Irish Patchwork Society Exhibition,

Cork Institute of Technology Opening, 4 September 2010

Deputising for the Lord Mayor, Cllr Kieran McCarthy

 

Kieran’s Speech – “Journeys”

 

Madame Chairperson, ladies and gentlemen, quest lecturer Laura Wazilowski

On behalf of the Lord Mayor, many thanks for the invitation to come and visit and chat to you this afternoon.

 

I have heard it said that there are three people in this life, those people who make it happene, those people who watch it happen and those people who ask what happened. I am delighted to be on this occasion to be associated with the Irish Patchwork Society Exhibition, a society who has worked hard to make it happen.

 

 

They say that art has the power to stop, impress, make one question, wonder, dream, remember, be disturbed, explore and not forget – a whole series of emotions – all of which echo throughout the quilt works here this afternoon.

 

Walking around one can see the amount of work that has been put in the shapes, patterns and colours of the works on display; What is very evident is the amount of planning, design work, thought, emotion and building work that has gone into these works of art.

 

While these images speak volumes to the quilt lover, the lavish use of colour give the exhibitor’s work a much broader appeal. Anyone who appreciates design cannot but be drawn in – taken on a journey.

 

 

Millennium Hall:

 

Many years ago, I attended an exhibition on quilts with the theme of Cork in the Millennium Hall, City Hall and I snapped a great quiltwork on a series of Cork’s buildings, which I still show in my slide shows on the history of the city.

 

For me that piece of work opened my own imagination to the importance of  being creative to expand our ways of seeing-  our own views of the world and in that context the rich buildings that we have in Cork who all have their own lines, contours and outward expression, memories and meanings.

 

These quilts before us also create new ways of making, expressing and seeing. Each has their own view; they have their own meanings and memories to those who created them and to those who will view them.  Perhaps for the artist they express feelings of confidence, express creativity, and show the importance of the power of making.

 

Many years, I was involved in a project called the Knitting Map in St Luke’s Church in Montenotte, whereby I interviewed about 70 of its participants for a book on their life’s stories.

 

There were a number of interesting observations that came out of that project that perhaps are apt to mention here today.

 

 

The Knitting Map experience:

 

During the many days, I spent chatting to the women and men involved, the chat and banter could be heard in every room; in every corner, the culture of Cork, the problems of the world, the meaning of life were all in a sense being discussed.

 

There were people who came because making was a kind of loving meditation.

 

There were people for whom making something was once about having very little, and the clothing of a family an ordinary and urgent necessity.

 

There were people who came to make something that helped them to find their way out of depression, grief and abuse.

 

There were people who came to make as an act of solidarity with others of this city.

 

These were people who came to make not for the process of making, but for the laughter.

 

These were people who came who told the funniest of stories to those who made me choke back my own tears, and wonder at my life.

 

There were people who came and astonished me with their sheer extraordinary force of life, who walked into The Knitting Map space on a weekly basis with a sense of ownership.

 

These were people who knitted complexities of cables and honeycombs and lattices without even looking down.

 

In the afternoons, and mornings of my fieldwork they sat and knitted, and began to talk, everything slowed down. There was time to talk, gossip, rant, muse and long.

 

 

One could not but admire their determination, belief and the warmth of their spirit in such a project.

 

 

I didn’t not know what to expect today. But I reckon, the same army of like minded makers are here today.   You are all were waiting for the off, like soldiers ready for battle or a revolution.

 

 

This project not only gives the Cork person a voice but also others from other parts of Ireland and wider parts of the world, who have been enchanted by quilt making experience. It is very seldom in any city that such a broad community would come together and engage with each other on such a personal level.

 

This week you will all wait for the viewer, you will sit quietly as in an art gallery, you will reflect on where you’re at in life, you will laugh, rant and then laugh and rant some more. You will re-imagine worlds of other quilters, you will wonder and move forwards confidently and positively this week.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, in this world, we need more of those traits of confidence, solidarity, freedom to express oneself, determination, force of life – and we need to mass produce these qualities.

 

Those who exhibit here this week, may you always have an open mind to ideas, people and places and that your talent will grow with each work.

I wish you all the best of luck this week and moving forward into the future.

 

Go raibh maith agaibh.