Latest news with #CorkCraft&Design
Irish Examiner
4 days ago
- Business
- Irish Examiner
'We need new curators': Cork ceramicist Charlie Mahon makes the case for crafts
If it's August, it must be Cork Craft Month. Now in its 16th year, the festival features 99 events, including 80 hands-on workshops, around the city and county. Charlie Mahon is one of Cork's best-known makers, and his work features in two of the festival's major showcase exhibitions. Two of his distinctive ceramic sculptures may be seen in Echoes of the Makers, a special Cork Craft & Design members exhibition at Fota House in Carrigtwohill, while a third, along with some vases, is included in the Voice of the Craft exhibition at St Peter's on North Main St, Cork. His shop at the English Market also features on the festival's Clay Trail. Mahon has been producing ceramics since his days at the Crawford College of Art and Design in the 1980s. 'I was studying sculpture, and I ended up doing ceramics with Hugh Lorigan,' he says. 'It was my minor subject, but I got really interested. For my degree show, I had three pieces in ceramic and a single wood carving.' Ireland was then in the pit of a recession. 'After college, there were no jobs – you could go to London or stay here on the dole - so I went back and did a post-grad, making wire sculptures and ceramics.' When Mahon's grandmother gifted him a sum of money, he began looking at opportunities for further study in America. 'I applied for two courses, one in Mississippi and the other in North Carolina, and I was offered both. I took the one in Mississippi. I got a scholarship, so all my fees were paid, and they gave me a job as well, working on the front desk in the dormitories. The college was open 24/7, so basically I could work away in the pottery, learning the trade, whenever I chose. I did that for two years. It was a fantastic experience.' He would have quite happily stayed on in America, but his parents were experiencing management problems with a fast food business they'd opened in Co Clare, and they asked if he would come back and run it. 'I did that for a few months,' he says, 'but I saw that it wasn't going to work, so we shut it down.' He stayed on in Co Clare. 'I went around the potteries looking for work, and a place called Irish Country Pottery offered me a job as a production thrower. I threw 300 jugs for the banquet hall in Bunratty Castle before I was offered another job, in a rehabilitation unit. There were people from psychiatric institutions coming out into the community, and I worked with them on pottery production for the next six years.' He met his wife, Elmarie, and they moved to Cork in 1996 when he was offered a position as production co-ordinator at the Stephen Pearce Pottery in Shanagarry. 'A few years later, they bought Carrigaline Pottery, and I began working there as the technical manager.' Charlie Mahon at the English Market, Cork. Picture: Michael O'Sullivan /OSM PHOTO Mahon continued producing his own work as a sculptor. 'I had three solo shows at Gallery 44 on MacCurtain St,' he says. 'They all went really well. And then, around 2004, I set up in business myself, producing ceramic crafts. At that time, the outlets all had a sale-or-return policy, which meant you'd get paid when the work sold. But when the crash came in 2008, the market was quite literally wiped out. I had work in 27 different outlets. Most of them closed, and some never paid what I was owed. I found out that one guy gave my pieces to his landlord in lieu of rent. I got caught for thousands overall.' He took a job with the Cheshire Home in Cork, and his ceramics took a back seat for the next several years. 'It was Máiréad McCorley at Cork Craft & Design who got me making work again, around 2017. These days, I make between 100 and 200 pieces a week, but I still work at the Cheshire Home on a part-time basis. The crafts market is seasonal, you never know what might happen.' Until recently, he worked from home in Little Island. 'We have two old stables out the back, and a lean-to where I had the kilns. I'd go down in a raincoat half the time. The stables were never insulated, and the wind would blow through you. But then, about four years ago, I got a unit down in Euro Business Park. It's three times the size, and a lot warmer.' These days, Mahon's wife Elmarie takes care of the business administration and running their craft shop at the English Market, allowing him to concentrate on production. His pottery lines include his Mackerel, Grá, Green Heart and Witty Sheep series. Successful and all as they have been, he hopes to shift to making more of his wall-hanging sculptures. 'I think of them as conversation pieces, the kind of work that tells a story,' he says. 'The three galleries I sell them through are always crying out for more. I'd like to step up to producing at least two or three a month.' Mahon is aware of how the art world often looks down on the crafts industry. 'People like Grayson Parry have done an awful lot to bridge the two,' he says. 'But that attitude is still there. A lot of it has to do with curators. Even in the crafts world, they'll stick with showing their favourites. What we need is new curators, showing a greater variety of work, just like Ava Hayes has been doing with Cork Crafts Month.' The crafts industry in Cork is in rude health, he says. Cork Craft & Design maintains two galleries, at Douglas Court Shopping Centre and St Patrick's Woollen Mills, 'and there are outlets all over the county. We have hundreds of craftspeople – potters, wood turners, furniture makers and so on – and Crafts Month is a great promotion for the work we're doing.' He's delighted to have so much work in this year's exhibitions. 'The showcase at Fota House opened this past weekend, but the sculptures only came out of the kiln on Monday. In ceramics, you can expect to lose around 14% of the work from start to finish. That's part of the game, you know. But when I opened the kiln, the two pieces were standing tall. That's always a relief, I doubt I would have found the time to make anything else.'
