Aunt Gobnait’s ‘Parcels from America’

Ester Kiely has so much to give, so many stories to tell, and such a deep knowledge and love of her art that I’d have to write a book to give you the full value of the afternoon we spent chatting. Sitting in her sunny conservatory, she talked about how she became a fabric artist without even realising it.

“I had a big fascination with ripping things up so that I could make stuff. If it was a rainy day, I’d ask my mother if I could have an old shirt or dress, so that I could rip it up and make something. My aunt Gobnait emigrated to America and used to send parcels of clothing. When they came, we were always fascinated because some of them were wildly colourful compared to what was here. Sometimes she would send us something we absolutely loved and other times, we would say: ‘What’s here now? You couldn’t wear this in Cork. You’d be laughed at!” Having someone in America was very exotic and exciting and when she came home she would bring me embroidery threads or patterns. I would get her to sit and show me how to do stuff, and with the items that were left hanging in the wardrobe, I would make things for the dolls or cushion covers.

“In later years, when she retired from America, she had a little house here, so I made her a quilt as a house warming gift. I called it “Parcels from America” and she asked me what that was about. I reminded her of all the parcels she’d sent over the years and how we appreciated them – and she’d forgotten all about it! She died last year and I inherited her sewing box – which is falling apart – but inside it are loads of sewing notions which are very nostalgic for me. I found maybe thirty cards of silk threads in different skin tones that she would have used to mend tights and stockings. Some of the things she had in there are so American and so typical of her. She used to do lots of embroidering and crocheting and used to make blankets for every baby that was born, so the box is full of all those memories.

“I used to make functional items like quilts or cushion covers as a hobby before I started to make wall hangings. They were layered, abstract designs, but then I started to weave a story through it, stitching text into the background. I made one called “Recleansing” about good feelings such as love and had hints of text, so that you could read some of the words, but not all of them. The lady who bought the piece said it was like I was writing about her. It really meant something to her and from there I started to do more storytelling.

“It was in the 1990s when my husband Ray gave me a book on patchwork and I realised: “Oh, people aren’t just sewing squares together, they’re designing the pattern and co-ordinating the colours, not just cutting up their old shirts. They’re actually buying the fabrics specifically. There are tools and techniques and classes out there.” My mind was blown with this notion.”

Ester joined the Patchwork Society in Dublin and signed up for a beginners’ workshop. Fellow students were surprised – “You’ve been sewing for years, we’ve seen some of your work. Why are you here?” Ester replied that she’d been sewing for years without actually knowing how to, never having been taught the rules on how to construct a quilt properly. “I learned a whole pile at that class. I teach classes now and you can get very intimidated by techniques although there’s a lot of value in doing workshops. Even though I was happy to break the rules myself, one of the things they say in patchwork making is always use 100 per cent cotton. I can see why for patchwork quilts, they wash better and they age better, but some of the wall hangings I make I mix various fabrics for variety. When it comes to a patchwork exhibition they may not be accepted because they don’t fit the rules. It doesn’t bother me. I didn’t make them to fit the rules, I made them because I like the colour, texture and composition of them. I can appreciate the tradition and technique, but I don’t feel confined to having to do that.”

Recently, Ester took an art course with Jim Kavanagh in Annaghdown. “I felt I needed to improve my skill at drawing and at seeing things, particularly with some of the story cuts I am doing now. I want to be able to sketch, and to use the needle and thread to draw and paint a picture. Sometimes you need to be able to compose properly as a drawing first, to understand what you are seeing. We started every project with a charcoal drawing, which helped in understanding where the shadow, the light, and the depth is; how to get that three dimensional feeling where something is coming out towards you or receding back. I also did an acrylic under painting and an oil painting on top, in most projects we tackled. I learned about layering colour and how one colour reacts with another.”

