A Potters Irish Odyssey - Part Three

Here is the final post on my Irish Odyssey... if you have arrived here via a link from Facebook you might not be able to scroll through to the first two posts so just make sure you are on this blog's home page then you will be able to see all three episodes.. thanks for all your enthusiastic comments.

left to right - Markus Jungman, Eleanor Swan x 2, Sinead Fagan

So this final post is a combination of studio visits and gallery visits.

After leaving Cork we traveled to a village called Glengarriff where we based ourselves for the week.

On the way we made a visit to Sinéad Fagan's country workshop.  We got lost even though Sinéad had given us good instructions.  Our SatNav sent us to the wrong side of the main road and we had to phone and Sinéad very kindly came and rescued us.

I have been intrigued by images of Sinéad's saggar fired wall pieces for some time now.  Here is a link to her website: http://www.sineceramics.com/about_sinead.htm

and an example image from her Facebook page:

Her process might sound simple as the works are not glazed, however to be able to produce such evocative 'landscapes' repeatedly, takes perseverance,  skill plus lots of time finding the dry seaweed and other combustibles before preparing them inside the saggar for firing.

My phone battery started having issues so only one photo of the workshop to show you.  The kiln is a top loading raku gas fired kiln with a natty lid lifting mechanism and as you can see produces beautiful pieces.

Thank you Sinéad for swapping for this lovely vessel.  I'm very glad it made it home safely.

While in Glengarriff we travelled around the area and enjoyed the wonderful scenery - so green after the drought browns of Sydney. We drove around the Beara Penisnula, over Healy Pass and took a boat ride to Garinish Island.

Garinish Island - Australian plants are doing well in the gardens, Tea Tree and Bottle Brush shrubs.

The wild growing foxglove flowers were everywhere

We visited the impressive ceramics gallery in Kenmare, the Millcove Gallery
John Goode, who is an owner of the gallery, made us very welcome and we enjoyed our talk about the state of ceramics around the world.

The gallery stocks some of the best of Irish ceramic art and most of the people I visited would have their work in this prestigious gallery.

John has produced two books on Irish Ceramics and kindly gave me a copy of the first edition as I already have a copy of the second edition.

I just had to buy something from the gallery and I found this beautiful little porcelain jug by Markus Jungman  click on his name to go to his website for more of his pottery.  I didn't find out until later that he lives not far away and would have welcomed a visit - next time perhaps.

Before we left the area we had been told of an exhibition at the Blue House Gallery in Schull.

Blue House Gallery in Schull (not really my bookshop next door)

It was a group show so lots of different styles to enjoy... you can see better images on the gallery website here: http://www.bluehousegalleryschull.com/2019/ceramicgroup.html

Then we were back in Dublin for a while where we made a day trip out to see the delightful and generous, Eleanor Swan.  Here is the link to her website:
http://www.eleanorswan.com/

Her studio is fascinating as it is situated in the old buildings of a stately home, Russborough House (click on name for link).

There are other artisans with workshops there too.  We loved the stone mason who works with Irish marble, Hennessey and Byrne.

Eleanor's studio in The Forge Yard at Russborough House

 It's a great setup with the artisan's having a shop as well as the workspace so you can buy directly from them.  They also have works for sale in the gallery shop attached to the house for those who do the tours or visit the cafe and might not make it to the workshops.

Sales area in the workshop

examples of Eleanor's work

Eleanor is a sculptor and hand builder.  Her works range from large sculptures designed for those with vision impairment to be able to touch, down to little houses and beautiful ornate wall hangings.

Her flowers are very delicate while her sculptures are quite strong and impressive. Do follow the link above to her website to see the full range.  Eleanor has visited China and Taipei and has works in gallery collections there and in Ireland.

Thank you Eleanor for a lovely inspiring visit.  These little pieces made it back safely to Sydney.

That's it for this visit to Ireland.  I look forward to visiting again sometime.