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The influence of Kilkenny Design Workshops Ruth Thorpe
Left: Rings, spoked wheel and cluster, silver, prototypes, Rudolf Heltzel, KDW, 1966.
In May 2005 a panel of curators from around the world gathered at the Crafts Council of Ireland in Kilkenny to select Irish work worthy of being presented to an international market in Portfolio, a new digital catalogue. They commented that two crafts stood out in terms of excellence: woodturning and silver hollowware. An exploration of each reveals that the influence of the Kilkenny woodturning and silver and metal workshops, and of those who came to Ireland in the mid 1960s to work there, continues to be felt among designer-makers working today.
The silver and metal workshop
Along with Kevin O’Dwyer who trained in the USA, and Richard Kirk who studied in Belfast and London, Séamus Gill is one of Ireland’s leading silversmiths. Now beginning to make his mark in the US market, he was introduced to his craft by Peter Donovan, who moved from London in the mid 60s to work at KDW. By the time they met in 1981, Donovan was teaching
at Grennan Mill Craft School, Thomastown, Co Kilkenny, but Séamus Gill considers himself to be “second generation KDW” through Donovan. He had his heart set on a career as a marine engineer and says he became a silversmith “by accident” having gone to Thomastown for a year to learn a hobby while re-sitting physics. Peter Donovan’s mastery of the traditional art of silversmithing, his ability to make use of the qualities of silver, the taking of a flat sheet of silver and hammering it into a plastic form, won him over. He never took the physics exam and despite studying later in Letterkenny, Belfast and at NCAD, it was the year with Peter Donovan that has had the most lasting influence. While Séamus was at Grennan Mill in 1981, Oisín Kelly died. The two had never met, but everyone around Séamus expressed a great deal of respect for Kelly both as a person and an artist, and through them he felt his influence. When it came to choosing a thesis subject at NCAD, he chose Kelly. “People could relate to Oisín Kelly’s work – from public sculpture to teatowels. He didn’t have a great