Gain valuable insights from an artist’s perspective on running a successful creative business
Michelle O’Donnell is originally from Donegal and has kindly agreed to host this workshop reflecting upon her experiences of founding and growing her own creative business and life as a professional artist. She will discuss her lived realities of getting started and share her organisation, communication and marketing strategies for maintaining her successful business alongside her own art practice.
13.15 Networking & complimentary lunch
13.45 Workshop and Q&A discussion
Michelle O’Donnell is an internationally acclaimed glass artist based in Rhode, Co. Offaly. A Donegal native, she attended art college in Belfast.
During a stint working on fishing boats, she noticed there was a distinct interplay between colour and light in water and began experimenting in different medium to convey this in her work. Glass became her material of choice as a means of capturing the beauty, palette and atmosphere of nature in all its environments. She is a professional, 30 years in her field, making fused glass artworks and sculptures, in her purpose-built studio.
She specialises in bespoke pieces, which have lead to a dynamic body of work suited to various different environments, from corporate and industrial workspaces to private homes and gardens.
Among her commercial commissions, she has created work for clients in the Health Care, corporate offices, Schools, Hospitals and Hotels. Over the span of her career she had birthed a vast portfolio of highly coveted pieces, some of which features in collections such as the White House Art Collection USA, Queen Elizabeth’s personal Art Collection, and the AIB Art collection.
Michelle’s creations are highly evocative, and utterly unique, from one to the other. Using colour and form, her pieces are stark representations of her imagination and surroundings. Depicting vibrant figures and landscape-inspired scenes, her work lifts any space and lives in conversation with the light around it. Her use of colour brings a great sense of life to her designs and their surroundings, resulting in work that speaks to the head and appeals to the heart.