With fabric art techniques, as with all art, the learning curve is constant. Ester talked about hers: “When I came across soluble fabric, it was a revelation! I thought: “Look at all the things I can do with that – like applying a heat gun. Different fabrics crinkle and burn in different ways depending on their composition.” She grinned and went on: “I’m an expert at burning fabrics! I burn them with candles, in a well-ventilated room and with a damp cloth nearby in case it catches fire, holding the edge of the fabric up to the candle. If you burn a natural fabric, it literally burns or scorches; if you burn silk you get a lovely charcoal-burned edge; if you put a flame to synthetic, it melts because it’s essentially plastic and, depending on the composition of the fabric, it will either melt and go hard – or it will just melt and almost disappear. I don’t really put the candle on synthetic, I put it on natural fabrics; then I would use a heat gun, which is like a hairdryer, but with more concentrated heat. If you point that at a synthetic fabric, it starts to bubble and crinkle, which will give you a watery effect. If you hold it far away, you get a gentle ripple, if you hold it close, you get a more exaggerated ripple. I also use the tip of a soldering iron on synthetic fabrics, sometime to write text – and it sort of burns away. It’s unpredictable, but you have happy accidents. You go at it, and you might get a nice formed letter, and then it burns the tail away. It’s a mark making tool and how you choose to make your mark is up to you.”

esterkiely@gmail.com

www.esterkiely.com

Mobile 087 6193870

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2. Debbie Chapman- The artist who grabbed David’s face … and kept it
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In the townlands of Derryaun, which means ‘Little Oakwood’, nestling in the soft hills in view of Croagh Patrick in Co Mayo, you’ll find Suzie Sullivan beavering away at making glass beads, fairies and felted landscapes, all largely inspired by her surroundings.

Born in Lytham St. Anne’s in Lancashire in 1953, Suzie and her husband Steve moved to Co Mayo ten years ago. Their love of Irish music and Ireland brought them to Westport to Matt Molloy’s pub where they still occasionally join in music sessions. Suzie plays tin whistle and bouzouki while Steve plays tenor banjo and guitar.

There’s so much creativity produced by Suzie in her studio that it’s difficult to know where to begin: “The needled felted figures, I suppose, they came first. I started learning needle felting from a book and the first thing I ever made was awful. After much experimentation I began making wire armatures for the figures so that you can actually move them around. I want them to be sitting around the place, not in a glass case standing still. They usually have long legs and cute faces with conical hats, and hair the natural colour of the fleece. I use the wool from Teeswater and Wensleydale sheep and both of those breeds have very curly locks. You just wash the fleece and tease it. It’s got its own natural movement. My wonderful friend and inspiration, Janet Phillips from the Threshing Barn in Staffordshire, sent me a skein of sari silk and I decided to make some fairies. I don’t normally use such bright colours, but it definitely did it for me.”

Entranced by the fairies I studied their little silver hands, their legs wrapped with wool and sari silk – woven with a threaded needle, their puffy sleeves in chiffon, embroidered buttons, French knots and buckles; holding fir tree cones from the garden, with their red mouths and eyes needle felted and enhanced with a bit of dull rouge blusher on the cheeks.

Suzie went on to talk about the techniques she uses in creating her felted and framed landscapes. “I use traditional wet felting methods with hand dyed wool and silk. All the dyeing is done in the workshop and I compose the picture using dry wool. Once the composition has been laid out I use hot water, soap and friction to matt the fibres together so that it’s a self-supporting fabric. Then I roll the whole piece up in a big bamboo blind … and roll it and roll it. That’s the friction part. I use grated olive oil soap which I put in a jar of boiling water. It makes a gel and that gets rubbed on. Lots and lots of rolling – it would take well over an hour to make the fluffy soft fibres matt together into a really rigid piece of material.

“For the composition, I start with a white background, adding in the sky … which is just wool pulled and laid on. The mountains are fashioned from hand dyed wool that comes in a sheet rather than in what we call wool top. A wool top is a rope of fibre; it’s like a long continuous rope of fibre pointing in the same direction. There is another type called batting that comes in a wide roll, and prior to felting I would dye the wool batting and rip it apart, and then use it to create the mountains. The little white bits would be tiny bits of wool, just pulled and laid on top of the colour to represent mist. The forefront would be finished off, once the piece is dry, with a felting needle. It’s a very sharp needle with barbs on it pointing downwards. You work on a foam pad and every stab takes a little bit of fibre into itself or into the base fabric that you’re using; you can build up layers and put pebbly things into it and you can use rougher wool and create a nice surface texture. It will all be hand dyed before I start and I have a big mountain of wool on the floor from where I’ll be picking bits – ‘Oh, that bit is going to go there and that bit is going to go there.’ It takes a long time to do each piece.

