Resources
Type: Critical Writing
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ABOUT: Helen Moore
Critical WritingMoore argues that ‘although art and science have clear distinct boundaries’ these are not immutable and like all boundaries, these can easily be blurred. Having come into contact with ceramics at school, Moore was captivated by ‘its malleable and expressive qualities’ and returned to it after having completed courses in Modern History and, then, Criminology at Queen’s University.
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About: Holger Lönze
Critical Writing
Sometimes we gain a deeper appreciation of our own culture through a voice that comes from another place. Eleanor Flegg examines the work of German-born sculptor Holger Lönze and his recent commissions for Armagh City Centre and Portrush East Strand.
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About: Collect 2011
Critical Writing
If craft can be said to have pinnacles, Collect – the international applied arts fair held annually at the Saatchi Gallery in London – must be one of them. Eleanor Flegg reviews the work of three makers from Northern Ireland represented by the Craft Council of Ireland’s National Craft Gallery at Collect 2011.
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Wilhelmina Geddes - Belfast’s hidden treasure
Critical Writing
This year a plaque will mark the house in Marlborough Park South, Belfast where the artist, Wilhelmina Geddes (1887-1955), lived when she was attending the Belfast School of Art between 1903 – 1911. Nicola Gordon-Bowe explores the little-known works completed by Geddes in Belfast.
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About: Jack Doherty
Critical Writing
In ceramics, the most philosophically articulate of the craft disciplines, there is a strand of thought that sees life and work as an integrated process. These ideas, most famously articulated by Bernard Leach, are linked to the branch of ceramics that refuses to accept the separation of beauty and utility. The conscious integration of living and working, with the intention of producing objects that combine the properties of art and the utensil, is a stubborn, demanding, vocational path. It has produced both remarkable ceramics and remarkable people; the Irish potter, Jack Doherty, among them.
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About: Anthony Scott
Critical Writing
Ceramic sculpture is perceptually linked to the idea of craft, and this is both embraced and resisted by those working in clay. Work in bronze, however, is more likely to be displayed and sold as fine art. Eleanor Flegg talks to the Fermanagh-born artist, Anthony Scott, who makes sculptural work in both ceramic and bronze.
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Belfast’s Forgotten Art Deco
Critical Writing
Art Deco architectural embellishment spread across the decades of the 1920s and 1930s. Dr. Joseph McBrinn explores the rich examples of Belfast’s Art Deco buildings; all of which are presently at great risk.
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Vessels of Memory Exhibition Review
Critical Writing
Sharing an interest in the exploration of memory, remembrance and the personal object or possession, ceramicist Rachel Dickson and glass artist Alison Lowry have exhibited together under the title ‘Vessels of Memory’ at CraftNI’s gallery in Belfast.
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New Technology in Textiles Research
Critical Writing
In recent years, technology and its applications, has been the focus of many international discussions on craft practice. Now, one of Northern Ireland’s most influential textile artists, Professor Karen Fleming, is pioneering a project that applies her knowledge of textiles to medical science.
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Michael Brennand-Wood
Critical Writing
Since the early 1990s Michael Brennand-Wood has been at the forefront of the textile art world and he has worked on a series of major craft+architecture commissions. Although at the centre of his practice is a keen interest in the ‘contested areas of textile practice embroidery, lace, and patterning’ his work also shows how the artist can intervene in the spatial positioning of their work.
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The Slow Movement: Playing With Time
Critical Writing
The correlation of craft and the Slow Movement is part of the contemporary zeitgeist that sees craft as a site of resistance to consumer culture. The creative potential of DIY, after years of exile in the realm of uncool, has been brought back into fashion by television programmes like the Channel 4 series, Kirstie’s Homemade Home.
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Catherine Keenan: Glass Artist
Critical Writing
“Although a relatively young glass artist Catherine Keenan’s work demonstrates this desire to bridge both contemporary ideas of conceptualism in art practice whilst developing her technical skills as deeply and as widely as possible”. Dr. Joseph McBrinn, July/Aug 2010
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Jill Phillips: Furniture & Textile Designer
Critical Writing
In the late autumn and early winter of 2009 Craft Northern Ireland played host to ‘Different Buses: An exhibition of textiles by Jill Phillips’ (10 September to 10 November 2009). As a designer Phillips is best known as a creator of bespoke, exquisite furniture and textiles which are always conceptually as much as technically interesting.
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Making It Programme
Critical Writing
Making it is a business start-up, or ‘business incubation’, program for emerging craft makers. It was established by Craft Northern Ireland in conjunction with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland.
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Alison Fitzgerald: basket weaving
Critical Writing
Alison Fitzgerald’s baskets are both innovate and traditional. The oval forms of her potato baskets also echo those that were made in considerable volume near Lough Neagh up until the 1930s, yet the understated gradations of colour and the use of the different types of willow to emphasise the ribbing within the pieces, give them an expensive subtlety.
