TAKING INSPIRATION
Tom Leahy from Ballyhooly is one of Ireland’s most decorated Paralympians. He competed in eight consecutive Paralympic Games from 1984 to 2012, winning a total of 8 medals including three gold. He has won multiple national titles, as well as European and World championships in discus, shot putt, club and boccia events. For many years he was a high profile sporting figure in Ireland.
But Tom has also displayed huge artistic talents and has been a full-time working artist since retiring from competitive sport. In this extract from his upcoming autobiography, Tom reveals the role that painting has played in his life.
‘As a child in the '60s in Ireland, I harboured dreams of being a cowboy inspired mostly by Hollywood's Wild West movies. However, a pivotal event one bright Monday morning as I waited for my bus to bring me to school in Cork changed my career plans.
I witnessed a mesmerising scene on my doorstep: a field next to our home was ablaze as the farmer was burning the straw. I got a strong smell of smoke and heard the loud crackling of the burning straw. The sights, the sounds and the smells filled my senses and I could feel the heat on my face.
When I arrived at school later that morning I asked my teacher for paper and crayons and I quickly became absorbed in the act of recreating the morning scenes on the pages in front of me.
My teacher was genuinely surprised, maybe even amazed, at my handiwork. She hung my art on the wall for everyone to admire. One of my classmates called me an artist. I liked the sound of it – artist! Little did I think then that this experience would ignite a deep-seated passion that would shape my future to this very day.
From that first experience, painting became an integral part of my life. Can you imagine the thrill of this to a young boy who did not have the physical freedoms of others of his age? My disabilities meant that often I was an onlooker not able to fully participate. But with painting, these disabilities just disappeared. They simply didn’t matter.
My father, Jack a skilled carpenter, played a crucial role in nurturing my appreciation for working with my hands and creating things. I view him as a creative force, and the handmade items he crafted for me in his little workshop at our family home in Ballyhooly, chairs, trolleys and the like, were not only of practical use to me but fascinated me as I was often by his side when he worked on them. I loved watching him work, helped out where I could, and marvelled at his skills. I believe my creative instinct was born and nourished in Jack’s workshop. I got the bug there.
My artistic journey has spanned diverse mediums, from watercolour to oil painting and three-dimensional models. Despite my cerebral palsy that limited my participation in other activities, art became a liberating outlet where my disabilities vanished, allowing me to fully engage in the creative process.
Reflecting on my time in my father's workshop, I acknowledge my early envy of his skills. However, through painting, I find a way to follow in his footsteps, creating my own world and shaping it through art. My passion for painting becomes a powerful means of self-expression, transcending the limitations imposed by my cerebral palsy.
Each painting is a personal endeavour, an attempt to encapsulate a part of myself within the landscape I hold dear. That landscape is the one that surrounds my house just outside the village of Ballyhooly. The plot of land that I live on is bordered on one side by the public road and on all others by a typical Irish rural landscape - fields, trees and hedgerows. Every vista from my house is filled with grassland, rolling hills, and in the distance mountain ranges. Whenever I pick up a paintbrush and face a blank canvas these images are always near to hand. In my paintings, people are secondary, emphasising my connection to the land. I see myself as more intertwined with the fields than with people, a sentiment that permeates my artwork.
My art has become more than a pastime; it is my job, my passion, and a mode of communication with the world. Despite physical challenges, my paintings speak volumes, allowing me to assert my worth and demonstrate that cerebral palsy does not define me. I hope that my father would be proud to see the family home continuing to be a hive of activity and a hub of creativity. It may not be carpentry but my home studio is a place where things are brought to life and into existence.
I have created several hundred paintings, drawings, sketches, and three dimensional models since I began to take my artwork seriously. My work has been exhibited publicly and I have had a number of my own exhibitions. For many years my art and my daily painting regimen took second place to my sport. Preparing to compete internationally and to get myself right for the eight consecutive Paralympic Games I took part in from 1984 to 2012 was my full-time job.
But when my sporting life ended, I then launched myself into my art. I have worked to commission and I have been paid for my work. I am a working artist and I approach it with the same sense of purpose and commitment as my sporting career. While age eventually caught up with me on the athletic front I have no such fears with my artistic endeavours. That blaze I witnessed at home all of those years ago never really went out. It lives within me. I have a fire within me and my paintings are its expression.’