Irish Examiner
25-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Revealed: Cork Craft Month's top events and activities
Someone who is passionate about what they're doing will always use the vocabulary of affection in their references. Cork Craft Month's festival director, Ava Hayes, is talking to me about the events' programme across the city and county, from July 31-August 31, so I ask her for her top picks. Such is her care for the event, it's like asking her to pick her favourite child. With good humour, she says, 'My two favourite children are the Emerge graduate exhibition at 46 Grand Parade with 20 new craft makers, and I'm excited to go to Fota House with an exhibition of our long-term makers.' Ava Hayes, festival director, Cork Craft Month. Now in her third year as festival director, Ava's involvement started four years ago when she was appointed curator of the Emerge graduate exhibition showing work from the five Cork art colleges: Crawford College of Art & Design, Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa, St John's Central College, West Cork Campus Skibbereen which is a subsidiary of the Cork College of Commerce, and Kinsale College. Michael Healey (MISH), furniture maker. Ava has since handed over the reins for Emerge and turned her curatorial focus to the two showcase exhibitions which celebrate Cork Craft & Design, the membership organisation which galvanised Cork craft makers to come together and support and market themselves to the public. 'This year is the 20th anniversary of Cork Craft & Design, so we have two showcase events called Echoes of the Makers, showing our members' work. The city-based one takes place in St Peter's, North Main Street, and we have a county location at Fota House," she says. Everything is for sale at the events, and there's something for every budget. In the Cork Craft & Design shop, prices range from €30 to €200 for smaller pieces, which can include ceramics, wood-turned objects and textiles which are easily portable for carrying home. The showcase exhibitions range from €300 to €2,000 and include bigger furniture pieces, so if you're in the market for buying a wedding or house-warming gift, there's a chance to buy something unique with a story behind the making of it. Organisers and crafters at Fota House launching Cork Craft Month 2025. It might be hard to know where to begin when you browse through the brochure online at but if you have a Saturday free, Ava advises you 'start the Cork Craft Month journey with an open heart. Go to the exhibitions at St Peter's and Emerge in the city, and then Fota House to get a flavour. "Take a trip to Kilcoe Studios in Ballydehob for live events and family events. On the way, there's the Green Dot in Clonakilty. You can go to a Meet the Maker workshop event with wood turning or making a pot, where you'll learn about the process from the maker, and you then welcome the pieces into your home.' Such is the success of Cork Craft Month that it has become the template for similar events developing nationwide and the all-Ireland August Craft Month. Furniture maker Fergal O'Leary, one of the early members of Cork Craft & Design, says, 'We have 99 events this year. 80% of them are hands-on workshops with the makers, from Castletownbere to Youghal and up to Newmarket. They're very engaging. You come away with something more than a cup, something that lasts longer in your consciousness.' Fergal also sees public awareness of the value of craft having grown. 'People are more aware of what bang you can get for your buck,' he says. 'The craft category has been strengthened by the proliferation of what's online. It's a different experience. There's quality and depth to craft.' Glassmaker George Duggan, one of the particpants in Cork Craft Month. The permanent Cork Craft & Design shop at St Patrick's Woollen Mills in Douglas and the pop-up shop at Douglas Court Shopping Centre have also contributed to this, he says. 'They're a nice focus and engagement with crafters and the public for events, and they've raised the profile of craft with the help of local enterprise offices, city and county council arts offices, the Department of Trade, Enterprise and Employment and local businesses.' But something else that sets these shops apart is the craft makers' commitment to spending time there talking to the public. 'You see how people want to touch things, the wood, the bowls,' says Fergal. Charlie Mahon, ceramicist. 'It's a personal story for everyone involved, the buyer and the maker. I always say, the maker talks about the process, the customer talks about the piece.'
