Constance Short was born in Clones, Co. Monaghan. She has had a long and varied career advocating for the Arts and making artwork. She was he was heavily involved in campaigning for the renewed arts act of 1973. She is a founder member of Project, Dublin. She has also been Education Officer with Co-operation North, and there implemented the cultural arts exchange and cultural diversity programmes. She has been a shareholder in the Abbey Theatre, has worked on projects with Poetry Ireland, The Irish Film Board, and the NI Film Board.
Central to the exhibition from which the pieces were purchased was The Whole Nine Yards, an installation of 81 text lino-prints written and cut by Constance in 2003. She invited a number of artists and others to join her in extending the concept to 9 square yards in poetry, song, creative living, photography, history, drama, printmaking and discussion.
Constance wrote 50 pieces of text in the English language, ten of which were translated into French by Barbara Mc Cloughan,ten were translated into Catalan by Bernard Loughlan and ten into Irish by Seán Hutton and Aogan O’ Muircheartaigh. One piece of text (For the artist there are no absolutes) was translated into Portuguese by Geneci Da Cruz, into Spanish by Geraldo O Fatharta, into Dutch by Marianne Heemskerk, into Finnish by Tarja Virtanen and into German by Leila Doolan and Jlaus Hoser. The work took nine months to complete and is a record of the artist’s interest in a number of facets of life over that period of time.
