CCI-newsletter-1987-63-May-August

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MAY — A U G U S T 1987

Crafts Council of Ireland Thomas Prior House Merrion Road Dublin 4

In May this year, the Crafts Council invited craftspeople to submit slides of their work for preliminary selection of exhibitions of Irish craftwork in New York and in Karlsruhe, West Germany.

One hundred and seventy craftspeople submitted more than 700 slides and about eighty of these have been asked, as a result of the first selection, to make work for final selection in September.

In an effort to obtain as representative a submission as possible, the Crafts Council wrote directly to approximately 700 people initially, and others were contacted through their guilds and associations.

However, it is probable that some good work is absent from the slide collection (traditional musical instruments, for example, are not represented at all) and, as Brian Fallon comments in his article, the poor quality of many of the slides made consideration of some work virtually impossible.

Marion Fitzgerald and Brian Fallon were invited to look at the slide submission and to write their impressions for the Newsletter.

The last number of months give the impression of a period when a lot of energy was generated in the world of Irish crafts. The CPSI exhibition was followed by the Jewellers' and Metalworkers' "Booty '87", and the opening of the "Burren 4" exhibition with a debate on the role of the critic in the arts was followed closely by the opening of the Cultural Relations Committee's "Crafts Ireland" at Kilmainham Royal Hospital. During the same time, an exhibition ofcontemporary glass was shown at the privately-owned Solomon Gallery.

All of these events represent positive

SUMMER

Telephone 680764 / 603070

ISSUE

Articles by Aidan Dunne Brian Fallon Marion Fitzgerald Sean McCrum

moves within crafts in Ireland towards a new level and it seemed timely, therefore, to pose ourselves certain questions. By inviting four professional writers on the visual arts to write on some of the events taking place, an attempt has been made in this issue of the Newsletter to deal with concerns which all of us working within the crafts world have to confront in order to decide on future directions.

That two of these writers have recently written independently and critically on crafts exhibitions in national newspapers is indicative of a level of interest among 'outsiders' which has been all too rare in the past. This in itself must be seen as encouraging.

The need to develop critical thinking and a critical vocabulary, the mutual dependance of creativity and craftsmanship, the need for individual crafts people to decide whether they wish to make objects which will supply an alternative to massproduction or to practise 'art' in 'crafts' media, the necessity to develop the confidence which will produce work which is fully-committed in scale and concept, the need to examine what we are doing in an international rather than a national context, the need for selectivity, both by the group and the individual: all of these raise their heads in this series of articles.

It is to be hoped that we on the 'inside', craftsmen and Crafts Council, can continue to generate the energy necessary to sustain this interest on the 'outside'. The sum of both, with healthy dialogue between the two, can create the strength which will give birth to the identity we have talked about for so long.

Editor

IRISH C R A F T S IN THE 1980s The following articles are comments

by Brian Fallon and Marion Fitzgerald on the slide submission for the selection of exhibits of Irish craft work in New York and Karlsruhe.

In the early and middle seventies, arts and crafts in this country seemed to be making a breakthrough, both in terms of production and consumer interest (if that is the relevant term in this case), which is quite unparallelled in the past. Irish crafts, of course, did not start today or even yesterday.

Sarah Purser and An Tur Gloine, the level of 'art' printing reached by the Cuala Press and, more recently, by the Dolmen Press, are all history — and there has always been the occasional potter or metalworker or carver of genuine class. But all these were minority affairs, while in the last decade and a half the numbers engaged in some form of craft activity or another seems to have grown and grown.

Perhaps, on the whole, rather too much. Anybody who visits the South of France these days cannot but be appalled by the numbers of parasitical arts-and-craftists, the acres of badlymade pottery, without ideas or even function, the arty woodcarvings which are neither sculptures nor anything else, the kitschy metalwork. Whole villages now live off these 'craft centres', which peddle kitsch to tourists, whether from Paris and the North or from abroad. Even large areas of America, I am told, are going the same way, though in this case the traffic tends to be in pseudo-Indian blankets, folksy embroidery and objects which mix 'native' quality with a fake exoticism. The thought of, say, the Irish Midlands being covered with stalls or marketing centres of our own equivalent of all this cools my blood.

The fact is, however unpalatable it is to many well-meaning and enthusiastic people, that too much of the craftwork produced in this country is barely up to standard, and some is not even that. In particular, pottery is over-produced and to my own eyes — I am not, of course, a technical expert — sometimes badly made.

There is, for instance, a superfluity of that depressing thing, 'art' pottery, also called 'ceramic sculpture' by those who want to be taken with special seriousness. There is a great deal to be said for making pottery functional before it becomes anything else, just as the best modern painters mostly got a good grounding in traditional draughtsmanship. Bernard

Leach, for instance, was one of the best potters of the century, and a man of high ideals with an international reputation as a teacher and art philosopher. But his work is functional as well as beautiful, and he would have been horrified by any potterceramicist who could not have made an ordinary plate or mug with competence.

In the colour slides which I and Marion Fitzgerald went through in Thomas Prior House, there was an inordinate amount of pottery and ceramic work. Far too little of this was functional and straightforward, and the trouble was that those who departed from function — or at least, a show of function, since in practice you are unlikely to use an expensive piece for your breakfast table every morning — lacked the ideas, taste and sheer creativity to compensate for this. Ugly and inappropriate glazes (not always properly put on, either), banal shapes ('pinching' in a perfectly conventional cup or pot in the middle was a much abused device), 'free' shapes which lacked any rhythm or sense of line, came up with dull regularity. There are a number of 'class' potters and ceramicists in the country, Sonja Landweer being the outstanding case and Vivienne Foley, Leda May, Marie Foley and perhaps Cormac Boydell are all interesting figures. Nicky Moss keeps a sound level in a quasicommercial way, Stephen Pearce is always professional, and on a rather lower level, Michael ("Stoneware") Jackson is competent if rather short of ideas. Too much of the other work seemed technically immature, or simply dull, or pretentious, sometimes all three.

In the patchwork section though this is certainly not my field, Jennifer Kingston stood out and Evelyn Montague was interesting. The woodturning and furniture sections were very ordinary, which is disappointing considering that wood is such a part of the Irish heritage and consciousness. The thinking seems to be oddly circumscribed and if too much ceramics are 'free' in an undisciplined and formless way, the woodworkers seem, by contrast, overtraditional, rather inhibited and lacking in ideas. There is far too much flavour of the technical school.