“I use an Australian dye, an acid dye called gaywool, and the colours are exquisite, really earthy.”

We moved over to the part of her studio set up for glass bead making and Suzie explained as she demonstrated. “This is a propane and oxygen torch which creates a clean-shaped flame.” She put on a pair of didymium lens glasses. “I have to wear safety glasses to protect my eyes. This is a mandrel,” and she showed me a wand-like instrument, “… and this is a glass rod.” There is a compartmentalised shelf at the side of her table, holding different coloured lengths of glass looking like slim sugar sticks about a foot long. “I have to heat the mandrel – and the white stuff on the end is called bead release. If I was just to melt the glass onto the steel mandrel it would actually stick and you would never get it off. The bead release is a clay-like solution and it enables me to remove the bead from the mandrel with ease.”

We discuss the fact that it’s fairly costly to set up glass bead making, as you have to have the kiln, the mandrels and the glass rod stocks. “… and the extraction fan. You see, I’m wrapping the glass onto the rotating mandrel. If I stopped the mandrel turning, the glass could just gloop off. It’s like runny honey really and so it’s a skill that takes a lot of time to master. You need to understand the heat and the glass to get good results. It took me a year to learn the craft, I’ve been doing it for three years, and I still don’t consider myself that wonderful at it. I really enjoy it.” She brandished the mandrel. “So that’s a little bead. If you wanted to decorate it you would use different colours of glass rods … and the world’s your oyster! You can use opaque glass and you can use transparent glass. I actually do mountain scenes on my beads. You can leave your dots proud or you can melt them in and have them nice and smooth and shiny. So that would be a bead made – and now it goes into the little kiln here,” and she leaned over to balance the glass bead on the mandrel in the kiln. “The kiln is set to 950 degrees and the beads sit there overnight with the temperature ramping down very slowly. This anneals the beads and gives them strength and durability. We like to think of each bead as an art form, not just a bead.  It’s art glass.”

As we wrapped up the interview, Suzie chuckled over this little story: “I was sitting at my torch, concentrating, working away making beads, and all of a sudden I smelt gas and I thought flipping heck – it was just awful, really strong. I switched the torch off, opened all the windows and all the doors and ran out in this muck sweat … and they were muck spreading next door! The smell of the muck spreading was coming in and was so like gas. I thought I was going to go up in smoke. I thought that was gas! It could only happen living out in the country.”

suzie@derryauncrafts.com

www.derryauncrafts.com

098 21888

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Isabelle tucked her feet under her as she settled on the sofa to talk about herself and her art: “I was born in 1970 in La Rochelle, which is in the South of France. For me, it’s not really home anymore as I left when I was twenty-three. I was studying English, theatre and Les Beaux Arts (fine arts) in the University and went on an exchange programme to Ireland. Although I was also studying drawing, painting and fine sculpture – which interested me more than the English, it was the English studies which brought me to Ireland. I always knew the art was there although it wasn’t that strong. It was more of a hobby, in the background.

“I was so excited the day I left France, I knew I wasn’t going back. I left at 7 am to catch the ferry, thinking: I’m leaving! Fantastic!” Isabelle illustrates her speech with her body and facial expression so you can imagine the grin on her face, and the waving of her hands and arms, as she told me this story. “Half an hour later my car exploded. Okay, it felt like it exploded. In the middle of nowhere. I just stood in the road with my arms flung wide, thinking: I’m going to Ireland today. Someone’s going to stop for me. I don’t care who. And this man arrived, wearing a suit. He stopped for this crazy woman, talking about Ireland and ferries, and he changed my tyre for me. That was all that was wrong, but it felt very dramatic. I continued on my journey and I knew I would love it here. I knew I would stay even though I hadn’t been to Ireland before. I wasn’t unhappy in France but I felt I wasn’t alive. As soon as I arrived here I felt I was home. I opened up as a person and finished my degree in English, thinking I was going to be a teacher.”

