Coney, Conversations, Caravans and Easter Widows

There are some wonderful exhibitions running at the moment in Sligo – if you are wondering what the strange title of this blog post is! The first exhibition is Coney by Emma Stroude, Diane Roemer, Lorna Watkins, Medbh Gillard and Aideen Connolly.

“In 2013 a wintertime Coney Island residency was undertaken by this group of five emerging Sligo visual artists. Working together in isolation and uninterrupted by the demands of daily life allowed them to share insights, skills and form a temporary creative community on a small Island in Sligo Bay. These artists have used the residency as an opportunity for creative experimentation and exploration. The work in this show comes of sharing living quarters, studio space, materials and experience within sight of, but inaccessible without difficulty, home. This opportunity for development now culminates in a diverse and exciting exhibition related to the experience.”

This wonderful exhibition is on at the Hyde Bridge Gallery (above the Yeats memorial building) and runs until Sat. November 29th. It was a real pleasure for me to see these wonderful works as I went over to Coney to see the artists at work last year. You can see more about my visit here.

The next exhibition is ‘Conversations’ by Tiffany Budd. Tiffany is a very talented goldsmith and she has some beautiful one-off designs on display at Chapters Coffee House, Bridge Street, Sligo. The exhibition runs until Friday 28th of November.

As well as making beautiful jewellery Tiffany also runs courses. I went on one and had a really lovely time, it’s a great idea to make something unique and a really enjoyable day. You can read about my day here.

Up at The Model is a really interesting exhibition. Shiro Masuyama has the ‘Borderline Project’. It’s a caravan – half of it has Irish items and decoration, the other half has British items. It’s a great idea and so many things to look at even in the small space of the caravan.

You can go along and have a look for yourself. It’s at the back of The Model until Saturday November 29th. You can find out more about the project here.

The final exhibition is by Emma Stroude. Sinead McCoole has written a book called Easter Widows. It’s the story of seven widows of the 1916 Easter Rising.

Sinead and Emma had a lovely event at The Model, Sligo on Saturday. We heard about the widows and saw the beautiful portraits that Emma produced.

You can see the Emma’s work at The Model until Friday and find out more about the book here.

Well done to all these talented people on their fantastic exhibitions.