed to play with messy materials but I was given scissors, paper and Sellotape and I would go from there.

I do remember having books with pictures in them and when you added water to the pages the colours would come through. I really enjoyed playing with them.

Did you get any encouragement at home or at school?

Art wasn’t encouraged at home in fact my father would stop me from doing art homework to concentrate on other subjects. I actually failed my Art GCSE.

My mum worked in the Co-Op in Belfast and I would go there with her and see students doing art at the Art College, and I really wanted to do what they were doing, but art and culture just weren’t important to my family. My only outlet for being creative was when I was called upon to make fancy dress outfits for people.

You didn’t get any encouragement at home?

No, not really, not at home. As I said art and Culture just wasn’t a big thing in my family.

I can remember being in Glasgow when I was about 9 or 10 and my great uncle took me to see some art and I saw a painting by Salvador Dali called “Christ of St John on The Cross” and that had a huge impact on me. That is my first actual memory of thinking that art was amazing.

I was also taken by another uncle to archaeological sites when I would go on family holidays, so while my immediate family didn’t look at art as something worth pursuing, my extended family would help me get artistic experiences.

My father was a joiner, a very practical man and I think he wanted for me a job in the bank or the civil service. I would also say that in my family there was a particular view of what an artists was and if, for example, you couldn’t reproduce almost exactly an image that you could see on a piece of paper when you were drawing or painting then you weren’t an artist.

What about at school?

Well I had an amazing art teacher for my GCSE’s called Dessie Reid and I was bringing in putty buckets and tin cans and using them to build things. I just wasn’t technically gifted in terms of drawing and painting, and I did tend to spend a lot of time helping other people create things, but Dessie did give me that little bit of encouragement which has stayed with me my whole life.

Did you go on to study art?

No, I dropped art at A Level and I ended up doing a Foundation Year in Combined Social and Behavioural Studies at the University of Ulster in Coleraine. I failed one exam and that meant I had to take a year out, then I came back and passed the exam, but by that stage I embedded in north coast culture and there were just too many seaside distractions to keep on studying.

I ended up working in an Electronics Factory where I worked for ten years. I then I moved into the Civil Service and I spent three years in the High Court in Belfast which I really enjoyed. But that job started to change from being able take a problem from beginning to end and where you could help all sorts of different customers, to where it become much more siloed and you were working on just a small part of the various tasks.

Later I worked in the Science Labs at Veterinary Science testing for Salmonella and then to Turkington Windows until the building trade collapsed and I was made redundant.

I ended up doing a BTEC level 3 for two years and finally I was accepted into Art College.

What did you study at the Art College?

I had unconditional offers for a number of subjects; Fashion Textile Design, Fine Art and Contemporary Applied which was Silversmithing and Jewellery. I ended up doing Fine Art and that meant I was able to really play around with everything.

It was split into three parts, sculpture, painting and print and I just worked in all the areas I could get into. I was also introduced to Performance Art at that point which was something I knew nothing about but also interested me.

Is it through the course you develop your craft?

I lived on the north coast for a long time and I built up a pretty handy tool collection. Because of my background I would say I was pretty handy with a tool. I wasn’t very good at drawing but the course was brilliant and so were the lecturers. They were very encouraging.

I was introduced to clay, I was introduced to different forms of media, and I really was allowed just to find my own way to work on what I enjoyed doing.