Ester

A few months ago, I met a young woman in Belfast when I was walking down a street with a painting of David’s looking for the Royal Ulster Academy. David was entering the painting (a landscape he did in France) into an RUA competition and so was the woman, Ester Barrett. Well, Ester was entering a large sculpture she had done of a stag and a painting done by her sister. When I met her she was lost and a bit frantic, as she’d been lost in the city for a while--easily done. I hopped in her car and we found the RUA together. As we waited in line to drop off the entries, she pointed out all the other art celebrities in line (another sculptor from Dublin and a famous printmaker).
I invited her to stay with us when she returned for the RUA show and that is what happened today. Neither she nor David got into the show, however her sister’s painting was accepted, so Ester had a pair of tickets to the opening (due to her sister visiting the Grand Canyon). I met her in Belfast (she was lost again), and got her to the RUA to collect her sculpture. Then we went to my house, dropped her car, and I drove her to Mount Stewart to see the famous Stubbs painting of the racehorse Hambletonian. In her spare time, Ester works at a stud farm exercising yearlings. She also sculpts horses. We walked the grounds so she could see the white stag, a sculpture near the family burial grounds. She wasn’t impressed. It’s made of iron and the seams are poorly welded. But she liked Hambletonian. Then home, changed clothes, and to the Ulster Museum for the opening. I would much rather have been in my bed the entire day, but I can’t welch on an offer.
Two memories from the day. Ester is from Limerick and has an accent I’ve never encountered. I understand most of what she says but sometimes I need to ask her to repeat herself. As I mentioned about the Arabella play, I love accents, so I really got a kick out of listening to her. One of her frequent responses to my anecdotes was “go away,” however I cannot do justice to her pronunciation--something like guh wah.
At the end of the RUA exhibit opening, she introduced me to the head of the RUA’s counterpart in the Republic--the Royal Hibernian Academy. He and Ester talked shop for a bit. Like a proud mother, I slipped in that Blarney Castle had just bought one of her heron sculptures. Ester is not the type to blow her horn, but I figured it couldn’t hurt for the head of the RHA to know she’s doing well. I told him about our Mount Stewart visit whereupon he told me that George Stubbs had no sense of smell. He would have horse carcasses brought to a shed where he flayed them and studied their musculature. No one else could stand to be near the place, but he spent many contented days dissecting horses to know them from the inside out. I found that equally stomach turning and fascinating.
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