endangered

Endangered Exhibition opening on Saturday 8th of August. We are also showing at 72 John Street for the festival

Woodstock Promenade

Woodstock Promenade

A Contemporary Public Art Event celebrating Woodstock Gardens

Sunday 26th July 2009

Woodstock Gardens, inistioge, Co Kilkenny are the site of a temporary public art project this July which will culminate in a unique event celebrating the Gardens and the people who created them. The project, which has been developed by Kilkenny County Council and the public art company Chrysalis Arts, will support a group of Kilkenny-based artists in gaining new skills in the field of public art, from initial ideas for artworks inspired by the site, through to their realisation using a wide range of creative processes.

The six artists selected to take part in the project are painter Gillian Campden, sculptor Philip Cullen, textile artist Caroline Schofield, media artist Deirdre Southey, artist Niamh White and writer Carmel Cummins. The artists will work with Chrysalis and Kilkenny County Council Arts Office to create a series of contemporary artworks which will be temporarily sited at Woodstock Gardens and the public will be invited to view them at a special event on Sunday 26th July.

“We have called the event Woodstock Promenade as we want to invite the public to come and take a gentle stroll through the gardens to view and interact with the artworks as people would have done in Victorian times and have continued to do since then”, commented Rick Faulkner, Director of Chrysalis Arts. “Some of the artworks will draw upon archival material and stories of life at Woodstock whilst others will be inspired by the plants and layout of the gardens.

Community participation has played an integral part in the development of the project and the artists have worked with schools and members of the community who have taken part in a range of workshop activities including painting, textiles and casting.

Swimmer Quilt

I showed this quilt at the Knit & Stitch in Dublin with Filament. I love adding dimension with found objects such as the drift wood and the rusted objects.

Images taken of my work at Sculpture in Context at the Botanics.

Sculpture in Context

On the 4th September the Sculpture in Context exhibition opens in the National Botanics Gardens in Dublin.
My work is called Reflected Growth and is sited within the Cactus House. It was exciting to see the textile pieces in Context instead of my work area where I often wondered why I was doing them.
The activity at the Botanics was fantastic with large machinery and sculptures being sited within the plants. Lucinda Jacobs has the most amazing evening gloves with pins dangerously sticking out in the Cactus House.
The exhibition is on till the 17th October 2008.

Swimmers

At the moment Im really lucky to be doing a residency in the Endangered Studios in Callan. My plan was to work with paint instead of falling into my comfort zone in fabric. I have been using acrylics and oils for the first time). As the time has gone on I realised that I have to combine paint with fabric and that canvas is too rigid and flat for me. Also that I really missed texture.

So I changed from canvas to fabric and in these paintings with the advice of Patrick (a truly amazing Endangered Painter) I painted pva (to prevent a fire) onto the fabric and then used oils.

I love the texture of the fabric with the paint and the fact that the paint hasn't obliterated the fabric.

Global

This quilt was recently shown in the IPS National Exhibition 'Links' in Kilkenny. I based it on the effects of human's influence on our environment. As a whole the piece caused me many problems with the structure I used but when it was photographed in sections it for me came into its own in the photo. Sometimes in Textiles I think you can go so far in a piece, be too committed and have put too much time into it to let it go,.....which I needed to do with this piece.

Journal Quilts 2008

January Journal Quilt.
There's layers of fabric cut back to create the body. The piece has hand stitches with wax over the top to create the textures The February Quilt depicts part of the Cathedral Floor using a rusted fabric and reverse Applique to create the patterns.

















March and April Journal Quilts look at the effects of Global Warming. The march quilt is painted with Acrylic Paint on Canvas and then machine and hand stitched. It includes painted bondaweb to give texture and debth to the piece.
The april quilt is Acrylic painted on cotton and embellished with fibres and stitch.
















All the 2008 Journal Quilts are 12 by 12 inchs.

rust & bags

Rust, Charcoal and Stitch are all included in these bags.

rust & things

I used this charcoal drawing as a start for the fabric piece seen here. The fabric had been rusted first and then layered with a charcoal sketch. Whats exciting about charcoal is that it doesnt all wash out so it becomes inherent to the piece.

In the piece there is a beautiful italian fabric that was given to me by an embroiderer.

The piece is worked with stitch to create a texture and background.

lifedrawing

My lifedrawing group are having a exhibition in the Watergate Kilkenny in March. We meet once a week to draw in the Ormonde College. The lifedrawings I am showing here are all in charcoal, my favourite medium. I love the spontanity of the medium altough it can be difficult to keep clean.

The background of this drawing was rubbed over a chequerboard surface to create the rough background effect.

This is my favourite drawing due to the spontanity of the piece. It took 10 mins and I can see all the lines I used.

I painted with Marie Perret in her Art Synthesis group for the past four days in the wonderful ballroom in Blanchville House. The space is fantastic for large work and the images shown here are from the painting called 'Being' . The Title could have been any of the following - Good/Evil, Inside/Out, Hate/Love but in the end I chose Being as it is inclusive of each title.

Bust made in Fabric working on the idea of the inside body on the outside.

side by side

I put in a proposal to make Textile Pots to the Crafts Council for the Side by Side Exhibition in the Hunt Mizeum in Limerick. The proposal was accepted and these are some of the images I have included in the Exhibition.