Snáthanna Ár Saoil - The Threads of our Lives.

ABC Wednesday

Color Carnival        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                             

As I mentioned in a previous post Seasons Of Life became the inspiration for a wonderful piece of art. We were working on a project with schools in Brodce, Czech Republic, St. Philbert de Grand Lieu, France Antheia, Greece. The tree was the symbol of our project.

As project co-ordinator for our school, I wanted to get our parents involved in it too. We decided to make a wall-hanging as a lasting reminder of the project. We contacted artist Kathleen Delaney and asked her to work with our group. The group consisted of parents, teachers and members of the local community.
We used the idea of our native oak tree through the four seasons. We decided to make linked panels, each panel depicting a different season.

Plan designed by one of the group.

We began with winter because the tree appears lifeless, but we also used this as our past and the panel contains many symbols of our national and local history. You can also see notes on a stave. These are the notes of a famous Irish ballad, Boolavogue, about the 1798 rebellion in our area.

Winter

 Spring is next, we were entering our present. You can see some of our native plants, St Patrick's mitre and crozier. You will also see some green gingham fabric. This was sent to us by the school in Brodce. It is cut in the shape of the Skoda symbol. Many of the parents in Brodce work in the big Skoda factory in Mlada Boleslav.

Spring

 The third panel is Summer. The tune carries on. Everyone said my photo should be in the window of the plane, because I head off any chance I get. You can see strawberries. Our county is the centre of the strawberry growing industry. The blue checked picnic cloth came form our partner school in Antheia. It belonged to the grandmother of one of the teachers. Near the bottom you can see two crossed hurls. Hurling is a traditional Irish game. Every village in Ireland has its own team.

Summer

The final panel is autumn. We deliberately chose this order. Autumn is the season when everything comes to fruition. We wanted to end with this time of fruition. The harvest moon is also the globe. The birds have flown the nest. The large flowers on the right hand side came from our French partners in St Philbert de Grand Lieu. The sign post has the distance in miles to our partner schools and to the towns where the ladies who worked on the panel came from. It includes Liverpool and New York.

Autumn

 These were the panels. They were then linked to become Snáthanna Ár Scéal -Threads of our Lives.
These panels were then hung from oak branches.

Tabs were added and the panels were hung on oak branches

Winter and Spring

Spring is linked to Summer

And finally Summer to Autumn

The finished work.

 This gives a better idea of the scale of the project.

 Each of our partner schools received a mini wall hanging.

This is the group who created the wall hanging, pictured with Nicky Furlong a Wexford author and historian.