Bobbins And Pens Lace Project
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16-19 September (and until end of season)
Café Gallery, Portumna Castle Free As part of Shorelines 2021, an exhibition of lace from Headford Lace and new writings Bobbins & Pens from Portumna Pen Pushers will be hosted in the Café Gallery at Portumna Castle from Thursday Sept 15th, thanks to the kind permission of the OPW.
Having researched the 2020 Headford Lace Project through a series of online meetings, as well as a visit to the superb Space Between exhibition in Headford, the seed of a collaboration was planted and Portumna Pen Pushers reunited virtually after many months of absence and blank pages. |
With re-sharpened nibs and pens, the members of Portumna Pen Pushers delved into the archive that the Headford Lace Project had tirelessly collected and recorded. Each pen selected a piece of lace, and allowed the flow of imagination weave a new piece in words.
Thus, honouring the hands that held bobbins, the Pen Pushers found a connection to the Ireland of famine times, of other pandemic times when a lot of the lace pieces archive were created.
One of the exhibits include the bonnets on display in the Irish Workhouse Centre. These bonnets were presented and created by the Headford Lace ladies as part of an initiative to remember each and every girl who was given a bonnets when they left Ireland in the late 1800’s. Many of these girls were from Co. Galway and were given assisted migration to Western Australia. Three of them came from the Portumna area. A number of sonnets have been written as part of this project, in memory of the women who travelled.
Other pieces of lace chosen from the archive form part of the exhibition that will be curated by Jenny Wood Sullivan. The Shorelines Arts Festival committee members are grateful to the ladies of Headford Lace for entrusting their precious pieces for this collaboration.
It is hoped to host readings of the pieces by the Pen Pushers and two ladies from Headford Lace are planning a Lace Making Demonstration as part of the programme. Due to the ever changing restrictions, these events will be on the website (shorelinesartsfestival.com) in due course.
Bobbins & Pens is also to be published to mark the year that our Pen Pushers picked up the pen, despite the distance between them. These are a limited edition and will also become a precious part of the Headford Lace archive and is designed by Abby Bolt of Little Bird Design.
With re-sharpened nibs and pens, the members of Portumna Pen Pushers delved into the archive that the Headford Lace Project had tirelessly collected and recorded. Each pen selected a piece of lace, and allowed the flow of imagination weave a new piece in words.
Thus, honouring the hands that held bobbins, the Pen Pushers found a connection to the Ireland of famine times, of other pandemic times when a lot of the lace pieces archive were created.
One of the exhibits include the bonnets on display in the Irish Workhouse Centre. These bonnets were presented and created by the Headford Lace ladies as part of an initiative to remember each and every girl who was given a bonnets when they left Ireland in the late 1800’s. Many of these girls were from Co. Galway and were given assisted migration to Western Australia. Three of them came from the Portumna area. A number of sonnets have been written as part of this project, in memory of the women who travelled.
Other pieces of lace chosen from the archive form part of the exhibition that will be curated by Jenny Wood Sullivan. The Shorelines Arts Festival committee members are grateful to the ladies of Headford Lace for entrusting their precious pieces for this collaboration.
It is hoped to host readings of the pieces by the Pen Pushers and two ladies from Headford Lace are planning a Lace Making Demonstration as part of the programme. Due to the ever changing restrictions, these events will be on the website (shorelinesartsfestival.com) in due course.
Bobbins & Pens is also to be published to mark the year that our Pen Pushers picked up the pen, despite the distance between them. These are a limited edition and will also become a precious part of the Headford Lace archive and is designed by Abby Bolt of Little Bird Design.