ROARING SUCCESS

My wool work embroidery exhibition “Following a thread” was opened on the evening of February 24^th with well-chosen words from Polly Devlin. I’m told the evening was a roaring success by those who know about these things. To go by the genuine comments of marvel and wonderment of my stitching during that evening and what I’ve heard since I have to believe that it is true, those viewing my work and who are the type to voice an opinion seem all to be enthusiastically positive. The comment “these are amazing!” came from the far corner of the gallery as a middle aged man in long raincoat spoke to no one in particular but all within ear shot. He later congratulated me with a sense of real joy and said he would most definitely be back.

I’ve spent a couple of days each week in the gallery talking to visitors stitching when possible and signing books and it has be very satisfying to hear all that has been said. The first evening when returning back to friends by bus it hit me, the culmination of three years’ work in virtual isolation and the intensity of that effort spilled over into tears; the times I caught myself thinking I must show a particular piece to my mother like all children do when they recognise an achievement in whatever medium. There are so many people no longer with us who I know would have loved to have seen this work. There is no call for praise but when a young punk says “respect due man” my chest swells. Who would think that woolly biblical illustrations could provoke such reaction and yet when I look back on the extra ordinary amount of hand stitched work even to me it seems jaw droppingly remarkable that I could have done it. The most often voiced comment is you must have tremendous patients and I have to reply no, anyone who has been in a queue with me whether that be traffic jam or supermarket checkout will know I have a very low threshold for the non-creative but for the process of creation thankfully I have that patience in abundance.  I also have to reply in the negative when people ask me if I am religious as in having a belief. I suppose not believing in God could in itself be regarded as a belief but there is disbelief in their voices that anyone who has created such time consuming and intense “Old Testament” images was not driven in some way by a religious faith. The only faith I have is in knowing that I have the creative drive required within me to complete the task. Yesterday I gave an hour long talk to a packed audience in the gallery and at the end one woman took it on herself to thank me and there followed a round of applause, so from that and many other comments I take it that the talk was a success.

None of this would have come about if it had not been for the encouragement of my good friend Deidre Mc Sharry who skilfully managed to convince the Victoria Gallery to give me a show. It dawns on me that they too must have recognised a talent that over rid the need for qualifications when they didn’t question the fact that I possessed not even “O” level art. Proof if proof be needed that in these days of becoming indebted by further education there is, certainly within the art world nothing like simply getting on with it and doing the work.