The jewellery and metalwork section was more interesting. Linda Uhlemann works sensitively in silver, and a pendant and brooch caught my eye. Erwin Springbrum is another who arises well above the humdrum, and

though it is hard to pick out other outstanding names, the general level seemed generally efficient and often much more. In the weave and knitwear section, Julia Cooke, Lily van Oost, and possibly Anne Niedeker looked good, though there was rather too much competent, pedestrian work and often a lack of designing flair and boldness. The batik section I found frankly slightly monotonous and the embroidery and lace, again, seemed competent, even in quality, and rather featureless.

Many of these verdicts, if they are even that, must be given and taken with qualifications. Slides are far from an ideal method of judging work, but they have become unavoidable, and are now virtually standard practice with painters and others trying to interest galleries — particularly overseas galleries — in their work. But this has its own standards, and only the best slides will do. Too many of the ones I saw were poor as photographs and clumsily and unimaginatively taken or angled. If individual craftworkers are unskilful in this field, then it might pay them to get good-quality slides taken by a professional. Otherwise, the presentation of work suffers, the markets and golden (or silver) opportunities can be missed.

The object of the exercise was to select work for display in New York and Germany (Karlsruhe). Frankly, I doubt if much more than five per cent of what I saw would qualify for that, ten per cent at the very outside, and even that with very strong reservations. That the best of our crafts is good enough to export to the big international centres, I have no doubt at all. The success of Simon Pearce's glassware in America is one proof of this, and there have been others. But at the moment, I have been left with an overall picture of a field of activity which is rather overpopulated by quasi-creative people who obviously enjoy what they are doing, make enough money out of it to have a tolerable life style, and do not aspire to very much more.

This is probably the basic defect in what seems to fall rather awkwardly between the category of an art field and a luxury industry. Very tentatively, I would suggest that more and more craftspeople in this country should concentrate first on profe lionalism and solid, sound technical finish, and leave self-expression and creative yearnings in abeyance until they have thoroughly mastered the first. This is particularly true, as I have said, in

ceramics, where there is a curious breed of unfulfilled sculptor turning out things which are neither art nor objects, simply a kind of pretentious semi-kitsch. Harsh words, no doubt, and I must add that this is by no means confined to this country. I have seen, and suffered from, the same phenomenon all over Europe, from Cornwall to Lyons.

This is not an incitement to purely commercial productivity by the way.

But there must be some compromise between them, surely or if 'compromise' seems a suspect word, there should be a market for crafts, limited perhaps but not narrowly 'elitist'. Marketing, of course, is another skill altogether and one which many craftspeople may never acquire.

But in the long run, crafts are for the public (big or small), not an act of selfindulgence for art college graduates, or even less for those who have failed to get into an art college and search for some 'creative' outlet. Being a good craftsman, or craftswoman is not everything, but surely it is the foundation on which everything else is built. It will not guarantee that touch of individualism or imagination which changes the well-made product into something more than that, but it does guarantee that this will get a proper, professional expression.

B. Fallon Brian Fallon is Arts Editor at the Irish Times and writes on the visual arts.

I have no doubt that if one could see the range of crafts being produced in Ireland fifteen or twenty years ago, and compare them with the range of crafts being produced today, the improvement would seem impressive.

I have written regularly on crafts for a number of years now in the Irish Times — under the name Una Lehane — and I know that there is a great deal of enthusiasm and energy being expended in the field of crafts.

Craft work has become popular — I hesitate to say fashionable — and the level of awareness of craftwork among the general public must have risen quite extensively. Considerable aid has also come from semi-state sources in a financial form and in the form of craft centres, craft clusters, and craft units in enterprise centres — though some people have argued that the Government gave with one hand and took back with the other, in the form of the Value Added Tax on the sales of craftwork. People in general

feel sympathetically disposed to craft products and craft workers.

I was disappointed then, to feel disappointed at the level in some eight hundred slides representing various crafts at which I looked recently in the Crafts Council offices in Thomas Prior House in the RDS in Dublin. It wasn't so much that the level was bad, more that it wasn't often really good, really first-class.

The slides had been submitted by craft workers with the hope of possible participation in an exhibition of Irish craft work at the National Craft Gallery in New York in November, or in an exhibition of Irish work in Karlsruhe, in West Germany in December, 1987. The Karlsruhe gallery sells work on a once-off basis, the New York Gallery is interested in reproduceable work, so successful exhibitors could expect follow-up orders.

Both galleries, I assume, are accustomed to showing work of international standard. I was familiar with the work of quite a few of the crafts people, but there were others whose work I could only judge from slides, and elides may not be the fairest aid to making judgements. On the other hand, the Crafts Council could hardly be expected to handle over eight hundred pieces of craft work in their small offices. But even making allowances for the fact that I was looking at the work on slides, candidly it seemed to me that a depressingly small amount of the work I saw was of an international standard. A lot of it was reasonably good, but not enough of it was very good.

Consider ceramics — and ceramics is probably the most popular craft area of all — and you will find ceramic artists, or ceramacists, or potters in almost every part of the country. When people think of taking up a craft, pottery must be one of the first crafts of which they think. It has sometimes seemed to me that there are too many mediocre potters in Ireland, and few enough really first-class ones.

In the slides submitted to the Crafts Council, ceramics made up by far the biggest group — several hundred in all. Despite so many entries, I found there were few enough which stood out as exceptional, and quite a few of those which did turned out to be names which have ranked as exceptional for quite a while. I liked Sonja Landweer's pieces. I admired

some classically simple vases, and found they had been made bv Vivienne Foley. Nicky Mosse's pieces were solidly crafted, Michael Jackson's of an acceptable standard. I found Cormac Boydell's work interesting.

Stephen Pearce's tableware is goodlooking and good tableware, and i should imagine would be well-liked in New York. Jane Forrester's work appealed to me. I liked Liza Young's pieces, and two by Guy Stephenson There were very few entries in the furniture section, and of the few the work that stood out was the work of Knut Klimmek. Embroidery and lace was somewhat meagrely represented also, and again one person stood out — for me, at any rate — Marion Young. Her miniature pictures evoke the kind of magical moments we all' remember — special summer days, childhood scenes, marvellously captured with needle and thread.

Weaving and knitwear was not so well represented. Allie Kay's work needs no introduction to anybody with an interest in this area and I am sure the high standards she sets would be recognised in any country. I liked Jesse Eckersley's work, and I was impressed by Julia Cooke's pieces — good colours and good design.

