Herstory Commission
For many years, Louise has worked with crafters from a wide range of backgrounds, she found herself following the advice of one gentleman, to find a skill to help her mind. She discovered the craft of rug tufting, punch needle and embroidery. This opened an inspiring door that has allowed her to let her creativity flow and create a happier world for herself and her family.
This piece is named ‘Herstory’.
Working with creative academics, they mixed new & old technologies to produce a design while displaying Northern Ireland’s evolving communities throughout the recent pandemic.
The collaborators got together, popped the figures into the (as they called it) ‘Magic Computer’ and used an algorithm that ran the most mesmerizing pattern.
Louise took a snippet of that pattern, supersized it, and began a glorious journey with fellow craftspeople to create a large embroidered art piece that captures the stories of many communities.
Starting with a 6.5 ft wooden frame constructed in-house by a fellow crafter Steven Taylor, then moving on to the guys at Lough Neagh Boating Heritage Association to use their traditional wood bending skills to produce a 6-foot embroidery hoop for this art piece. These guys make wooden fishing boats and curraghs using all traditional methods and were really enthusiastic at the challenge of making something unique.
The final piece of the puzzle was the making of a steel clasp, the exact replica of the one you would find on a small embroidery hoop. Luckily, we have an inhouse fabricator (Steven Taylor) that fired this up from scratch!
It was then Louise's turn to put her skills to the test. Applying her years of experience in punch needling and working alongside the other punch needlers, she helped and encouraged throughout the pandemic, they help to add their own detail to this piece.
All of the late-night trials and errors were being put to use and produced this beautiful piece of folk art.
The yarn used was donated by the world-renowned Ulster Carpets in Portadown.
Their staff at Ulster Carpets helped select the shades and tones of colour that represented Ireland with its rich array of greens and other earthly tones.
To finish off the piece, Steve from Greenwood Ireland beautifully hand-carved the name of the piece into the wooden embroidery hoop.
Herstory is a journey. A journey of an artist and how she found her way.
Using her years of working within a rural community, gaining opportunities to meet and work with incredibly talented craftspeople, seeing how using our hands can unravel the most difficult conversations.