Pluid Project - A National Comfort Blanket

A comfort blanket to sooth the nation is the idea behind the Pluid Project (pluid meaning blanket as gaelige). Artists Claire Halpin and Madeleine Heiler are curating the project, gathering 6'“x6” pieces by artists of all disciplines up until the 1st May 2021. The Pluid Project exhibition will then take place from 27th Aug 2021 - 5th Sept 2021 at the Cowshed Gallery, Farmleigh, Dublin. Booking essential.

There are also plans to auction the pieces after the exhibition, with proceeds going to Pieta House, a charity here in Ireland that provides crisis centres and a freephone helpline for those in need of comfort.

Poet Fidel Hogan Walsh and myself opted to take a poem and conceptual piece from our book Time and print them together as our submission for the exhibition. We got great comfort during the first lockdown working on our book together and we felt ‘Reverie’ and ‘Hero’ fitted the brief perfectly.

I’ll share more details closer to the exhibition date, but if you’re an artist on the island of Ireland and you wish to get involved, email pluidproject@gmail.com for more information.

Then I Won a Blanket!

Ok so this is where I just love how the universe works. As I am working on submitting a piece with Fidel for the national comfort blanket project, I, as usual, take regular breaks to check what’s happening on Instagram.

Now if you’re like me - you don’t win much in games of chance, I usually don’t bother with ‘tag and like’ competitions. However, this was a local business trying to get a 1000 followers so I just had to give it a go.

On Friday evening I learned I’d won my very own hand-made blanket from Chunky Knits by Lisa! A serendipitous coincidence of woolly proportions.

Crucible of the Heart, edition 1 of 10 - sold.

Imagine Beyond Exhibition at Hambly & Hambly

Last week I shared the exhibition catalogue for Hambly & Hambly’s latest offering, ‘Imagine Beyond’ celebrating the first anniversary of the artist collective, Imagine, set up by the gallery to support artists in response to lockdown restrictions.

I was delighted to learn during the week that ‘Crucible of the Heart’ edition 1 of 10 has sold and the gallery now has edition 2 of 10 available at my time of writing this. All enquiries to ciara@hamblyandhambly.com

Crucible of the Heart has been a very special piece for me, winning the Hambly & Hambly Enlighten award back in December 2020. The model featured is Ivory Flame and I was very fortunate to get the opportunity to work with Ivory remotely back in November 2020.

Over the past year I am also incredibly grateful to have developed a support network of fellow artists both here in Ireland and further afield, which has turned out to be invaluable.