Kaethe Burt O'Dea's garments are a special kind of high fashion, and would, I imagine, go down well in New York. But that doesn't seem a big selection from a country which prides itself on a tradition of knitwear and weaving.

Among the jewellery and metalwork submitted I liked Inga Reed's pieces, and I've always been a fan of Linda Uhlemann. I first saw Erwin Springbrum's work at the recent show of jewellery in the Bank of Ireland in Baggot Street, and he seems to me a craftsman of international standard.

Woodturning became a popular craft here within the last five years. Quite a number of entries in this section, however, were fairly predictable, and slides didn't really give you the full rich effect of wood anyway, but Ciaran Forbes work looked good, and Liam O'Neill's bowl in spalted beech was handsome.

Patchwork is another craft area which has enjoyed enormous popularity in recent years. Patchwork workshops have been happening all over the country and some very attractive work has been produced, and seen here in

exhibitions, and in some cases sent abroad, but a lot of patchwork is being done for pure personal enjoyment, and is not necessarily in an international class. I admired some of Mary McDonnell's designs, and I quite liked some of the pieces submitted by Grania McElligott and a wall hanging

by Ruth McDonnell. I especially noticed Jennifer Kingston's pieces — fluid colours, atmospheric design.

Again I would suspect that some good patchwork artists didn't submit any entries.

Perhaps my eyes were out of sympathy, but the batik entries didn't seem to me wildly original.

As I suggested at the beginning of this piece, the standard of craftwork in Ireland has increased tremendously over the last decade or two, and craftworkers have got a lot of support and encouragement at various levels, and deservedly so. But perhaps the time has now come for craftworkers to measure themselves more strictly against international criteria in the different fields. One way of doing this is to travel abroad and see what people in other countries are doing, but not everybody can afford to do that. Another way would be to bring more exhibitions of international level to Ireland — the San Francisco potters of last autumn is a good case in point.

Perhaps we will see more exhibitions of this kind here in the future.

Marion Fitzgerald.

Marion Fitzgerald writes on crafts, both in her own name and as Una Lehane, for the Irish Times.

BURREN 4 An Introduction Any introduction to the Burren 4 Exhibition should start with a statement from and about the Crafts Council — for one is inextricably linked with the other. Together they show clearly the path which the Crafts Council wants to follow.

The first question to be asked should examine the meaning of the word crafts. Where do you draw the line between crafts and industry, or between crafts and fine art? If woodcarving is craft and sculpture is fine art, where do you draw the line between carving and sculpture? If so, what about Rembrandt the etcher; is he artist or craftsman?

But these questions are foolish. The fine arts, the crafts and industrial production are obviously all parts of a related thought process. They all need the skills and design of craftsmanship and industry, with the creativity of art.

Each is lost without the other.

The Council's aims are to make people aware of this fact: through encouragement, to advance the creation of works of fine craftsmanship: through promotion, to increase the level of interest in the works of craftsmen: through encouragement and promotion, to improve the overall level of design in everyday functional objects to such an extent that the line between art, craft and industry becomes blurred, so blurred, that craft and industrial objects are seen not only for their functional use, but also for the quality of their line, form and balance, in other words, for the quality and creativity of their design.

Because this is the underlying aim of everything the Crafts Council does, one can see the importance of the Burren exhibition. Let me explain and try to show you how this exhibition came into being.

The work on view is the result of the fourth Burren Workshop. The workshop, organised by the Crafts Council of Ireland with some help from AnCO, gives artists and craftsmen an opportunity to work together and examine their own work.

That gives them all freedom to extend their creative boundaries.

Participants spend a week in the Burren working both together and with the workshop leaders. Taken from their studios to this hard and empty landscape, they are forced to

re-examine their concept of their own craft. They are given an opportunity to make demands on themselves, to stretch beyond what they have accepted as the limites of their capabilities and so to improve the quality of their work.

Alone, back in the studio, is possibly the most difficult time. Efforts to develop concepts into forms that make visual sense, may come to nothing. So many questions and problems may be raised that a struggle which could last for months may result before the individual begins to reach success in selfexpression. The process may not finally resolve itself for years.

The exhibition, held ten months after the workshop, is a collection of works which represent various stages in the development process. There are working drawings, experimental pieces, and 'finished' works which still may represent concepts which are not fully realised. The exhibition attempts to illustrate, not define, the creative process.

The participants have given such a volume of work that a percentage of it had to be omitted from the exhibition. This being the case, items to be included were chosen, first of all, for what was felt to be their ability to communicate with the detached observer. Aware of the project's nature, the Crafts Council of Ireland has not attempted to use the exhibition to make a final statement about Burren 4. It has, rather, sought expressions of the participants' own feelings about their experiences.

Although, for the participants, many of the ideas developed here are experimental, we feel that together they do make sense as a coherent visual presentation to the public.

Giving craftsmen a chance to extend their own boundaries and at the same time improving, not only the quality of design, but also the level of visual awareness in Ireland, is, and will continue to be, the most important aspect of the Crafts Council of Ireland's work.

Terry Kelly Crafts Council of Ireland

Exhibition review byAidan

Dunne

The title-page of the manuscript of Schumann's Fantasy in C Major bears a motto that reads: "In all the myriad sounds of the dream of life, there runs a secret tone, for one who knows how to listen." The words are taken from Friedrich von Schlegel, the poet philosopher, one of the founders of the romantic movement in Germany.

The Burren Project is, in many respects, all about prompting and encouraging people to listen for that secret tone which is the wellspring of creativity. The Project aims, at the very least, to create a space and a time that will allow the creative impulse to emerge and take shape. "If I stopped making such a noise all the time I might hear something nice," as Saul Bellow once wrote. "I might hear a bird."

The Burren 4 exhibition aims to do more than marshall a collection of artefacts bearing the imprint of that strange limestone desert, it aspires to reflect the totality of the project, to demonstrate the creative process in action, from inspiration through concept to finished work. The project is a form of experiment, and the show is a record of the experiment, in which the catalyst is the place itself.

The place is stark, definite, irrefutable, something of an overwhelming environment, at first blank and impervious, eventually surprisingly receptive and rich. What at first might seem to repel later draws you in. Life, colour, all manner of subtleties flourish in the fissures between the rock slabs.

It is natural but curiously architectonic.

