Designs on a new lease of life
They’ve made cuffs worn by presidents, Emmy-winning costumes for Game Of Thrones and pendants for Hollywood Legends. These handy high-flyers prove how just how fabulous and fashionable the Irish arts and craft world is...
Bianca Divito
THE shimmering rainbow hearts, coloured crystal flowers, and glass angels creating a stunning light show over glass artist Bianca Divito’s stall make the perfect Christmas gifts — and come with a certain cachet, it must be said.
‘I met a couple who bought my Layla Boo pendant as a wedding gift for David Essex and his wife while I was exhibiting at the Wexford Opera Festival a couple of years ago,’ smiles the talented designer, who, along with Damien Keane, her garden designer husband, was a 2012 winner at the Chelsea Flower Show for their glass garden exhibition.
Actor Danny DeVito famously popped in to visit glass artist Bianca Divito’s Nanna Maria, when he was on the hunt for his family’s roots during a visit to Ireland. Bianca laughs: ‘We aren’t totally sure what relation we are to him really, but remain friends nonetheless.
‘My dad Joseph and some family met up with Danny DeVito during his West End Show a few years ago too and gave him a signed Layla Boo crystal pendant, which he hung in the window of his dressing room for the duration of the show.’ After completing a BA Hons in Architectural Glass, Bianca won a coveted award in London, which opened up opportunities to work in some of the top stained glass studios in Europe.
She has worked on a major conservation project, restoring the stained glass windows of St Patrick’s Cathedral, as well as Canterbury Cathedral. Big projects aside, she’s also in her element in her studio in Gorey creating wall hangings and pendant ornaments for windows or gardens, such as her best-selling outdoor pendant, the Evie Flower, made with light reflective crystals.
‘Glass was always in my blood,’ she explains. ‘As a child I spent hours watching and helping my father, a self-taught glass artist, a career in it seemed appealing and familiar.’
Visit biancadivito.com
Garrett Mallon
GARRETT Mallon admits many couples on the hunt for their perfect wedding rings often leave his studio in tears — but thankfully they are of happiness.
‘I have had couples cry with joy. It is an emotional thing,’ says the Carlingford-based jeweller, who invites couples into his stunning studios on the shores of Carlingford Lough, by the Cooley Mountains, to design, cut, shape and polish their own love bands.
To limit tears of a different variety, he explains: ‘We sit down with a trial run with base metal to get a feel for the tools then we get stated. We do groundwork beforehand and talk through patterns they want.
‘In the studio they do a certain amount like cutting the metal, shaping it up, polishing, rounding, soldering and designing it too. I look after the finish,’ smiles Garrett, who made his and wife Sarah’s wedding bands, incorporating his mother Anne’s engagement ring into his own.
Garrett works in an open studio at the Carlingford Design House, which opened a year and a half ago. He works in silver, yellow, white, rose gold and platinum, and as a trained stone setter, also incorporates diamonds and precious gemstones.
A lover of hillwalking and the outdoors, a lot of Garrett’s work is inspired by the stunning Carlingford landscape. But he is also moved by music.
The Voyage is a collection inspired by the song of the same name sung by Christy Moore and written by Johnny Duhan. These pieces are accompanied by the song lyrics.
Garrett remembers: ‘I made Michael D Higgins a pair of cufflinks based on The Voyage. Once I saw him at Showcase Ireland and he wasn’t wearing the cufflinks, so I slagged him about that. He came back with his wife Sabina to tell her ‘he’s the guy who made my cufflinks.’
After training and working in London, and 15 years ‘learning his tricks’ with a major jewellery manufacturer in Dublin, the Dungannon native moved back to the home where his mother Anne and five generations of his family grew up in Omeath 14 years ago, with his wife Sarah and three children.
‘I love hillwalking. It’s so beautiful here and I spend a lot of time in Donegal. I get most of my ideas from nature, such as my Cloicin range and my new Stacker rings called Soilse, inspired by moonlight, sunlight and sunset. These days I get palpitations coming up to Dublin.’ Garrett always has his door open for visitors and works behind glass in an open studio. He smiles: ‘I love to come out for a chat. It’s like a goldfish bowl but when I’m very busy I can close the blinds.’
Visit garrettmallon.com
Chloe Dowds
CELEBRATED ceramics artist Chloe Dowds’ unique, quirky take on how we drink the humble cup of tea won her the National Craft & Design Fair Award in the summer — and with it a free pass to exhibit at this year’s fair.
