Technical developments enable artistic development’: John Behan reflects on the circumstances which spurred his move to sculpture, in conversation here with Brian McAvera

B McA: How did you become interested in art? Did you draw as a child?
John Behan: I was interested in drawing and painting from the age of four, and I’m still interested. I work every day. All those images of cattle, pigs and birds. I was always fascinated by animals a bit like Basil Blackshaw. Farm tools were the first things I handled and I find it a very natural thing to do.
Eleanor Flegg visits ceramicist Mark Campden’s Kilkenny studio to witness the process behind his gleaming table-ware
Paula Murphy examines the background to Oisín Kelly’s immortalization of Big Jim Larkin commissioned by the workers of Ireland
Brian Fallon recalls his first impression on meeting Mary Swanzy and her Gauguin moment conceived during a visit to Samoa