"Although tribesmen did not build the natural forms of the Burren," writes one participant, "my fascination with ancient history is made real in this environment." There are, of course, signs of a human presence as well.

The Project thrusts craftspeople into a stark natural environment and waits to see its influence percolate through in their work. More and more people, and hence more and more designers and craftspeople, spend their lives in the manufactured environment of ever-growing conurbations, remote from the natural world, the world to which design increasingly tends to merely pay lip service. In visiting and staying in the Burren, the participants are thrown back on primary sources, on natural form.

The exhibition is indeed a feast of form and texture. It is this aspect that

most immediately expresses the influence of the Burren. Dorothy Murphy's ceramic pieces, richly textured, rough but elegant, almost inchoate in the way they seem snatched from nature, planked down in front of us, and full of crisp urgency.

"What I enjoyed most about the landscape," she writes in the catalogue," were the textures of things like coarse limestone, the mossy walls and thick ferns. My hands were actively tingling with these textures when I returned to Cork." Her forms are sculptural, autonomous, just as Barrie Cooke's paintings are complete and self-contained, aesthetically coherent expressions making no reference to a functional dimension — and reflecting the restlessness, the mutability of nature on every level.

At the other extreme, ceramicist Maria Connolly remarks that "The Burren I did not find all that exciting. All that rock is interesting, but it left me feeling cold and unexcited." Her sculptural pieces deploy inflexibly synthetic geometric forms: "At the moment, the objects that I am interested in are space ships, satellites and any type of mechanical, futuristic form. "She really speaks a different language to the likes of Murphy and Cooke, and, while her Burren experience may eventually have decisive repercussions in her work, there are, ten months later, few if any signs of it.

Robin Forrester, a painter, was obviously very responsive to the spirit of the place as much as its physicality.

Besides fine drawings of sprawling rock patterns, he is exhibiting watercolours and pastels that suggest the almost mystical qualities of the Burren, its antiquity and history. He has also managed to accommodate this material in the context of habitual preoccupations.

He is, however, another 'fine artist', and one can readily see how almost any experience is grist to his creative mill. But what of the mainstream craftspeople, those accustomed to creating objects with a functional end in mind? It is a clear wish of the organisers that the Burren will infiltrate their thought processes, and there is much evidence on view of the initial stages of this: sketches, fragments, studies, immediate impressions. Here the line between crafts and fine art is not only stretched but really dispensed with.

In fact, there is little that could be described as strictly functional in Burren 4. The ceramic vessels, even

Tracy Re id's amazing cast bronze vessels, are generally complete in themselves, sculptural forms. Kaethe Burt O'Dea's remarkable coats and head wraps, terrific, dense agglomerations of colour and texture in bold shapes, immensely physical, clearly surpass any functional criteria.

"The crafts are usually thought of as functional," she notes, "but they also operate for me as moving sculpture on the body."

Allie Kay's "Nightfall" coat is also a striking artefact in its own right: an artwork about the idea of a garment as much as a garment itself. Oddly enough, the related works on paper that she is showing give little indication of the beauty and sophistication of the finished clothes, seeming tight and unsympathetic. On this point, her statement is frank and illuminating: "I develop themes very slowly. I am... only just beginning to use some of the ideas from Burren 1 in 1982."

There is a great deal of work in which the Burren connection is more clearly and easily read: Judi Lardner's fine series of pots and delicate earthenware panels; John Egan's combined wall panel and vase; Bryde Glynn's grid-patterned wall hanging, redolent of rocky landscape; Patricia Murphy's lively, spontaneous prints; Angela Forte's tapestry sentinels. All fine work, generally more art than craft.

By its nature, the effects of the Burren Project, even ten months on, are impossible to quantify. It is very much a long-term investment, and an investment not so much in something concrete and easily quantifiable as in something intangible and qualitative: an awareness of the natural dimension in design, art and craft, of the importance and richness of natural form. In demonstrating this principal the show can clearly extend the process from the brave participants themselves to a much wider audience. In this it is broadly successful and entirely laudable.

Given a chance, it will create a space, a chance to hear the bird, to notice that "secret tone".

Aidan Dunne

BURREN 5 • Applications are now invited for the fifth Burren Project. Application forms can be obtained from: Crafts Council of Ireland Thomas Prior House, Merrion Road, Dublin 4. 01-680764/603070 • Applications are sought among all age groups.

• Applicants will be accepted on the basis of their suitability for the course and may, if necessary, be asked to attend interviews.

• Applications are sought from practitioners in all visual media.

BURREN4 Above left: untitled — cotton variously dyed, painted and stitched, by Rushton Aust. Right: Standing Stone 1 — tomb of a Faithful Warrior: woven tapestry by Angela Forte.

Below: two untitled panels in white earthenware with green and gray spattered slip and incised lines, cracked and split. By Judi Lardner.

• While maximum discussion is hoped for at all stages in the development of the Burren 5 Project between participants, leaders and co-ordinator, in view of the long-term aims of the Project, eventual decisions by the Crafts Council must be regarded as final.

• Although criteria for selection will be open to discussion during the Burren 5 Workshop, final decisions will rest with the Crafts Council and participants must accept selection of the Burren 5 Exhibition by a panel chosen by the Council as final. Acceptance of selection of the Burren 5 Exhibition will be a condition of participation.

• Leaders are being chosen as a team of individuals who show, whatever their artistic medium of expression, strong communicative qualities.

• As the object of the Burren Project is to encourage conceptual skills rather than technical, and as a level of control of materials that can support the participant's own innate creativity is assumed, the disciplines followed by leaders are felt to be of secondary importance.

• Participation fee will depend on the number of participants, but is envisaged as being approximately £150 for the entire course. This will include breakfast, dinner and comfortable accommodation.

• The planned dates for the Burren 5 Workshop are 24 October to 2 November, with a final open weekend included, and the location, Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare.

• The closing date for receipt of applications is 18 September 1987.

THE ARTIST AND THE CRITIC An open debate on the role of the critic in the arts organised by the Crafts Council of Ireland — review by Sean McCrum.

Instead of confronting craftspeople with cash-flow problems and their accountants, Burren 4 made them look at creativity in their work. When that element comes to the fore, it also brings out the problems of how outside criticism relates to what they do. That automatically raises the vexed relationship of creative people to critics.

"The Artist and the Critic" was a forum to discuss that. Colm O Briain chaired the discussion. Three others, the painter Robert Ballagh, the theatre critic Fintan OToole, and the arts administrator Declan McGonagle, each talked briefly about their views of the relationship. After that, the discussion became open.

