Tag: CEAD

Home, a cloth memory book

This week Kathrina Hughes talks about the piece of work, a cloth memory book, she produced for a module in Creative Embroidery in NCAD which she undertook last year as part of a Certificate in Visual Art Practice.

“This piece was inspired by home and everything that means to me and my family, both physically and emotionally. Home has so many meanings for so many people and our very essence can be tied up with our experiences of home.

Home, Kathrina Hughes, element15

What does home mean? Where is home? And what does home mean to you? I explored these concepts with my family, with some clear themes emerging:

“Home is a feeling”

“It’s that warm, safe and familiar feeling”

“Home is togetherness”

“It’s where our memories of family are”

“Home is where ‘our stuff’ is… and all that stuff we accumulate over the years together”

To combine all these feelings and memories into a project that would encapsulate the feeling of home, I experimented with various collections of family heirlooms, text and images. I created a memory book in a concertina style. It is composed of emotive words and interpretations of childhood photos which make me feel like ‘home’.

Home, Kathrina Hughes, element15

I used a linen fabric which I eco-dyed using leaves and flowers collected from my garden; my garden is full of a lifetime of memories also. I used some oak leaves, picked from trees grown from acorns collected from family holidays.

The stitch style is simple — hand stitching. I find this simple process adds to the personal legacy attached to home’s memories and meanings which I am trying to convey. Hand stitching also makes you slow down and enjoy the process as well as form an emotional connection with the work unfolding before you.

Many precious and beautiful memories are now embedded into the linen cloth book, a treasure of my home memories.

[BARRIER | SECURITY]

In June this year, Helen McLoughlin completed a Diploma in Art & Design at NCAD with modules in sculpture, photography, painting, film and visual culture.

Her graduating body of work explores barriers in relation to privacy, security, isolation and the fragility of our existence.

BARRIER
210 x 190 x 32 cm
DPC, Bolts, Tape

Barriers can engender a feeling safety and security, or the complete opposite, depending on perspective. Primarily using Damp Proof Course (DPC) membrane, Helen created a series of large scale structures and installations, which she sited outdoors. DPC is used as a barrier in the construction industry.

SECURITY BLANKET
150 x 190 cm
DPC, Dogwood Branches

Searching for the aesthetic in the unusual, and concerned with materialism and the throwaway culture, Helen works largely with recycled or found materials, low value building products and organic matter; she allows her materials to lead the work. Photography is also integral to her practice.

DRAPE
185 x 130 x 230 cm (variable),
DPC, running water allowed to pull and evolve its form

BOLTHOLE
490 x 300 cm
Hazel Rods collected locally, netting

WIRED
185 x 213 cm
Photographs on acetate, recycled screen

Life Long Learning

It is wonderful to be able to embrace life long learning – to have the courage, time, interest and money to wade back into education. This week, and in the following weeks, we highlight the work of members who have just graduated from the college courses they have pursued for the last few years in the National College of Art and Design. It has been a bit of an anti-climax as, this very week, they should be showcasing their final pieces at the NCAD CEAD Annual Exhibition but instead the works of art are packed in boxes under the bed or stuffed in drawers or garden sheds. So we asked them to release their work to the light of day, and let us see the products of their last few months of research and making.

First up is Caroline Fitzgerald who studied two modules in the final year of a Certificate in Visual Art Practice. The modules, Creative Embroidery and Drawing and Sculpture, couldn’t be more different in every way : content, practice and even location within the college.

Creative Embroidery takes place in a calm, well light and airy part of the original building with views down Thomas Street through lovely tall windows. Sculpture on the other hand, takes place in an appropriately rough and ready studio with lumps of plaster adorning the tables and chairs and plenty of scope for physical engagement with creativity and mess!

In her final project for the Creative Embroidery module, Caroline took her inspiration from an old spoon she found at her holiday home by the sea. “It reminded me of a sea shell and, as I find it hard not to come home from a walk on the beach without collecting shells, this seemed to be a theme needing exploration”.

Caroline developed notebook studies and samples looking at the shapes and textures of sea shells and then mimiced these patterns and shapes with stitch on fabric. The background of this final piece is a digital image of a shibori and indigo dyed piece of organic linen. “I used a combination of slow hand stitches using silk thread, and free machine embroidery in metallic threads, to create shapes and texture which are further embellished using gold and copper foil”. The finished piece is 20 x 57 cm

Caroline’s final project for the Drawing and Sculpture module is titled “Walk The Walk, Talk The Talk”.

“The development of the concept of ‘walking’ to heal yourself, using it as a form of self-medication. Going for a walk, one step in front of the other can be both mindful and meditative. The very act of being in nature and the observations we make about our surroundings, the footprints we leave on the ground and the images we take with us to sustain us later when the need arises”

Caroline worked through the ideas for her piece on large scrolls of brown paper and created a virtical ‘rugged path’ as an integral part of the finished installation.

Detail of 2.5 m scroll

Brown paper scroll , ink, acrylic paint, handmade papers and fabric

For the 3D element of the installation Caroline used three bundles of wood (representing life), with fabric dipped in plaster, plaster mould, wax mould (with light detail), distressed and painted handmade paper and found objects from nature all tied up together with copper wire.

Congratulations Caroline on completing the Certificate and well done on the pushing the boundaries of your creativity. We hope some day to see the final pieces assembled in one place.