Sustainable Materials Exhibition opening

Orla Redican - Ev+A Dress

Marianne Kenny Modelling Nice Day Designs Dress

The opening for the sustainable arts exhibition was on last night, and there was a fantastic turnout. I was so busy running around talking to people and making sales (woohoo!) that I nearly forgot to take pictures. I heard really great feeback from people, saying it was one of the best shows they had seen in the gallery for years. I know this sounds awful but usually in group shows half of it is filler, but in this show there really wasn't any. There is an amazing mix of artists working in every discipline, from fashion, ceramics, sculture, painting, weaving, jewellery, performance and mixed media. There were some familiar faces too,Orla Redican from Farapinalia made this fantastic dress from the old Ev+A sign that had been lying in a skip. My ex-flatmate of 5 years Mark Halpin showed his wonderful illustrations of found tiles. I got to meet the lovely Missy Bonkers while I was drooling over her beautiful clothes. There were also handwoven mats made from found rope by etsy seller Conscious Crafts.

Mark Halpin- Drawing on Found Tiles

Missy.Bonkers Beanbag and cushions

Conscious Crafts -Recycled mats

Other highlights for me was the performance art piece where I guy was doing clay sculptures on his head, very playful and facinitating. Another artist has beautiful cutlery made from found metal and wire, I wanted to take those home, if I had money I would have bought them, they were stunning. I also really loved the mixed media paintings that had loads of found toys and knick knacks in them, they were a riot of colour and you could look at them all day long.

I'm delighted to be part of such an amazing show, it will continue for 6 weeks, and there will be lots of workshops from the artists. More details of which I'll poost about as I hear them. A big thank you goes out to Diarmuid Neilan for organising this fantastic show, I'm sure it's been a lot of hard work. Also I'd really like to thank my beautiful model Marianne Kenny for being stunning, and very patient in those high heels.

Limerick City Gallery

I delivered the two dresses to the Limerick city gallery yesterday. The show hasn't opened yet, but I believe it will be on Tuesday with the official opening on Saturday the 20th. I had a quick peek at some of the other work, it looks pretty cool. So if you are in the area pop in, and as with all these opening things there will be free wine...what better excuse is there really?!

To reward myself for all my hard work lately I went for a feed of pints, very tasty indeed!

Busy Business

It's been another busy week. I attempted to take a well earned break yesterday but I spent most of the day on the computer answering emails and catching up on a few things. Ah well, I'll try again next week.
I eventually caved and purchased a facebook ad. I had no idea how this would work out, I set the limits pretty small at $10 per day for 3 days, which is a similar price to buying an ad on craftcult for a week. So far I've gotten 7 extra fans and that has cost me ten quid, as you pay per the amount of people that click on the page. To be honest I was expecting better results for my money, and maybe paying for advertising on craft sites would be more cost effective for me. I did want to increase my fanbase beyond people I know though. It seems like it hit the 200 mark and then stopped growing. I did notice an increase in clicks when I switched my picture from a pincushion to mixed buttons, I think this is because in Ireland it's impossible to buy good buttons so it would have grabbed peoples attention. I'll see how the 3 days pan out and I'll let you guys know how it all works out.

I also saw this blog post earlier in the week about sustainable materials being used by artists and designers. It was looking for artists who use recycled materials to exhibit in Limerick City Gallery in a group exhibition of artists working in different media. I couldn't believe I hadn't heard about it earleir and it it literally on my front door step! So I contacted the guy and told him about my recycled and customised clothes, and it looks like I'm going to be exhibiting my work in the gallery. I really can't believe this, since I moved to Limerick 10 years ago it's been my ambition to show my work there. I never would have guessed when I moved down here at the age of 18 that I would be show casing my fashion designs there. It's funny where life can bring you! The work has to be delivered to the space on Friday week (11th March), with the option to rotate the work as the 6 weeks progress. I'm going to create 3 outlandish exhibition pieces, and then have a smaller set of more comercial works there too. To be honest I would have liked more time but I'm well used to working to crazy deadlines at this point.
So if you are or your know any artist working with sustainable material check out this post they are still looking for contributers.

Also Happy World Book Day everyone!!