Irish Examiner
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Cork Craft Month, ideal platform to promote region's creative artists
Careers in the crafts sector are becoming increasingly attractive as people's appetite for unique creative craft pieces continues to grow. When Cork Craft Month 2025 begins on Friday, August 1 — featuring 99 events, including 80 hands-on workshops — it will be the 20th year of this hugely popular event. The level of visitor numbers has steadily grown each year from the outset, providing a platform for countless successful creative careers. This year, some 81% of the programme will be workshop-based — an 11% rise on 2024. This a clear shift toward hands-on, participatory experiences that connect the public directly with the making process. From traditional methods to modern experimentation, highlights include seaweed pressing with Samuel Arnold Keane (23 August), basketry with Sonia Caldwell and spoon-carving with Tadhg Breathnach-Peelo (4 & 17 August); beginner embroidery with Sarah Buckley (9 August); needle felting with Emily Thompson (29 August); slab-built ceramic houses with Brendan Ryan (22 August); and lampshade making workshops with Mr Kite (15 August). Organised by Cork Craft & Design, a social enterprise representing over 110 professional makers and artists, this milestone year sees the festival expand in both scale and ambition. Cork Craft Month, in association with the all-island August Cork Craft, kicks off on 1 August at Fota House with Echoes of the Makers, a special members showcase exhibition celebrating two decades of Cork Craft & Design. For the first time, key exhibitions will run in both the city and county asthe Voice of the Craft opens 14 August at St. Peter's, North Main Street. Also returning is the EMERGE New Makers Exhibition at The Gallery at No. 46, Grand Parade (31 July – 21 August), spotlighting the creativity of Ireland's newest generation of makers. Ava Hayes, Cork Craft Month festival director, said: "This year is a particularly meaningful one for us at Cork Craft & Design, as we celebrate 20 years of supporting and championing makers across Cork. The landscape of craft and design has evolved enormously since our foundation in 2005 and especially since the pandemic, which created a seismic shift in how makers live, work, and connect with the public." In the Q&A interview that follows, Ava Hayes outlines some of the reasons why careers across the crafts categories continue to grow in popularity, sustained by a growing public appetite for unique creative products. In what ways have careers for craft workers evolved since the pandemic? The pandemic was a turning point. Many makers reassessed how they wanted to work and for some, what began as a creative outlet during lockdown has now grown into a full-time practice. We're seeing more people taking the leap into professional creative careers, supported by digital platforms and community networks like ours. At Cork Craft & Design, we now have over 110 members – from potters and woodturners to textile artists and jewellers — many of whom are now sustaining their practice full-time. There's also been a renewed appreciation among the public for locally made, high-quality, sustainable products. That's helped create a more viable market for makers, both online and in-person. Why does Cork Craft Month draw so many visitors every year? It's clear every year that our audience are hungry for connection and the hands on experiences that craft offers. This year, 81% of our events are workshops, which shows a clear appetite for participatory experiences. Visitors don't just want to admire craft, they want to try it, understand it, and meet the people behind it. Cork Craft Month creates those moments, whether it's pressing seaweed in a botanical workshop or throwing clay on a wheel for the first time. We're also proud to bring craft and design into beautiful, historic venues like Fota House and St. Peter's in Cork City, making each event an experience in itself. How do craft workers, effectively 'solopreneurs', benefit from collective events like this? Being part of a collective like Cork Craft & Design is transformative. Makers who often work alone suddenly find themselves part of a supportive, collaborative community that is full of people from all over the world, from various educational, cultural and skill-set backgrounds. Events like Cork Craft Month give them that extra boost of visibility, a chance to build their audience, and access to shared resources. It is about more than sales for our makers, it's about storytelling, skill-sharing, and sustainability. This annual celebration of the independent, the conceptual and the experimental – across Cork city and county – allows them to do just that. As Cork Craft & Design marks 20 years, has the sector changed for the better? Absolutely. Twenty years ago, craft was often seen as a niche or hobbyist pursuit. Today, it's recognised as both an artform and a viable career. We've moved from the margins to the mainstream. I do believe that this is thanks to the incredible talent, resilience, and innovation of maker communities such as ours. Cork Craft Month is a celebration of that journey, and of the creative future we're still shaping together. To explore the full programme of exhibitions, workshops and events, visit today. Certain events have limited capacity, so early booking is encouraged.
