Common Threads: Global St Brigid's Day 2023 Project
The Common Threads Project was organised by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs to celebrate the inaugural year that St Brigid’s Day was recognised as a national holiday in Ireland in 2023. Textile artists were invited to respond to one of Three Poems for Brigid, a collaboration with the Museum of Literature Ireland, that commissioned poetry by Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, and Paula Meehan.
The resulting artwork was intended as a legacy to celebrate St Brigid’s Day, a symbolic representation of the talent, creativity and resilience of Irish women, and women in the Irish diaspora communities who have an affinity with Ireland. Brigid was the triple goddess of poetry, healing and craftwork, and St Brigid's cloak is central to the story of how she became one of Ireland's patron saints. Her legendary cloak is often depicted as a patchwork of colors and materials, reflecting the diversity and inclusivity of Brigid's values and her work. Each artist was asked to select a poem and create an embroidered patch that would be stitched together into a cloak by the Irish Patchwork Society.
Remembrance
My artwork is inspired by elements of each of the three poems; the gold, starlight, planets, sun and comets in Old Biddy Talk by Paula Meehan. The glistening cloak in I Mbolc by Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe and then the evocative violets in At St Bridget’s Well by Doireann Ní Ghríofa. Violets sometimes symbolise remembrance, and I wanted to remember and celebrate a group of inspirational Irish women in my embroidery.
Remembrance depicts St Brigid beneath a dark, night sky of black silk, illuminated with twinkling stars, planets and comets that seem to emanate from her sun-shaped golden halo. Her cloak is inscribed with glistening gold poetry, and embroidered with a profusion of violet flowers that spring from the folds of cloth and blossom into the expansive embrace of St Brigid’s cloak.
My design references the Saint Brigid broadsheet created during the Irish Celtic Revival in the 1920s. The original broadsheet was printed as a poster to be framed and hung on a wall and it features an illustration of St Brigid by the Irish painter Kathleen Verschoyle and a poem called Saint Brigid, by Winifred M Letts, an English writer who spent most of her life in Ireland. The poster was printed by Elizabeth Yeats at the Cuala Press, which was managed and staffed exclusively by women. It was part of Cuala Industries which included the embroidery studio established by Susan Yeats, who had trained in art needlework with May Morris and she herself trained many of the local women in the Rathfarnham and Dundrum area of Dublin, where I am from, in the art of embroidery.
Remembrance was created using techniques and materials that showcase the rich heritage of craft and savoir-faire that is woven into the fabric of Paris and France today. The embroidery is a combination of two techniques, Lunéville and silk-shading. I studied the Lunéville hook technique at École Lesage in Paris and it was developed to embellish and decorate extravagant Haute Couture gowns with thousands of beads and sequins during the Belle Époque in 19th century France. The violets are embroidered using silk-shading embroidery with pure silk threads from Au Ver à Soie, a sixth generation family business in Paris. The gold threads are manufactured by Fil au Chinois, a family of thread spinners from Lille. The beads and sequins were made by Langlois Martin, the last artisan sequin-makers in France and the black silk taffeta was purchased in Le Sentier which has been the luxury fashion and textile district in Paris since the 18th century.
Remembrance is designed and embroidered to celebrate and remember women, from St Brigid, to poets and artists, printers and embroiderers, craftspeople and artisans. Many of these women have been quietly sequestered in studios and ateliers or factories and workshops, and it is their beautiful poems, performances, prints, paintings, and embroideries that have embellished Remembrance, with each tiny stitch, glistening sequin and sparkling bead, they are remembered.
Common Threads was exhibited at EPIC, The Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin (2023) and The Festival of Cloaks, St Columb’s Cathedral in Derry (2024).
References
Celebrating the Creativity of Women - Irish Department of Foreign Affairs
Art for St Brigid’s Day - The Irish Times, Michael Parsons