Sharing her bath with the sculpted torso of a naked woman encased in fibreglass was one of the formative experiences which helped to shape Father Ted actress Pauline McLynn.
She shared this with listeners in Brennan's bar in Galway last week when she opened an exhibition of paintings and prints by her mother, Sheila McLynn.
Pauline was in Galway to read for children at this year's Galway Arts Festival, while Sheila was having her first exhibition in Galway as part of the festival's umbrella events. "Ours was a great, Bohemian house," Pauline recalled, adding that it was through her mother's love of art that she decided to study art history at Trinity. There, she joined the college drama society and her acting career never looked back.
Sheila, who lives in Renmore in the city, has been painting and studying art sporadically for almost 30 years - although not professionally - and recently finished an art course at Galway Mayo Institute of Technology.
"It was a six-year access course of one day a week. I was meant to carry on and do a diploma this year, but decided against it." Pauline gave out to her because of this, she said, and the current exhibition resulted from Sheila's determination to prove she didn't need to continue formal education.
She began painting about 30 years ago to escape the house, at a time when being "only a housewife" was a very labour-intensive job. And she still gets annoyed at how much easier life was for male artists.
"Those boys get up my nose. While I was contemplating how to best clean the U-bend in the toilet, they were off navel gazing." Sheila finds painting is incredibly therapeutic. She uses mixed media, including oil on board and canvas, watercolours, gouache and prints.
She is adventurous both in use of colour and in style: much of her work is abstract. One of her greatest heroes is the 20th century Dutch abstract artist, Mondrian. She's also an admirer of the abstract artist Sean Scully, famous for his dots and lines.
One of nine children from Strandhill Road in Sligo, Sheila attended school locally and art was not taught there. "You wouldn't have such foolish notions then," she comments, and she remains critical of the way art is taught in this country.
"I'm sorry that there isn't a hell of a lot more visual education. We wouldn't be in such a mess environmentally if we had." Her love of art is shared by Pauline, who owns several of her mother's pictures. Sheila and her husband Padraig also have two sons - one living in London, the other in Galway.
Her exhibition will run until August 6th in Brennan's bar on the Docks, which, conveniently enough, is Sheila's local pub.