Ballagh outlined the need for critics to examine the background to artists' thinking, rather than just commenting on their work as isolated objects.

OToole discussed the importance for critics to participate in evolving a strategy to counter the degrading of ideas and feelings perpetrated by the mass communications industry, which is currently so prevalent.

McGonagle discussed the possibilities open to places like Derry, or Ireland in general, which the mainstream arts centres consider marginal. Because the former are not loaded with the cultural, political and historical baggage of these centres, they can better assess and take advantage of the new alternatives to the traditional roles of the arts, from which these centres are unable to extricate themselves.

All of these elements involve reconsidering traditional roles and attitudes, for creative people. Like painters and writers, craftspeople transmute ideas and emotions into forms which others can perceive.

Emphases may differ, because what is made is usually unitarian also.

However, they all suffer from various forms of becoming marginal. In the case of painters, the mass media have taken over the central role for visual communication. In the case of the crafts, mechanical, mass production has had a similar effect.

In Ireland, neither has seriously

reassessed its role in these contexts.

This is something which causes particular problems in the crafts. Until it happens, too many areas of the crafts will be unable to examine what craftswork is in the late twentieth century, why people are involved in craftswork, and also what part of the market should be their target. Should crafts products, for example, be aimed at the luxury end of the market? This involves not just marketing, but assessing what place the crafts now occupy in western society.

There are other problems in being marginal. They are partly geographical. They also concern painting being designated the centre of visual creativity, and everything else to some degree peripheral. The crafts and other creative forms urgently need to examine how this can be countered. "Marginal" should become "alternative".

To do this, the crafts require a critical vocabulary for discussion to take place. The lack was very obvious in the seminar. "Artists" are equipped with this as part of their training. Film makers in particular have benefitted from a highly developed critical language.

If no adequate vocabulary exists, with which to pick out and discuss fundamental issues, then the issues have never been discussed. If this is so, then the crafts area has major problems in finding the means for its development.

Sean McCrum

C R A F T S IRELAND The Cultural Relations Committee touring exhibition, which opened at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, reviewed by Aidan Dunne Crafts Ireland is a modest, elegantly packaged showcase for Irish craft skills, designed to tour Europe over a period of several years. Judging by the high proportion of staple commercial products it includes, it is intended as much as a shopfront as an exercise in cultural prestige. In fact there is a distinct emphasis on conventional materials, forms and products, as if to underline the sober competence of Irish craftspeople, their economic pragmatism. This can result in something like blandness: a tame refinement. Yet the overall air of lowkey excellence is also impressive, and there are some lively notes to the show.

The demanding schedule and the qualitative disparity of intended venues mean that "the selectors did not consider items which were large, expensive or fragile". The consequent emphasis on fine tuning runs the risk of suggesting an excessive fussiness, something that works against, for example, Roisi Phelan's small glass bottles. What comes across in their case is a certain lack of clarity, a formal clutter. Maybe they would be seen to greater advantage in isolation, in their own space.

The bulk of the exhibition is given over to uncontentious, well-established products: Keith Leadbetter's chunky wine and sherry glasses; Stephen Pearce's red earthenware pottery; an Aran jumper by Margaret Hassett; a Kerry Woollen Mills knee rug; wood bowls by Keith Mosse and Liam O'Neill; worsted wool and silk scarves

by Rena Fleming. This mainstream product base is somewhat broadened by the inclusion of such objects as a jumping saddle by the Berney Brothers, Edward Tutty's cattle drover's boots, Frankie McPhillips' "twenty-one fully dressed salmon fishing flies," or Mary Landy's rushwork baskets: traditional products forms and techniques, but they do reinforce an appropriate vernacular dimension.

Add in some fairly staid rugs, pots, embroidery, lacework and jewellery and you have a picture of undoubted competence, flair and almost overweening sobriety. The more fineart inclined pieces — sculpture, wall-

eclectic pieces that allow a wider and freer range of cultural reference than almost anything else in the show, which is perhaps surprising. Kaethe Burt O'Dea's weighty, sculptural jacket has a comparable expansiveness, and Geraldine Ormonde's paper containers are also striking, but by and large the general tenor is cautiously mainstream.

These more vivid, startling pieces enliven what might otherwise be a very stolid affair. As it is, the exhibition's dominant virtue is certainly that of sober competence. Nothing is taken for granted, the spectator is persuaded that the craftworkers have mastered basic skills, are maintaining an established cultural tradition, are cautious about innovation. It is a tame show, too tame, perhaps, for the home audience, but perhaps its tameness is permissible in view of its primary, missionary function. Few eyebrows will be raised, but perhaps people will be quietly impressed.

Aidan Dunne "Crafts Ireland" exhibition RHK: left: traditional Irish cattle drover's boots by Edward Tutty; and Aran jumper in natural undyed wool

by Margaret Hassett; and below: purbeck stone trough by Kenneth Thompson. Photographs courtesy of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. hanging, pictures — do little to lift the show. That's left to a small number of livelier exhibits, which play the role of jokers in the pack.

Kenneth Thompson's purbeck stone trough fits into this category, a beautiful, sculptural object which echoes of Ian Hamilton Finlay: exemplary craftsmanship in a showpiece. Cormac Boydell can also be relied upon to produce something quite out of the rut, though he is represented here in a fairly subdued vein, tamed, to some extent, by the company he keeps. The characteristic gritty roughness of "Landsat", a discshaped vase, is less noticeable than the jokiness of his earthenware dish inscribed with a caricaturish portrait: the levity is surprising in the context, and welcome.

There is levity, as well, to Sonja Landweer's terrifically primitive combination of pheasant-feathered jerkin and a starkly stated necklace, very much a bold neck ornament, in leather, bone, wood and stoneware: 8

ICE, FIRE AND LIGHT An Exhibition of Contemporary Studio Glass at the Solomon Gallery Dublin Review by Sean McCrum Studio glass has one great advantage over ceramics. It has avoided obsessively worrying about whether it is an 'art' or a 'craft'. It has no problems about combining creativity and craftsmanship. There is no cavernous split about how art-based work relates to crafts-based, in the way that ceramics still has.

The main reasons for this are historical. In one case, a number of glass factories on the continent employed designers to develop the forms which craftspeople made into actual objects. The relationship across the two is close but separate. It is similar to an artist who incises a picture on a metal plate from which a skilled printer then makes a limited edition of prints. The validity of creativity and craftsmanship in a single project is not called into question.