When Isabelle arrived in Galway sixteen years ago, it was a different art scene back then. There were a lot of small theatre companies such as Punch Bag, with theatre art on the streets. She studied Fine Arts on a part time basis and met her husband, Ciarán, a musician and singer/songwriter from Roscommon. “We decided to travel. It just clicked into place and I decided that if I did not do it then, I would never do it. That was in 2000 and we travelled for a year.

“When we got back I studied full time, and then in my final year in college, I became pregnant. It was March and I had my final show in college in May. At the time one of the artists was using a lot of oil paint, which is chemical and not good while you’re pregnant, so I had to move to the big studio in the college. I had a huge space to myself and started painting large canvases. I was using things with no chemicals, such as tea, collages, and inks; pouring paint and watercolours, and using stitching. Everything was very light; there was a peace and joy. I was very happy. I thought about generations, and all the various connections between my daughter, my mother and my grandmother. All those lines connecting. There were a lot of lines in my work, everything was like a web. Before I got pregnant it was all about me – me, me, me, me, me, me!” and dramatic Isabelle thumped where her heart is anchored and laughed heartily.

“After having my child, I started to think a lot about my connections, such as to my parents and my family. Where am I in that grand scheme of things? It’s a big responsibility when you have a child. I have one brother, but then my dad remarried, so I have four other brothers and sisters and they all have families, all living in France. Now my work is all about layers and generations.”

Isabelle took a moment to consider whether her style had changed in the time she took to do her degree. “My style was very different. Before, I used lots of colours, and I guess it was more expressionist. Then, I got into throwing paint, using lots of inks and black. It was very visceral and a lot about what happens in the body – body fluids, guts and so on. It was very dark, actually. Very dark. It was very visual and dark. All of my paintings were metamorphosis, they looked like giant moths.” In true Isabelle style her face took on a dramatically ominous expression and she clawed her fingers, to illustrate the darkness and depth of her work at that stage.

“I use texture paste, then ink, sometimes a lot of acrylic colour, and then collage to create my paintings. I also use tea and coffee for colour. I sand things down and it’s all about putting things on top of each other, exposing some parts, removing some others. It’s layers of paint and the idea is about memory.” Isabelle’s hands flew through the air in motions of painting and sanding as she described her techniques. “I use my hands. I don’t really use brushes … although maybe large brushes sometimes. Usually I put the painting on the floor and I move it around and let it dry at certain angles, making the paint go slow or go fast.

“I love working on wood because you can be very rough with it and it takes the marks really well. You prime it and it’s hard and smooth with no grain. First of all when you glue something like fabric or paper and then you go back to paint, it soaks up everything and can then be sanded down very well when it’s dry. When you drip paint onto it or use pencil, you get a very clean mark. The paintings are not framed. The sheet of wood sits on a wooden frame and I paint the edges. They are about a metre square so they are not too heavy. I used to make them myself and then I got very wise and now I have someone make them for me. He’s very good. The surface is primed with six or seven coats of gesso. I like the texture of so many coats and the last one I shine it smooth. It’s tedious!

“I like it if someone looks at my work and tells me if the painting relates in some way to their life. One woman at my final art show in college insisted on buying one of my paintings. It was huge and it really affected her, reminding her about her childhood.

I have seen it in her house and we have kept in touch. The story of the painting continues…”

0872793819 / 091789603

E-mail: isabellegaborit@gmail.com

www.myspace.com/isabellegaborit

http://isabellegaborit.blogspot.com/

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“I was born in Duncannon in Co Wexford. My father was a fisherman and my mother a well known Wexford landscape and seascape painter, Ruby Chapman. We started painting at the same time when I was about fifteen. It happened by chance. She could always draw but had no formal training. I have some beautiful graphite sketches that she did as a teenager of ladies in their ornate ball-gowns. She decided she wanted to do some oil painting classes. The classes were fifteen miles away and at night, so she dragged me with her in case the car broke down. There was an excellent teacher, John Foley, who taught me the basics of colour, oil painting and drawing, and instilled in me a love of painting. He inspired me to explore art further.

“I did a Foundation Art course at college in Waterford but believed at the time that it would be difficult to make a good living from painting and I didn’t want to teach art, so I chose graphic design. I went from college to a job in Waterford and from there on to London where I worked as a design consultant. I stayed in London and in graphics for ten years or so but never lost the desire to paint. Ultimately there were too many creative restrictions in graphic design for me.”

