It was late in the evening when I arrived in Ballyheigh, County Kerry after driving three hours, straight from a day's work. I was knackered and fell into my hotel room bed without any food. It was a nice hotel and I was a bit annoyed that I never got to make the good of the room. I was up first thing in the morning to get straight to work after a full Irish breakfast.
My sand was already at my staging area and so I quickly compacted a few forms and made some piles to allow people to have a go themselves. I find this layout quite good as I can spend a few hours making a demo piece and then do workshops where I give tools aswell as tips and tricks on how to make the best of a pile of sand.
It was in a carpark overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Not the most beautiful location but I made the best of it. After compaction, it came to the moment of what to make. I never had any time to give it a thought.
I knew nothing about Ballyheigh and what made it thick but found this plaque nearby and figured it was as good a subject as any. It turns out that Ballyheigh was the birthplace of Ricard Cantillon, the Economist who coined the term Entrepreneur. I remembered back to the Iraq War when the French had pissed Bush off because they wouldn't help him illegally attack that innocent country.
There was a famous quote where he said "The French don't even have a word for Entrepreneur" I found this very funny, obviously. It is a French word so I figured that is where it came from. Yet, here I was in county Kerry and they were crediting some local lad with it. After further investigation, it turns out that although he was Irish he moved to France and learned the lingo becoming a very famous stock trader, banker and renowned economist. This is where he defined Entrepreneur. If he was still in Ireland they would probably be called a 'Cute hoor'.
My sculpture looked nothing like Cantillon, dressed as he was in more modern garb. But, he was going through my head while I carved the pensive old man overlooking the sea.
Not much more to say about it. I finished the sculpture by lunchtime and then spent the rest of the day doing workshops with children and families. Teaching them tricks of the trade and having fun on this beautiful day.
When evening came I climbed back in my little car and drove back three hours to Dublin. @clodaghdowning had been working away in Saint Anne's Park and I was going to finish up there the next day.
Overall it was a busy weekend with some stories to tell.