The 29-year-old mother-of-one’s makes everything you need for the perfect tea ritual — teapots, different size and style of mugs, cups, creamers and sugar bowls. Her Porcelain Tea set bagged her the coveted award. ‘I am a big tea and coffee drinker. I love sitting around chatting,’ Chloe explains.
‘I make the mugs to be very tactile. I put a lot of detail in so there’s a little ridge on the handle, and texture for your thumb. It’s really comfy to hold.’
Chloe, below, whose grandfather was the Scottish artist Jeremiah Hoad — enjoyed many academic and artistic incarnations before settling behind the pottery wheel, including an MA in the History of Art and Architecture, for which she received a first class degree.
‘At the end of my Masters I realised I missed being hands-on, I missed clay,’ she explains.
‘I tired of the teaching and academic thing. I needed to get back to what I was good at.’
Chloe was accepted onto the worldrenowned pottery course run by the Design and Craft Council of Ireland, in Thomastown in 2012.
‘It was always in my mind to get back to clay but life took me in a different direction.
‘The skills-based course was so intense but brilliant. I need to make — I need to be in the studio — that’s my thing.’
Chloe’s peers and clients alike could not agree more.
Since she graduated, the awards have been coming at her at the rate of knots. In 2014 she won both the Future Makers Judges Spotlight Award and the Irish Ceramic Awards New and Emerging Maker Award, followed by this year’s craft award.
‘There’s starting to be a surge of interest in ceramics and it’s coming back into the forefront helped by programmes such as The Great Pottery Throw Down [on Sky Arts].
‘There’s a lot more awareness around handmade products and studio pottery is it’s quite rare.
‘Not a lot of people can do it and a lot of the art schools are closing these types of courses so these pieces may be collectables of the future.’
Chloe’s award means she can experience the RDS show without having to pay out for the privilege. ‘It is a real boost for me being able to experience such a major event without the risk of investing loads of money, just to see how it goes and experience it,’ says Chloe, whose pieces sell in Brown Thomas and Russborough House, as well as smaller galleries around the country. She also invites clients by appointment to her studio in Newtownmountkennedy and is setting up an online store.
‘I wanted to find a studio in Dublin but in the city they’re like offices and I needed a workshop with kilns and all sorts of equipment. ‘I just love being in the studio with my hands in the clay.’
Chupi Sweetman
'I MADE my poor husband Brian drive down to Clonakilty in May to collect this beautiful big branch of a tree I found,’ laughs multi-award winning jewellery designer Chupi Sweetman. ‘We drove home with me and the tree seat - belted in, with the tree striking out of the sunroof.’
Chupi, right, often returns to her Portobello studio after walk a along the Royal Canal with twigs, acorns and swan feathers.
She then gets to work creating magical pieces, inspired by ild, that have wowed visito the Saatchi Gallery in on, as well as New York ion Week and London ion Week. Her signature piece is the I Can Fly Swan feather Ring, cast in sterling silver and plated in 18k gold, from a delicate swan feather found along the canal banks.
'My solid silver swan feathers are cast from real feathers and I cast the twigs too,' explains Chupi, winner of this year's Image Young Business Woman of the Year Award, who has packed more into her 31 years than most people do in a lifetime.
By 18 she had launched a best-selling cookbook, and had launched her own womenswear label.
At 21 she was headhunted to design a clothing range for Topshop, and has just celebrated her tenth anniversary as a clothing designer. Three years ago, she launched her own jewellery range. ‘I love the wild beauty of imperfect, natural things. I’m someone who is drawn to beautiful things. My favourite is the rose quartz set with blood red garnets set in rose gold twig called Dewdrop In The Wild.’
Fans of Chupi adore how she documents her process using Instagram and Twitter. ‘Instagram is like my diary,’ she smiles. ‘I put everything up there. Online, people tend to be ‘look at my shiny, perfect life’ but I’m so glad at 31 I don’t care about that. I show my wonderfully chaotic crazy, dog-filled imperfect life. I show the chaos of the studio, and there’s no photo shopping or doctoring. It’s important to show that side of life.’
VISIT chupi.ie
Emma Andrews
SHE started out making lavender bags, which she sold in her mother’s fabric shop, but these days Emma Andrews spends her time designing and stitching the exquisite embroidery on the crests, flags, and tapestries on the smash hit TV show, Game of Thrones. And Game of Thrones fans take note — if you happen to bag a brooch by textile artist Emma Andrews at the RDS, chances are some of the fabric used in it was used to embroider Dany’s infamous bedspread in one of the show’s raunchy scenes.
