Christina Todesco-Kelly

Stitching and Storytelling Among the Rocky Fields

At the very far reaches of the Mizen, surrounded by townlands whose names all translate as variants on the theme of rocky fields, in a place with immense views, lies an oasis of creativity and charm: the home of Owen and Kate Kelly and their family.

Three of us, Artist Christina, Blogger Finola, and Writer/Actor/Director Karen, fetched up there on a blue sky day this week, to visit Owen and see his craft. Owen is a stitcher, an embroiderer, a needleworker. He’s also a professional coach (international table tennis), a gardener and a conservationist. Nowadays, he, as a fifth-generation stitcher, makes his living crafting unique garments and decorative elements for high-end clothing. 

It has all grown organically from his social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram and Bluesky. Somehow, the like-minded find each other and the army of admirers grows, and the orders start to arrive.

Owen doesn’t just decorate – he tells stories with every piece. The first thing he showed us was his memory skirt, full of his own history. That’s his trip to Glastonbury, here’s a particularly memorable table tennis tournament, the birth of a daughter, his grandmother’s favourite stitch in her favourite colour. 

He thinks it’s finished and I certainly didn’t see any place to add more, but heck, you never know.

Here’s the back of a jacket that I assumed was an owl – but Owen was referencing the need for masking that so many people feel. That is, they cope with life by concealing their mental struggles, their ADHD or Autistic tendencies, in order to fit in. It’s exhausting, and his depiction is an act of masking in itself, since I jumped to the conclusion that this was a bird.

And the mask is a good piece to take a closer look at the sheer variety of individual stitching styles. I have a vague memory from school of learning blanket stitch, daisy chain, French something-or-other, but Owen must know hundreds of different stitch types. Zoom in!

Owen walked us through the process of designing the back of a Ralph Lauren shirt for a client – sorry, that should be, for a friend. That’s what they all turn into. In this case he has already done pieces for other members of the family so he knows the children, the grandchildren, the stories, the likes, the hobbies, the icons they gravitate to.

What fascinated me most is that he doesn’t start out (as left-brained me would do) with a plan – there is no sketch design, no chalk marks on fabric, no story board or end-goal. But in his head is the story he wants to tell. He calls this process ‘flow stitching.’

In this case the story is about a proud grandpa, so there’a grandfather clock and an owl for wisdom, and the heart that he and Grandma once carved on a tree. There’s a tree too, and a rainbow. And, can you see it? The overall shape is a Buddha.

The grandson is there, with the tiger, and the cow jumping over the moon and Humpty Dumpty waving Owen’s signature red hat. The granddaughter loves mermaids. And in between there are all kinds of little symbols and references, in all kinds of different stitches and colours. As I poured over it, all I could think of was – be still my heart – how I would love to be at the unveiling of this wonderful garment. 

He learned his skills from his mother and grandmother and of course he got bullied in school but he persisted anyway. He’s heavily influenced by indigenous art, by Indian and Persian designs and by Celtic interlacing and illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells. 

He cites his remote location on the edge of the Atlantic as another influence – the colours, the wildness, tuning in to the natural world and the deep tradition of story telling and mythology. 

Ongoing projects include his hoops – 6” rounds, each one telling a story, and his quilt pieces, which will (may?) eventually make up a whole quilt. He loves to play with symmetry – with half- or quarter-designs for example, that need to be matched with other halves or quarters to make a whole.  

And of course – there’s Seamus! Seamus O’Comanssy is a little stitched guy who is travelling the world. He’s currently in Australia, but before that it was Slovakia and before that France. You can follow his journey – even volunteer to host him!

I’ll leave you with images of a hat – Owen is a hat man and his signature is a red hat. In fact when I met him recently he was wearing a red jacket, a red hat, and an amazing embroidered tie. 

And I didn’t leave empty handed – I took away one of Kate’s lovely mugs. She’s been experimenting with a new green glaze and it’s gorgeous. I can report that coffee tastes really good from it too. That’s Kate’s own photograph, below. Her pottery is for sale at the Mizen Visitor’s Centre.

Thanks for such a lovely visit, Owen and Kate. 

If you’d like to hear Owen talking about his life and work, tune in to the Stitchery Stories Podcast.

Reen Farm Revisited

Last week, for the Taste of West Cork Festival, we went back to one of our favourite West Cork places for a very special concert.