The second reason relates directly to studio glass, where, unlike a factory, a single person designs and makes the same object, however, it combines aesthetics and utility. Although studio glass mainly developed in the early 1960s as a reaction to factory-made work, and as a way of allowing artists to find a cheaper way of making glass as a source for individual creativity, it has the advantage of responding to a tradition where there was already no basic split between 'art' and 'utility'.

It obviously altered the creative balance to a single person, not two. In these terms, there is no real split between Pauline Solven's or Alison Kinnaird's sculptural or pictorial use of glass, and Keith Leadbetter's goblets or the display unit of scent bottles. All accept the notion that personal creativity is as important a part of making an object as technical skill. An object's aesthetic function is as important as its utilitarian.

However the individual works may be assessed, as a group this exhibition brings to the forefront the irrelevance of the arts versus crafts issue. The two areas are so obviously part of the same creative process that they raise the question of why the issue was ever raised in European culture.

It largely came about because western art is hierarchial, with painting at the apex, prints, drawing,

watercolour and sculpture next, with experimental media, ceramics, glass and the others at the bottom. The issue is further confused because sculptural glass and ceramics can be taken into this pyramid. Mugs, bowls and plates are not so easy. The links between utilitarian and sculptural work in these two media make it clear that the art pyramid does not relate to them, yet they have been constricted by it.

For glass, the problem was overtly overthrown because artists moved into experimental glass-making and overthrew the distinction in terms of 'art' itself, the very term which had created this false system. The difference for glass and ceramics is that studio glass has been relatively unaffected, but ceramics has had serious problems in Ireland and elsewhere.

One or two objects in this exhibition sum up the irrelevance of the arts/crafts divide, and the stupidity of discussing one medium as more creative than another. The single piece which most directly confronts the cruel stupidity of this situation is a scent bottle by Colin Reid. It is practical and sculptural. It exploits the possibilities which exist in glass and no other medium. It is about 9" high, with its lid taking up about a third of its height. It is mainly made from clear glass, with an interior whose mass and outlines relate effectively to the body of the glass which surrounds it.

Around the joint between the body and lid, both of which have subtle and uneven crystalline surfaces which exactly match the glass quietly but dramatically alters colour. Grey-white

Above left: scent bottles by David Taylor. Right; bowl employing Swedish "Graal" technique, by Elizabeth Swinburne. areas move into muted pink, which moves into clear glass.

This particular piece is far more powerful than a sculpture, also by Reid, which is about 12" high, 18" wide and 1/2" or so deep. It is a flatsided, vertical spiral, with the same jagged edges and transitions from clear to coloured glass. The result is diffused and weakened in comparison, because it lacks the formal structure which the previous piece gained from being a bottle.

Pauline Solven's "Sun Eye" also benefits from having its source in a practical shape. In her case, this is a vase, which, like Reid's scent bottle, gives her boundary lines within which she can work with as much freedom as she wants.

"Sun Eye" is around about 8" in diameter with a circular off-centre opening near the top. It is made from thick, clear glass, which is partly polished and partly sanded. It is coloured on most of the interior and exterior surfaces. All the time, it plays with the interplay of concave and convex surfaces, interiors and exteriors light effects on them and the two levels of colour and surface textures which it incorporates. The whole object balances between a concise, circular shape and the fluctuating effects which are placed on it.

Alison Kinnaird's engraved and low 9

BOOTY '87

THE MAGIC OF FELT

This exhibition made an impact of quality jewellery and metalwork and an established guild. It did not reflect that the guild was only a year old.

The Handweavers Guild of Cork held its felting weekend in the new Meditation Centre at Saint Dominic's, Ennismore, Cork, which consists of recently renovated stables and quadrangle. Our teacher was Ewa Kuniczak-Coles, a textile artist and teacher from Britain, and we were pleased to have with us so many members of the Irish Spinners Weavers and Dyers Guild whom we got to know in person, rather than by newsletter!

The simple logo on the gold coloured invitations, brochures, posters and Mel Bradley's wall hanging made a memorable inpression, of an annual exhibition to look out for.

Silver necklet by Rudolf Heltzel at "Booty '87". relief plate also takes advantage of the two surfaces which glass offers.

Unlike the previous two people, she works with an identifiable human figure, transformed from outlines to white and black, in a piece called "Leap". This requires subtle understatement, which her other plate lacks. It suffers as a result.

Roisi Phelan's bottle shapes are again practical objects restructured sculpturally, with free and mouldblown forms whose surfaces are textured and gritty. Roisin de Buitlear exhibits two pieces, each of which uses four or so flat, horizontal, circular sections of glass, placed one above the other. Each is slightly smaller than the one below. They are separated by clear, round glass supports. One piece works successfully, because of the careful balance between colour, buffed texture, clear glass and the slightly varying size of its parts. The other fails because it overstates all of this and becomes bland as a result.

This is the first serious attempt since the Ulster Museum's studio glass exhibition in 1973 to set studio glass in a coherent context in Ireland. The exercise is particularly important in an island where home-produced work of this type is relatively uncommon and hence seen as an isolated phenomenon. In the UK, where most of this particular material originates, the opposite is the case. By including some Irish-based glass makers, they are given a context, which they have previously lacked. Most important of all, "Ice, Fire and Light" firmly establishes the links between creativity, a non-traditional art medium like glass and utility.

Sean McCrum JO

The brochure is a good reference book giving biographies of all who exhibited and also the names and addresses of members, with the exception of Pat Flood in the Powerscourt Centre, whose name got lost in our own bureaucracy! Sorry Pat! The work of 24 members passed assessment on behalf of the Crafts Council and the Guild. The work was interesting and of a reasonable standard. The fact that the majority of items which sold were made for the exhibition is a welcome surprise and should give confidence to our members to submit more new work for "Booty '88".

The actual display, using clear perspex domes, mirrors and the white boxes was quite dramatic. It also solved the obvious security problems.

The presentation of the exhibition in the Bank of Ireland, Baggot Street, from 6 to 19 June drew much praise and received very favourable national press coverage.

Cynthia Rice, a most experienced silversmith, was on hand to answer all queries from the public everyday. The final sales figure was good, but could have been higher, although it does not take into consideration commissions agreed since the opening of the exhibition. Some pieces were not hallmarked and the public refused to buy. I am sure that this will not happen again next year.

