Nora Ita
As in the case of Mary Lynch Keogh, my visit to Nora Ita Bresnihan`s intensely decorated cottage on July 8 2001 was arranged by Mike MacDomhnail of Newcastle West. His friend, Cyril Curtain, an electrician by trade is one of the few people to have ever stepped inside the private domain of Nora Ita. He describes its interior as being 99% jam-packed with stuff, with barely enough space for narrow corridors to get from one tiny area to another. Cyril believes she throws nothing out. There appears to be newspapers spanning her life. He couldn`t say how old Nora Ita is, either in her 60s or 70s, but he could describe her as being eccentrically dressed and walking everywhere, including 10 miles to Drumcollier once a week for her pension and groceries, but Cyril has never seen her out and about on a Sunday, the day of our visit. Local mythology has it that no one has ever seen Nora Ita actually painting the outside of her cottage. It is believed she does this at four o`clock in the morning when no one is about. One day it is a certain colour, the next it is quite different. Cyril thought it would be an invasion of her privacy to knock upon the door so I quietly went about my business of photographing the house and garden. The image that emerges is of a reclusive obsessive who exhibits many stereotypical characteristics of the outsider artist. Her decorated house and garden, however, give no indication of there being any attempt to communicate, other than make a decorative statement of self-expression. That she remains active, in keeping with the habit of all the other veteran folk artists I have documented, indicates she is of a particular character: one that is determined to lead an entirely different lifestyle to the rest of her neighbours. She is, therefore, an outsider in the social sense but not in the artistic sense for her expression does not exhibit a psychological necessity to communicate a more profound concept as in the case of Adolf Wölfli for example. Revisit to Nora Ita's cottage, Saturday 6th July 2002 Another visit to Nora Ita’s cottage on Saturday July 6 2002 was also organised through Mike MacDomhnail and Cyril Curtain who took me to meet Donny, a neighbour of Nora Ita, who has know her all his life. Donny was brought up with Nora Ita, left Ireland to work in England, set up his own civil engineering business in Birmingham, then retired buying a small single-story cottage diagonally across the road from her. If anyone could arrange a meeting between myself and the elusive Nora Ita, Donny could. When Cyril and I arrived Donny took me over to the cottage but instead of knocking on her freshly painted door he called to her from the road¬. He explained that although she might be at home she would not necessarily answer. She appeared not to be at home so I photographed all the newly painted areas before returning to Donny's for tea and sandwiches. The day dragged, Donny made a couple of visits to Nora Ita's with the same result. No one knew if she was at home or not. More stories of her eccentricities and life story were told. She was born in the cottage and lived with her mother who had married for a second time, as a consequence Nora Ita has two step-brothers who will inherit and likely knock the cottage. Nora Ita never married and when her mother died in January 23 years ago she continued to live alone. One story has it that her mother and her once set the table in the middle of the road outside the cottage where they proceeded, much to the neighbours incredulity and amusement, to take their afternoon tea. Of course there were less cars on the road in those days. Neighbours believed the old woman had cracked and had led the younger one on but this may not have been the case at all. The story persists as a piece of local folk lore and the aspect of performance that is in it might explain something of Nora Ita's public display of creativity and her method of engendering her own cult status within the community. By all accounts she is a ‘show-woman’ who enjoys dressing up, especially on a Sunday for Mass. She always attends the early morning Mass and can be seen waiting outside her cottage every Sunday in her finery awaiting the arrival of a neighbour who drives her to the chapel. Before we left Cyril insisted that Donny have one last look to see if Nora Ita had returned. Although we were all doubtful of success, Donny returned saying that Nora Ita was waiting outside her cottage to see me. She had just returned from a shopping trip. A diminutive woman of about four feet ten inches in height with a mischievous twinkle in her eye and dressed in a tan dress coat. Nora Ita is now 63 years of age. She had started to decorate the cottage twenty years or so before her mother died but whether this involved painting was unclear. She now repaints it every year regularly around July. This year's changes being made about three weeks ago. She always paints it very early in the morning, the reason for doing so being unclear. Reclusive, she may be, but I found her friendly and light hearted and very easy to talk to. I promised to send her photographs that I had taken and suggested I return on another occasion so that we could share a pot of tea during which time I might take her photograph. Donny intervened saying that while I was here with my camera I might as well take her photograph here and now. Nora Ita posed outside her front door showing no inhibitions or shyness. The day had had its own momentum which of course it was impossible not to go along with. It had ended on a very high note and everyone involved was very pleased with the outcome. Text and photographs by Peter Haining.