If you’re the type of person that likes to get their cardigans out for the Irish summer, CRAFT NI’s new exhibition might be for you. Woolworks is an exhibition of contemporary textile design which brings together practitioners who felt they had spent too much time preaching and not practicing about textiles.

The theme of the exhibition is wool and the way traditional motifs and techniques can be reinterpreted in a contemporary setting, embracing links between the cultural heritages of Wales, Ireland and Finland.

The exhibits include unique hand-woven tapestries, woollen blankets, framed textile art, one-of-a-kind accessories and garments such as Irish style workwear jackets or house coats (with some of these unique pieces available for sale). Techniques such as felting, free stitching, digital embroidery, knitting, hand weaving and plant dying are highlighted. 
 

TEXTILES: EArt lovers enjoy Belfast Print Workshop cross border print exhibition
3Gallery

TEXTILES: EArt lovers enjoy Belfast Print Workshop cross border print exhibition

Participating makers have used sustainable materials such as Cambrian and Finnish wool, indigo dyed Merino wool, Irish báinín tweed and Donegal yarns in the works.

Professor Jane McCann who is behind the exhibition is passionate about the potential of wool and an advocate of its increasing use in the textile industry. She believes that this unique material deserves to be celebrated and highlighted alongside linen and other sustainable textiles.

While the wild dancing piece reminded me of what might be happening at the Trad Fest summer school for sean-nós set dancing at the end of July — highly recommended for anyone able who might be feeling down. 

IN FRAME: Artists Liam de Frinse and Josephine McCormick at the Print Works
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IN FRAME: Artists Liam de Frinse and Josephine McCormick at the Print Works

The accompanying workshop list reminded me that once textiles get on your radar, the obsession is hard to shake.

Chris Weiniger, general manager of Donegal Yarns woollen mill, will talk about Ireland’s rich wool heritage, I used to work with him at Glentara Knitwear on the Donegall Road when tit-for-tat killing were happening. It was the one thing that made me get the bus, rather than walk. Other workshops include experimental weaving, felting, crafting shirts and making a textile necklace with Susan Smith, a member of the Makers' Guild' in Wales.

Exhibiting artists are: Sue Shields, Mandy Nash, Lynda Shell, Elspeth Thomas, Alison Moger, Jane McCann, Sirpa Mörsky, Susan Smith, Claire Cawte, Alison Taylor, Mourne Textiles with local collaborator Cecilia Stephens.

Andrew Johnston opened a short exhibition helped by Frankie Quinn and the Belfast archive Project at Artcetera Gallery. Titled 'What We Have We Hold', the photographic images were all taken in 2021 and focus on the loyalist community one hundred years after the formation of Northern Ireland.

Andrew, who is from the unionist community, focused on the dominate masculine side within the community from kerbstone painting to anti-protocol protesters and hijacked cars. Reminding us all that once violence is nurtured within a community, it’s not always easy to shift into peacemaker mode, particularly when warrior tendencies are glorified and masculinities may be demonstrated in terms  of what has gone before for generations. I suspect the exhibition will tour and offer viewers an opportunity to reflect.
 
On to the Belfast–Dundalk exhibition at Belfast Print Workshop at Cotton Court It was great to see the work of the cross border collaboration and proof that an obsession with print can take you in so many different directions.