A humble business card landed Belfast-based Emma, who is 38, her dream gig as drapes woman on the HBO show. This year — her sixth season — Emma, below, was among the celebrated artistic team that won an Emmy for Outstanding Art Direction.
‘I was selling from a craft shop in Belfast when a buyer came in and asked me for some embroidery samples,’ says Emma (pictured at work, below). Now she spends her time making saddle cloths and banners for characters such as Sandor ‘The Hound’ Clegane and Loras Tyrell.
All of the stunning costumes in the show are painstakingly created by just two-full time drapes people, and Emma’s mother Gerry, based in a far from glamorous workshop at the Titanic Studios in Belfast.
‘They’re like aircraft hangars, all concrete, like a bare shed with a kettle and microwave. But it’s just fabulous to be working on such an incredible show, making a mattress where you know there’ll be a bit of action.’
Emma has been doodling away with the sewing machine since she was four years old, helping out in her mother’s fabric shop The Calico Basket in Hillsborough.
Emma still designs her own pieces, although with her hectic schedule on Game of Thrones, the design show at the RDS is a rare chance to see her creations.
‘I have some lovely woven necklaces. One is soft-woven, inspired by one of Dany’s necklaces on the show.’
Helena Malone
FORMER banker Helena Malone took a huge gamble when she gave up her well-paid job to retrain as a goldsmith and start her own jewellery business, just as the recession hit.
‘Repossessing cars wasn’t a nice thing to do,’ confesses Helena, 43, who spent eight years working in retail and merchant banks. ‘I left behind well-paid work and was in a good position employment-wise but it was too much for me.’
Helena signed up to a 10-week jewellery making course, where her teacher encouraged her to apply for a coveted place on the traditional jewellery skills course in Kilkenny, run by the Crafts Council of Ireland. She hasn’t looked back since.
Her edgy hand-crafted collections, including engagement and wedding rings and bespoke memory jewellery have won her a clutch of awards, including this year’s Overall Showcase Award for Best Product at Showcase 2015 and the Overall Showcase Award for Jewellery.
‘The response to my work has been very positive but the truth is I’m still developing and working out what I like to do,’ says Helena, above, who now works from her studio in fashionable Wicklow Street in Dublin 2.
‘There’s so much to learn. Next, I would like to do a stone setting course. I’m finding a lot of people are looking for alternative pieces for weddings and engagements — more understated.
‘You put the graft in and get a little luck along the way and just keep going. I started at the end of 2007, and opened up a workshop in Portlaoise. I kept costs down so I’d enough money to pay bills, and buy metal and tools. I got a grant from the Laois Enterprise Board and invested in my business yearly
‘It’s like any job, in that you have your innovative periods and times where it’s all paperwork. I’m half winging it half the time.’
VISIT helenamalone.ie
Chaim Factor
MARVELLING, pint in hand, at the stunningly restored iconic St Mary’s Church Organ at The Church pub on Dublin’s Mary Street is a unique Dublin experience.
When owners of the former church decided to restore the organ, built in the 1700s, to its former glory, they knew they required a master of the craft — and so turned to Chaim Factor.
‘It took almost two years of work, including replacing 90 metres of carving on the organ case,’ explains Chaim, who has also worked on conservation projects at Trinity College, the Senate Buildings, the Four Courts and on the National Concert Hall Organ Case.’
‘When the recession hit, business was compromised so I started to design a range from the leftover bits and pieces of work laying around the workshop.’
The result was the Design Elegance for Foodies, a gorgeous range of finely sculptured table accessories including cheese knives, chopping boards, carving sets and trays. A few years ago Chaim, left, was selling these pieces at farmer’s markets but this year some of his range was exhibited at the Maison Objet in Paris. There, his pieces captivated buyers from the Museum of Modern Art buyers and now its retail arm stocks Chaim’s cheese knives in stores from New York to Tokyo.
‘It has been an incredible journey,’ says Chaim. ‘Growing up we all had heroes, mine was the Finnish furniture designer Alvar Aalto. It was such a big reward to see my name on the same catalogue page as his.’
Chaim adds: ‘I feel there’s a stigma attached to people who choose to go into a trade over and above third level. In Germany people become cabinet makers with pride. But there’s been a resurgence of interest for craft here and I’m thrilled. It’s long overdue.’
NATIONAL Crafts and Design Fair, RDS Main Hall, today until Sunday. See nationalcraftsfair.ie