We are most grateful for the encouragement and assistance of the Crafts Council and the sponsorship of Avonmore.

Cormac Cuffe Jewellers & Metalworkers Guild

We began on Friday night with a lecture and slide show on the history of felt. The origins of felting are certainly at the same time or earlier than weaving. One of the earliest magnificent pieces is the 4.5 x 6.5 metre Pazyryk felt from the period 700-200 BC, now in the Hermitage Museum, Leningrad. After slides showing the great beauty of historical felts in carpets, clothing, tents, hats, saddle blankets, Ewa showed us the work of modern felters, particularly members of the Felters Association, and thoroughly whetted our appetites for the task of felt making the next day.

Ewa began with a demonstration of ikat dying technique using acid dyes and covering the carded wool strips at intervals with plastic which acts as a resist to the dye. We put each bundle in a small roasting bag, added water, soap and then the acid and sprinkled on the dye. Pegging them on the edge of dye buckets over boiling water, we left them to simmer for two hours. The results were hung over the line to dry and appeared rather drab until we started undoing them and found that lovely ikat effects had been achieved. Many of these were used as the basis for striking felt pieces.

So we got down to actually making felt. If anyone thought that making swiss rolls was difficult, Ewa convinced us that making felt swiss rolls was effortless and fun — literally forming layers of coloured fleece and rolling them up, covering them with cotton to retain the shape, and sewing it. We covered all sorts of balls with threads, varieties of coloured fleece, bundled them into nylons which we tied round carefully to put in the washing machine. We ended up with such an assortment of shapes in the nylons, that when we put them in the Dominicans' washing machine, the Brother cook looked at us and mumbled dubiously "Not planning to eat them..?"

The excitement an hour later at the

opening up of the now felted articles was quite electric. We discovered that the swiss rolls could be cut across to give bright round buttons, or cut longwise with beautiful patterns, or even cut in several places to make a head, flowers or tree sculptures. PVA glue put on will strengthen them. And when we added the felt balls Ewa had shown us how to make in our hands, even more effects were created.

After lunch we were into the real hard work of hand-rolling — making flat pieces by encasing the fleece with cotton, then pouring over boiling water and stamping on them for at least 20 minutes! Then we had to roll them into a bamboo mat. We were relieved when Ewa then told us that we could make large pieces of felt into very thin ones, in the washing machine. We had to lay out two layers of carded fleece, do our design, or make pockets, folds, even scalloped edges, and then cover it with sheeting and sow it all up very carefully. So we spent the evening preparing our masterpieces to be felted the next morning. Experiments were made to achieve thin pieces, others put on fringes, one added paper, another did long slivers of the ikat dyed fleece, another put in wood shavings, another a net flower.

Sunday began with the flurry of preparing for the final machine felting — while Ewa talked about making hats, giving patterns for boots, showing us how to finish the felt. The highlights of the day were when she returned from collecting the felts from the washing machine with all the cotton parcels in her hands. Sitting out in the courtyard, the frenzy of trying to open the well-sewn parcels began, together with the exclamations of delight, or of disappointment when something had shrunk too much! We laid out our work for the final photos.

Sculptures showed what could be done with the swiss rolls — spheres from golf balls to footballs were so enticing to look into and feel with their coloured and textured interiors — wall hangings or mats demonstrated different ideas, from spidery almost see-through pieces through the multi­ coloured fish, to the vibrant mat with pockets and scalloped edges — and finally the two hats, one from a collapsed ball, the other a unique berry. We had indeed learned to felt but more than that we had experienced new techniques, exchanged new ideas, and forged new links in the world of textile art.

Catherine Ryan

THE J E W E L L E R S AND METALSMITHS GROUP AUSTRALIA Chairman's Invitation The Jewellers & Metal Group Australia is hosting the 1988 Biennial Conferernce in Queensland as a major activity of Australia's Bicentennial Year.

"Concepts for Change", the chosen Conference theme leads not only in thought, but in time.

Venue: Gold Coast International Hotel, Surfers Paradise, Queensland, Australia. Dates: 21-24 January 1988.

The Conference Programme promises to be not only exciting but innovative — and sometimes controversial. There is to be a major exhibitions programme, both in conjunction with and following the Conference, and a Workshops Programme to follow directly after the Conference.

Please address all correspondence to: The Conference Chairman, Jewellers and Metalsmiths Group Australia, GPO Box 1402, Brisbane, QLD. 4 0 0 1 , Australia.

Tel: National (07)299 1333 International (617) 299 1333 Convention Number 0469

Preliminary information available from Crafts Council of Ireland.

FOR SALE Purpose built Workshop and house on major tourist route.

All reasonable offers considered.

Contact: 051 80185

FOR SALE Lover spinning wheel and accessories. Natural dye stuffs and wool fleeces.

Supplied by Mary O'Rourke Glenasmole Dublin 24

CERAMIC WORKSHOPS 15 Beechmount Rd Ballygowan Co Down BT23 6NL Northern Ireland Tel. 0232-813 631

HEATHER NELSON Supplier of: clay, glazes, stains, brushes, tools, kilns, blungers, wheels, decorating equipment, etc.

EVERYTHING THE POTTER REQUIRES

CRAFT STUDIOS A small number of vacancies have arisen at the Enterprise Centre in Pearse Street, Dublin 2.

WEAVING EQUIPMENT Looms and accessories, books, dyes, yarns for weaving and knitting, spinning wheels Available from Ann O'Kelly 4 Eglington Park, Donnybrook, Dublin 4. Telephone 693565

WANTED Second-hand 5/10 cubic ft. kiln, and two kick- or electric wheels.

Donal O'Leary Bunowen Louisburgh Co Mayo or (098) 26062

The Tower Design Guild, in conjunction with the IDA, is currently bringing in more craftworkers who are specifically interested in contributing to a high-profile craft centre. This at present involves opening studios for visiting tour groups, contributing to the general display area and taking part in various group promotions and activities.

Interested applicants should write to Isabella Evangelisti Marketing Representative, IDA Enterprise Centre, Pearse St., Dublin 2.

crackled, off-white interiors. Their bodies are gradually everted from their bases to their rims, which then slope sharply inwards. The bodies are made with large, gently facetted surfaces. The rims are partly covered.

These vases focus around the link between balance and imbalance and the altering of expectations through combining this element with the vase shape, glazes, and the way in which their openings are partially covered.

