Artist Interviews

Thomas Higgins

Thomas Higgins is an artist from Cavan Town who has exhibited in the RDS, RHA, Belfast, Cork and Cavan. His favourite medium is oil paint, and he has recently been experimenting with pastels.

[Jenny] What is your favourite thing about being an artist? 

[Thomas] I've seen art in museums. I've read art books about the lives of artists. I mean, I've been painting for years, over 35 years. 

It's something very close to religion. It's an inner feeling. Like a vocation. It's a very powerful thing for me. It's got me through some very difficult times, like the passing of my dad… or when I had the brain haemorrhage in 2012, I used it for therapy, which was good. 

When I want to have some special time, I like playing my classical music while painting. Which, I think, may even improve my skill for some bizarre, unknown reason. It calms my mind; therefore, I'm able to concentrate. When you concentrate, you're in, like, a zone area. 

Yeah, even with writers, when you're writing, when you're painting, when you're composing a piece of music, all kinds of art, you can get lost in it, and time just can slip away. And that's happened with me many a time. I sat doing a painting for, I'd say, a good 14, 15 hours. 

[Aoife] What are your biggest inspirations as an artist? 

[Thomas] I have always painted landscapes mostly. And I've always done them in oil painting. It's only recently, uh, I'd say in the past few years that I have gone on to oil pastels. Yeah. And soft pastels. I found, I think, a new kind of vocation there as well. 

Getting back to my inspiration, regarding artists, it would probably be Claude Monet. And 19th-century French impressionism. 

[Jenny] How long have you been a professional artist?

[Thomas] Well, painting professionally, I suppose, well, regarding getting noticed, I would say it would be about two years ago, when I had my 1st one man show in Cavan library. That was my turning point. 

Without trying to sound boastful, I had about 30 works in the exhibition. Within an hour or 2, 11 got sold.

[Aoife]  Brilliant. 

[Jenny] That's amazing. How did you feel selling your 1st piece with Connection Arts? 

[Thomas] Oh, incredible. Connection Arts was before my first one-man exhibition.

Swear to God, hon, it was unbelievable.

You feel that you're already an artist once you take up a brush, but then to have society acknowledge it.Oh, it just lifts you. 

[Jenny] You probably feel what I feel, that society today doesn't give us enough chances to be professional artists. We have to go and advocate for us. 

You've spoken many times; you spoke at the RHA, and then you went on speaking, and you've gotten better every time. I remember when you 1st started, you were so nervous to even speak to me on those Zooms.

[Thomas] Yeah, that was another milestone. That was another learning curve that I had to learn and get over. The public speaking. Because I could never do that before. And, you know, Connecting Artists helped me with that. 

[Jenny] How do you feel about your work being exhibited in the RHA, Art Source, a lot of places? 

[Thomas] I remember I was so glad, at Art Source, in the RDS. Someone said to me, oh, by the way, you know, Thomas, your, your painting, Boats at Crover, the one for €300? It just sold. 

[Aoife] That's amazing. 

[Jenny] When I heard that, I almost cried because it was the 1st major show. 

[Thomas] And I was dead chuffed for you, Jenny, because you sold something. And do you know what she did, Aoife? She gave the money to charity. Isn't that it? 

[Jenny] I gave the money to a cancer charity. My mom's friend passed away just before Christmas, and I didn't know how to grieve. Like Thomas says, art makes great therapy. So I put in 12 hours a day to complete my piece. Because he meant so much to me and my mom.

Next question. When did you join Connection Arts, and how was your experience? 

[Thomas] I started in 2023, so I started with you, Jen. I think I've come on leaps and bounds. I've definitely got that recognition, especially even in the papers. I remember when we had the thing in the Royal College of Surgeons, the 1st ever exhibition of our work. When I went back to Cavan, then, and I opened the Anglo Celt, one of our newspapers from the county, I was in it. That was incredible. After that, then, you know, you'd be walking about, and people are coming up to you and saying “Oh I seen the newspaper”. You almost felt like a bit of a celebrity. 

[Jenny] We didn't know 3 years ago we'd be creating this big, huge community. You have come such a long way with your art and your public speaking. 

[Thomas] Yeah, I think all of us have really. It's open to every single one of us. It has taken our shyness and turned it into, you know, being able to come forward and speak.

[Jenny] Yeah, a couple of years ago, we wouldn’t be recognised for our work; we wouldn't have been in newspapers. But now the Connections programme has changed you and me in so many ways. 

What was a big obstacle for you when you started, before Connections Arts?

[Thomas] It was probably just that there was a shyness there. There was an inability to go forward or to show my work, probably fear of rejection, you know? Then the veil lifted when I became part of the group, you know, part of the family. Yeah, because we are a big family, aren't we? We've become this ginormous thing. 

[Jenny] Did you have any struggles when you had your accident, with going back to art?

[Thomas] I actually thought that I was going to. And thank God that it didn’t stop my art flow. In actual fact, I think I began to slow things down a bit, and I think it might have made my art just that little bit sharper. 

[Jenny] I call it the comeback. Everyone has a story behind the artist. 

[Thomas] We all know the film of Christy Brown, the real-life story of the artist Christy Brown. He is now recognised as an artist. I think, you know, if he can do it, surely others with physical disabilities can be right up there along with him. 

I mean, if you look at Vincent Van Gogh today, right? He would have had a diagnosis, and yet, it wouldn't have taken from his art because even today, his art is worth millions everywhere. He created such passion and such truth in his work. His colour is, and the way he put his strokes- he almost created poetry on a canvas. 

[Aoife] Do you have a quote or a few words that would sum up your experience as an artist, or just a favourite quote you’d like to share?

[Thomas] In Murder She Wrote, Jessica Fletcher once said to a young student writer, “If when you go to bed at night, or when you wake up in the morning, and all you can think of is writing, and nothing else but writing, then you're a writer”. It's the same for all the artists.

When you sit down and you're painting, and all you can think of is painting, night, noon, and morning, then, yeah, you are an artist. 

[Jenny] What final words would you like to say to your adoring fans? 

[Thomas] Know that you've got a gift and use it as best and as long as you possibly can.