Tag: Dee Kelly

Mellow Autumn

Just a quick reminder of our current work on display in Las Rada Wine and Tapas Bar, New Row, Naas. There is definitely mellow autumn tones to the work – and a sense of loss at the fading of the summer just gone.

See what you think:

A series of pieces incorporating print and hand embroidery by Hannaleena Ahonen. Her work celebrates the wonderful summer just ending and the abundance of insects busy doing their jobs into the autumn.

Dee Kelly was trying to preserve some of the fading beauty from her garden in this piece entitled ‘Summer’s End’. She eco-dyed some cotton with peony leaves and over printed with hydrangea petals, using charcoal pencils and hand stitch to complete.

Pauline Kiernan was just about ‘Keeping It Together’ with this piece exploring the idea of loss and fragility. She used Korean hand made paper, felted, distressed and hand stitched.

Tree bark from the beautiful ‘Prunus Serrula’ forms the basis of Kathrina Hughes work called ‘Bark Cloth’.

There are many more beautiful pieces in the exhibition so pop in to Las Rada for a quick viewing and something nice to eat!

Know your onions!

I have just noticed a bit of a vegetable theme in some recent work by Dee Kelly, Caroline Fitzgerald and Rina Whyte – and all of it yummy !! Pungent and odorous, onions and their family members sometimes get an undeserved bad rap but our team are doing their best to elevate these humble vegetables to the place they deserve – on the kitchen wall and not in the pot!

Caroline and Dee produced some beautiful work using actual pieces of garlic. Who would have thought that the papery, bleached texture of garlic skins and the intricate detail of the root, would produce such amazing works of art.

Dried garlic skins mounted on paper, stitched with linen and rayon threads

Garlic root, herbal teabags, handmade paper, markings made with watercolour, cotton muslin, stitched and mounted on linen — Gorgeous Garlic, Caroline Fitzgerald

Garlic root, herbal teabags, handmade paper, markings made with watercolours, cotton muslin, stitched and mounted on linen

Rina has produced a series of three pieces exploring the beautiful shapes and colours of the onion

Blind drawing with stitch on brushed cotton, embellished with hand stitch, cotton net, ink dyed

Onions, free machine embroidery — Onion II and III, Rina Whyte

Dyed cotton, pen and ink drawing, free machine embroidery

Never has garlic and onions looked so good! Who wouldn’t want to have one of these pieces on their kitchen or dining room wall?

Will it fade – only time will tell?

Dee Kelly is a powerhouse when it comes to stitch and lately she has been experimenting with stitch in organic and natural materials. Her latest and very beautiful works are ‘Garlic Whimsy I and II’, which are exquisite pieces of stitch on dried garlic skins. The papery texture and bleached white of the garlic skins are very beautiful and look amazing mounted on white paper.

Dee has also been experimenting with Avocado pits as she has just shared with us :

” I recently dyed some Khadi paper using Avocado pits. I just left them overnight in a plastic tray (no chemicals were used in the process). The colour tones were amazing from peach to rust.

I also dried the skins of the Avocado, which became hard and brittle. Using embroidery cotton I stitched into the papers and the skins. I was so excited with the results and mounted three pieces onto a painted artist canvas. Just as I was deciding to bring the piece to be framed I got a terrible thought – WILL IT FADE? Imagine in a few months’ time if the paper bleached and all that is left is the dried Avocado skin and stitching. So I decided it will have to hang in my workroom, for a while, to see how the natural dyed colour of the Avocado pits hold up to daylight!

Has anyone else tried dying with Avocado pits…I would be interested to hear the results?” Dee Kelly