A visit to the Northern Ireland Patchwork Guild

I was delighted to receive an invitation to visit the Northern Ireland Patchwork Guild (http://www.nipg.org.uk/) as guest speaker at its meeting on Saturday 6th October where my talk was entitled 'In pursuit of inspiration'. I brought along samples of my work through the years, and a photographic slideshow showing some of the workshops and community arts projects I've been involved with.

 

The guild members were so welcoming I immediately felt at home and I thoroughly enjoyed my morning with them. It's nice to hear what other groups are planning in terms of workshops, speakers, challenges, exhibitions, etc. 'River Fabrics' of Holywood, provided the shop on the day.

 

Joint chairperson Anne kindly brought me to see St George's Market after the meeting on Saturday where local food and craft producers sell their work. This was bustling and vibrant with some lovely contemporary craft on show. http://www.belfastcity.gov.uk/stgeorgesmarket/citymarket.asp

 

We also paid a visit  Space Craft, a gallery of contemporary craft. http://www.discovernorthernireland.com/Space-Craft-Belfast-P11814.  I particularly loved the ceramics exhibition by Red Earth Designs http://www.redearthdesigns.co.uk/. If you get a chance to visit do so!

 

On Sunday the venue for my workshop entitled 'Sketchbooks for Textile Artists' was the wonderful Ulster Folk and Transport Museum in Cultra.

 

Starting a sketchbook is a very enjoyable way to help refine one's own creative style, but can be a little daunting too. I hope I provided participants with the 'tricks' needed to get over any fear they had of those 'perfect, clean, white pages' and soon everyone was enjoying creative chaos with messy hands and ideas flowing. All of us in search of that sometimes elusive thing called 'inspiration'.

 

Here are just some of the photos from the day at Cultra.

 

I'd also like to share another link to NIPG member Angela McCormick's blog where she shares some lovely photos of how she works through her sketchbooks. http://pinfiddlequilts.blogspot.ie/

A big THANK YOU to everyone at the Northern Ireland Patchwork Guild for such a warm welcome, a pot-luck dinner, stories shared and great fun during my very enjoyable weekend in Belfast. I'm looking forward to keeping in touch with all the activities of this vibrant guild.

Craft in the Classroom at Presentation College Galway

2nd Year Art students at Presentation College Galway accompanied their art teacher and myself to the 'Modified Expression' exhibition curated by the Crafts Council of Ireland at the Galway City Museum in April. This mixed media exhibition provided the students with lots of visual stimulation. Back in the classroom we talked about how a sketchbook becomes an important part of the process for the artist to explore ideas, pull ideas together, investigate a theme and try to create a composition for a piece of work. These students chose the theme of 'eyes' and are working to see what they can come up with to explore in fabric and stitch.



The sketchbooks are starting to fill up with images and quotations which they are using as jump-off points to develop their own ideas.

Sketching, collage, painting, embellishment and writing are all included in the sketchbooks as well as daily observations of life around them. Any or none of these ideas might make it into the final piece of work the students choose to create. But this stage of exploration is a vital part of the process to help each student find their own unique visual language.

This project continued through May....more photos to follow.

Brooklyn Art Library: Sketchbook Project

I decided in 2011 to join in with the Sketchbook Project at the Brooklyn Art Library. Naturally, I reverted to my usual habit of waiting until the deadline loomed to really get working! But I did post it off in time to meet the required deadline and recently received confirmation it arrived safely.

The theme I chose was 'A path through the trees' as I felt it would allow me to continue to explore some ideas for my current series of work based on the legends surrounding Knockma, the fairy hill near where I live.

The sketches, collages and watercolours in the notebook focus on the repetition of motifs while playing with colour and technique. I've kept photos of each page spread, to print a copy of the notebook for myself to accompany my finished pieces as I work through the series.