Bernadette Falvey wins award at the Crafts Council of Ireland's 'Tread Softly' Exhibition

Congratulations to Western Branch member Bernadette Falvey who won a prize for her piece in 'Tread Softly', an exhibition by The Crafts Council of Ireland. The exhibition was launched at the Knitting and Stitching Show in the RDS in October. The exhibition will travel to the OPW Pheonix Park Visitor Centre from 2nd to 26th February, 2011 and to Cork Public Museum from 4th March to 30th April, 2011.

The theme for the exhibition was the WB Yeats poem 'He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven' . Bernie stated her idea as

'Heaven is all about love, love for God, God’s love for us, being with loved ones again and feeling loved. The hearts in my piece represent heaven and represent Yeat’s love for the woman of his dreams. The inspiration the poem gave me, was to create something of such a size that you would feel enveloped by love and drawn into it. The dim and dark cloths and night, light and half light inspired me to order the hearts from light to dark to show that love and heaven remain constant whatever the light. The line “tread softly…” conjured up the image of light footprints making their way across his heart and his dreams and the heavens. The poem speaks of the richness of the heavens’ cloths and the literal paucity of his worldly situation which inspired me to create something simple with a hint of gold and silver in the stitching and the stars ro represent the richness of the heavens and the richness of his love.'

Her quilt looked fabulous at the RDS and we are all very proud of her well-deserved win!