Naoimh to weave magic during residency
Award-winning weaver Naoimh Larkin is the latest artist in residency at Creative Spark.
The twenty-six year old from Dromintee, South Armagh started her residency at the beginning of January and has been enjoying the opportunity to work in the state of the art print studio at Creative Spark.
Naoimh says she was always interested in art and knew that was what she wanted to study when she finished school at St Mary’s High School in Newry,
She studied art at the Belfast School of Art, University of Ulster, graduating with a degree in Textile Art.
She went on explore various aspects of the textile and costume design industry before falling in love with weaving, working for luxury hand weaving studios in both Northern Ireland and Scotland.
After getting part-time employment as a hand weaver and design assistant at Araminta Campbell’s Scottish Designs, Naoimh decided to continue to explore her passion by completing an Masters Degree in Textiles at the Edinburgh College of Art. Initially inspired by the research of Patricia Belford and her Shadow Tissues revival, Naoimh decided to explore other combinations of weave and print.
She undertook extensive research in yarns and materials, exploring and developing methods which enable her to combine traditional hand-weaving with more contemporary screen-printing processes.
Working on a vintage loom which was gifted to her.
‘It was manufactured by Anders Olesen Anderson Levard, who was a well known handy crafts man. He taught housekeeping college and ran many workshops in weaving, basket making and book binding. He began to create looms in 1896 and his signature feature was the bench. Unfortunately after his eldest son died, the production and making of the Levard loom stopped therefore making these looms now rare and one of a kind as they are no long being made,’ she explains.
She was given the loom by Alison Yule, a textile weaver from Derbyshire, who was retiring.
Naoimh takes inspiration from light and architecture, incorporating the sun-bleached colours of her travels and the shapes and structures from her sketches to create hand woven interior pieces.
She has exhibited her work in Belfast and at the New Designers Exhibition in London. She was awarded the colour prize from the Company of Worshipful Dyers for her work.
She is looking forward to learning new print techniques during her residency at Creative Spark.
‘ The print studio is definitely a big attraction as it has all the equipment and screens,’ she says.
Having returned home last Autumn, Naoimh has been running workshops in Belfast and is in the process of creating a studio at her home in Dromintee.
As part of her residency, she will be giving a demonstrating her craft to members of the print studio at Creative Spark.