One of Sarah Ryan's pot-shapes, which are designed to be placed on their sides, develops an interesting balance between a pinkish, modulated glaze and a curving, narrow and small neck set on a plump body. The balance between glaze colour and the body is important here because its failure in her other work is noticeable.

POTTERS '87 The Craft Potters Society of Ireland's Annual Exhibition at Carroll's, Dublin.

Review by Sean McCrum This is the 8th exhibition organised by the Craft Potters since they set up the association in 1977. It focuses mainly on utilitarian goods, or material which is closely related, with a few exceptions. It is also a largely Dublin centred exhibition, despite its title, because Dublin is its only venue and no attempt is apparently made to set up collection points around the country. Anyone from far outside Dublin is less inclined to bring their work because of transport problems.

The problem becomes serious when statistics are examined. Out of a published list of fifty-five members twenty-eight are centred in the Dublin region, six are in Cork, four from Limerick, and the rest are sparsely spread around the rest of the country.

Of the fifty exhibitors in the present exhibition, twenty-five are Dublin based, five are from Cork, four from Limerick, and the rest are sparsely scattered. To take one region, Cork Potters' last exhibition included twenty-eight people. An allegedly Irish-based exhibition is obviously failing to draw on a large number of people who could boost its standards.

A second problem is that anyone who is a member can exhibit one work.

Although the Craft Potters have slowly removed the low level of work which downgraded its shows four or five years ago, it needs urgently to address the problem of a type of

Porcelain jug and mug, decorated brightly coloured slips applied with hypodermic syringe, by Peter Wolstenholme and part of Courtmacsherry Ceramics new "symphony" range.

selection process which weakens the credibility of the work on show.

A show like this, which has gradually raised its expectations of professionalism, still needs to make the move to open, not guaranteed selection. By failing to make this change, it still includes too much inept utilitarian ware, which fails to contend with the basic problem that a cup, for example, visually suggests to a user a certain weight and mass. If it does not meet that expectation, the cup overbalances and spills when it is lifted. This bad basic design, even before any issues of aesthetics are considered. It is a serious problem that several potters obviously thought that work like this is worth displaying.

An utilitarian object should at least be useable.

There is still a serious lack of creative thinking, although this particular problem has improved over the last couple of years. Too often, it still expresses itself in too much nervous, small-scale work. In other pieces, large size is assumed to carry its own validity, or bizarre forms to express originality.

However, there are some interesting pieces on display. Guy Stephenson's vases have raku exteriors and heavily-

There are too few pieces working at this level. Shapes and glazes still lack any real impact. The exhibition has raised technical standards. It still needs to tackle the central problem for Irish utilitarian ware, that of developing more creatively interesting forms.

To do this, it needs to look more seriously at art ceramics as a means of stimulating a stodgy utilitarian area.

The interesting material here does examine ceramics from the former point of view.

"Potters "87" also needs to examine why it showed a group of European ceramics taking from moribund or dying peasant traditions as part of an exhibition of what is supposed to be from a living and developing, late twentieth century movement. Does "Potters '87" see itself as part of a dying tradition too, or does the combination of its exhibitors with the end of an earlier tradition really mean that Irish potters have not the remotest idea of how they fit into the late twentieth century?

Sean McCrum

METRO ART Earlier this year, the Crafts Council circulated information about METRO ART. The Council has had difficulty in obtaining information about METRO ART in New York and, as far as the Council could ascertain at the beginning of July 1987, named jurors had not been asked to take part.

The Crafts Council does not advise Irish craftspeople to become involved with this organisation.

EVENTS '87 DATE

EVENT

VENUE

ORGANISERS

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT

22-23 August

Kilkenny Arts Week

Kilkenny

Kilkenny Arts Week Committee

Kilkenny Arts Week Committee

29-30 August

CPSI Exhibition

Moyard, Co. Galway

Craft Potters Society of Ireland

Joan Doran, Secretary Tel: 685370

September (first two weeks)

Annual Exhibition

Cork Arts Society

Handweavers Guild of Cork

Catherine Ryan, 2 Sunnybank, Blackrock, Co. Cork.

021-358424

September

Irish Patchwork Society Ulster Folk Museum Exhibition Cultra, Co. Down.

Irish Patchwork Society

Anne Fleeton, 7 Shanganagh Tee., Killiney, Co. Dublin.

Tel: 824247

14-19 September Raku Workshop

Lettercollum House Timoleague

Society of Cork Potters California Ceramic Artist

Jane Forrester, Bandon Studios, North Main St.,Co. Cork.

023-41360

26-27 September Seminar for Jewellers & Metalworkers

Grennan Mills Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny.

Jewellers & Metalworkers Guild

Mr Philip Murphy, IDA Enterprise Centre, Pearse St., Dublin 2.

Tel: 771511

October

Autumn Fair

Spiddal Craft Centre, Spiddal Craft Centre Spiddal, Co. Galway

Spiddal Craft Centre 091-83388

3-4 October

Annual 2-day Seminar

Riverchapel Community Centre, near Courtown, Co. Wexford

Irish Woodturners Guild

Garth May, Secretary Tel: 955132

October 23 November 2

Burren V Workshop

Burren, Co. Clare

Crafts Council of Ireland

Margaret McAnallen Crafts Council of Ireland Tel: 680764/603070

November

3rd Ceramic Weekend Workshop

Crawford College of Art & Design

Crawford College of Art & Design

Leslie Reed 021-966777

November

Irish Patchwork Society Bank of Ireland Exhibition Baggot Street

Irish Patchwork Society

Anne Fleeton Tel: 824247

November

Society of Cork Potters Annual Exhibition

Timoleague, Co. Cork

Society of Cork Potters

Jane Forrester See above — 023 41360

November

Wexford Craftworkers Exhibition

Y.M.C.A. Hall, Main St., Wexford

Wexford Craftworkers

Margo O'Hanlon Palace West, Enniscorthy, 051-24654

November 4 — December 5

2-week joint exhibition Weavers Spinners & Dyers & Woodturners Guild

Bank of Ireland Baggot Street

Weavers, Spinners & Dyers Garth & Patricia May Irish Woodturners Guild Tel: 955132

December

Christmas Fair

Arnotts

North Dublin Craftworkers Association

Brid Wade Tel: 314121

December

Christmas Fair

Moons Store, Galway

Spiddal Craft Centre

Spiddal Craft Centre 091 83388