I take photographs and have taken photos since I bought my first camera in Currivan’s Camera Shop Dublin 8 in the early 70's - the camera was a Practika 35mm. I still have it. Mr Currivan taught me how to hold the camera, how to focus the camera, how to open and close the camera; how to load film. He took time to explain to me the types of film in use at that time and for years after he was my main man when it came to everything camera, film and lenses. When he learned I was a young teacher teaching in a local school, CBS Armagh Road he suggested I work with slide film as I could use it as a visual aid to my teaching and in the process build up resources I could use in the classroom. He said I should be cute about purchasing film and taught me a strategy namely use past by date film as much as possible as in most cases I could get it free from chemists or at low cost. As a consequence I was never short of film stock thanks to the chemists I visited up and down the country. Now I use my mobile camera.
The first great influence in my viewing life was my father, William Hurley who taught both me and my brother Matt to use our senses on our weekly walks around roads and laneways, through fields and bog on jaunts upriver in a boat from the WBC - Workman’s Boat Club, trying to catch pinkeens at the turn of Abbey and on hikes through the woods and along the banks of the river and streams as Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn, learning, absorbing, engaging with nature au natural!
My father loved to hum and sing and brought us the local shows, Maritana, the Desert Song and our teachers to the annual Feis Cheoil as participants, in two languages...These are the treasures I draw on for my work today as a solo artist and in collaboration with fellow artists.