I ask Debbie who would have influenced her work the most. “I would have to say my husband Matt (Lunson). He’s a musician and singer from Tasmania. He has always encouraged me to go with my heart first – especially whenever I have experienced any doubts about my work. I could never imagine being married to someone who was not also creative. More than anything he has taught me to be brave. We met here when I moved back from London. We were both working as waiters to earn a bit of extra cash, and hung around together as friends for about a year. I used to call him “couch-man” because he would sleep on my couch all the time. He moved back to Bondi in Australia and when I travelled to see him, he brought me to Tasmania and we discovered there was a spark. We then moved back to Ireland and a few months later we were married! At that stage I was designing cushions, selling some jewellery and painting. Matt insisted that I should do the one thing that I was truly passionate about rather than hedge my bets. He even asked me: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I said a painter, but still thought that I could never really expect to make a living out of it. He encouraged me to take the leap and he was dead right. I concentrate on painting full time now. Matt does his work in the mornings and looks after our little girl, Maisie Jane, in the afternoons when she gets home from school. We prefer this rather than putting her into childcare. She’s creative too … I think she’ll be a dancer.

“My grandfather was an incredible Irish dancer; he won the All Ireland six times in a row. He was also in the Old IRA at the time and they sent him to jail in England. To keep himself busy he learned to recite the Rosary backwards and he used to make up new Irish dances. He started off on the top floor of the prison but the person underneath him kept complaining, so he ended up on the bottom floor until they let him out with a loaf of bread and he had to make his way back!

“There was a dairy farm in the centre of my village and when I was little I would sneak down there and ask if I could help milk the cows. I have always been fascinated by how calm they are and I think that comes across when I paint them. Ireland is so much more cosmopolitan now and I think the cow paintings really strike a chord with people who, like me, can feel removed at times from their roots.”

Debbie smiled a wide smile and showed me a few of the cow paintings which have evolved to include large circles and other geometric shapes rather than detailed backgrounds. “This” she says, “… is purely for structure and balance while allowing the main focus to remain on the detail of the foreground images.”

“We were dividing our time between Dublin and Australia when, having been a very long time on a waiting list, a place to exhibit on Merrion Square in Dublin came up and we settled in Ireland properly. Up until then, in an effort to find my feet again as a painter, I had been exploring how shapes and colours affected composition. I was painting for myself, not for any exhibition or gallery. Once I went full time though, the colours became better chosen and more complimentary and I began adding representational images again.

“I take great care in choosing the colours I work with depending on the subject matter. This part of the process is absolutely crucial. The colours I do choose might be heavily contrasted initially but can soften considerably with repeated glazes by using water as a medium. The amount of layers depends on the painting. It also depends on what texture I want to achieve. I would not put too many layers into flesh, because it can easily become lifeless.

“The paints that I use at the moment are acrylic – I love the immediacy of it – and I choose different brands for different pigments. A lot of the work I do is built up in layers and because it’s acrylic and dries very quickly, it allows me to do that … although I would still leave a day between layers. A lot of my figurative paintings are very light in texture and the finish would almost resemble watercolour. When I do use darker colours I avoid black as I find it deadens the painting. I normally sketch in charcoal and then paint over this, usually introducing the darker pigments first.

“I also love painting white on white and really focusing on tones and shades. It reminds me of classical statues. I remember in College, in the corridor, there was a life-size statue of David. Someone knocked it over and it was being thrown out so I grabbed the face. I still have it and have painted it loads of times. It’s travelled with me everywhere I’ve lived. He’s great practice for portraits because I think when people paint portraits they get very bogged down in the flesh tones, whereas with him it is just white.”

“I’m delighted at the moment, as the hard work is paying off. My paintings are now becoming more and more recognized here in Ireland and overseas. I’ve just completed a major commission for The Hermitage Clinic, a private hospital in Dublin, and I’m currently working toward a new exhibition of figurative work.”

You’ll find a good representation of Debbie’s work on her website. Mobile : 087 6973733.

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2. The Artist – Ester Kiely
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