Reen Farm is the home, gallery and sculpture garden of the artists John Kelly and his wife Christina Todesco-Kelly. But that description comes nowhere close to doing justice to this utterly unique, fascinating and beautiful venue. We have written about Reen Farm before – two years ago in Where Art and History Meet and last year in Out in the Field.

This year’s event was a concert by Jessie Kennedy and Justin Grounds, joined by Tess Leak on the cello. Jessy and Justin have collaborated on many occasions and always to great effect. Highly accomplished musicians and composers, their concerts are hot ticket items in West Cork. One of the attractions on this occasions was that seats were limited so we were promised an intimate occasion.

We started in John Kelly’s Tate – a sculpture/structure/installation intended to invoke the conjunction of wealth and art in a place that in fact is remembered historically for poverty and famine. This is mainly due to the visit of NM Cummings to Reen and to his famous letter to the Duke of Wellington, in which he relates the horrors of what he has witnessed in Reen and pleads with Wellington to intervene.

Christina read the letter and Jessie performed I am stretched on Your Grave.  It was deeply moving and we filed out of the Tate a more mournful and thoughtful group than the one who entered. We needed a lift and what better to deliver that than John’s iconic Cow up a Tree Sculpture. It doesn’t hurt that it’s located on one of the most scenic stretches of the West Cork coastline, either.

By the time we got back to the garden the tea and coffee were on and Billy (sound engineer and baker extraordinaire) had laid out a feast for us.

We tucked in, and settled down for the concert. It wasn’t just that we were listening to accomplished musicians – it was that it was all taking place on a warm summer evening as the sun was sinking low, in this amazing and exotic location. It felt like such a privilege to be in that place at that time.

Thank you, John and Christina, for your warm hospitality and for sharing your vision for future developments with us. We look forward very much to seeing what the next year or two brings at Reen Farm!

John and Christina

 

Mizening

What do you do when a fine day dawns and you want something totally relaxing? You go Mizening, of course! OK, it’s not a real word, but it should be – for the act of wandering at will around our wonderful peninsula.

We’ve been tied up a lot lately with the West Cork History Festival – it was a great success, by the way, with a wide variety of speakers and topics. We really enjoyed leading two of the field trips, including one that involved much dodging rain showers. But now it’s time to get back to our true avocation – meandering lazily around our own patch of heaven.

So what follows is a record of a blissful day on the Mizen, doing not much of anything, drinking coffee, visiting new friends, observing the wildlife, popping into the Blue House Gallery – well, you get the picture.

Those new friends? Judi and Pete Whitton, both artists, with a home and Gallery near Schull. Judi and I felt we knew each other already although we had never met in person, just through the wonders of the internet. She has a gorgeous show, Easel in the Ditch, running at the moment (follow the signs from Lowertown) – we were bowled over by her beautiful watercolours.

Above – Newcourt Bridge – Judi had seen my post on this ‘hidden wonder’ of West Cork and had to paint it

Then it was off for a walk in the countryside. You think you’ve been down all the little roads before, but there are always surprises.

Cobwebs in an abandoned church

It’s August now and many of the flowers have finished blooming, but others have come along to take over and the boreens are still a delight.

We’ve had an invasion of Painted Lady butterflies. Normally, this is a phenomenon that happens once a decade, but it’s starting to happen more often now, and scientists feel it may be down to general climate warming. The butterflies are especially attracted to the Knapweed, which is abundant, although they have to compete with the bees for it.

We were seeing lots of dragonflies too, although they wouldn’t stay still enough to allow a photograph – I finally snuck up on this one (above, both images), which it turns out is a Ruddy Darter. Well named!

After more obligatory wildflower photography (example above, Eyebright), we dropped into Schull to see the latest Exhibition at the Blue House Gallery. Titled cleverly Blau Haus/Bauhaus, the downstairs show is based on the Bauhaus, the German arts, crafts and design school, founded a hundred years ago, that dragged us all into the twentieth century, .

A tiny taster of the Bauhaus-inspired pieces above – a detail from a tall fused glass and bronze collaboration by Angela Brady and Holger Lönze, and a teapot by David Seeger

Upstairs was an entirely different show – The Drawn Line, curated by Catherine Weld. I was particularly taken with this line drawing by Christina Todesco-Kelly, titled simply Satchel.

A lovely day! I did mention coffee, so I will end with a detail from Judi Whitton’s portrayal of our favourite local, place to get coffee (or lunch or dinner!) – Budd’s of Ballydehob. It captures so well what Mizening is all about and it’s the first thing we see as we approach Ballydehob from Nead an Iolair.