Kilcoe Studios | Roaringwater Journal

I have written once before about Sonia Caldwell of Kilcoe Studios. That was eight years ago. In a post titled Kilcoe Studios – Dedication and Passion, I showed you her production of beautiful botanical art calendars and notecards, and gave you a glimpse of her passion for sculpture.

Since then, Sonia has emerged in West Cork as a true champion for heritage and nature, on top of continuing to develop her business and her personal sculpting practice. After a residency at Uillinn, she held a solo show there last month, mainly featuring her sculpture.

Sonia works in limestone, clay and natural materials such as mosses and twigs. Her work has an ethereal quality, explained by her personal spirituality. Her figures, small and large, are seeking to find their path, or answers to their questions.

They ponder an empty church, march along a pilgrim route carrying their burdens, or gaze into the distance mulling over some otherworldly mystery.

The launch of the exhibition was haunting. Sonia and singers, directed by Susan Nares, entered singing: chanting, rather, in a slightly Gregorian way, in English and Irish.

That’s the fine art side of Sonia. But her other passion is for the natural world and for all those heritage crafts that will die, if people like her don’t learn, nurture and revive them. She has opened a shop in Ballydehob, where she sells her own artwork, and items by others made from all natural materials.

The shop is where she also hosts her workshops – often facilitated by herself and occasionally by others. All the workshops are designed to get us engaging with heritage crafts and materials sourced from the fields, hedges and water around us. And they are great fun!

Just in the past year in that shop I have learned to make a basket from brambles (yes, don’t worry, de-thorned) – that’s my friend Julia splitting a long bramble above. I have made an autumn sculpture (“don’t call it a wreath!”) and a Christmas wreath, both facilitated by the wonderful Liz O’Leary and from foraged materials.

And I have gone on two foraging walks. The latest walk was last weekend, and it featured my first ever cup of nettle tea (delish!) and a picnic on the banks of a river with crackers and cake made from various gleanings and flavourings – toasted Wood Avens seeds anyone?

Sonia has also single-handedly revived Wren Day (also known as St Stephen’s Day in Ireland and Boxing Day abroad) in Ballydehob and taught us how to make the traditional rush hats worn by the Wren Boys. See Robert’s post The Wran for more on this unique Irish tradition – he was an enthusiastic participant.

All towns and villages deserve a person like Sonia – the person who won’t let the traditions die and who encourages the rest of us to look around us and really see what the land has to offer. We are lucky she chose West Cork as the place to nurture her own unique and mighty talent and to draw the occasional spark of creativity from the rest of us.

Every year I’ve pounced on the Kilcoe Studios calendars as soon as they come out, and bought their exquisite cards. Recently I met their creator, Sonia Caldwell and discovered that the studio is quite close to me. I told Sonia that I’ve long been an admirer of her work and asked if I could visit her in her studio and talk to her about her inspirations. In the process I discovered a dedicated and hard-working artist and sculptor and a fellow wildflower lover. *

Thrift, or Sea Pinks

Sonia’s botanical artwork is meticulous and yet avoids mere illustration. Her colours are delicate but true and she insists on live models – you just can’t get the detail you need from a photograph, she asserts.

Sea-holly: my own photograph, and a detail from one of Sonia’s paintings

But it’s more than that – she researches each flower, tree, shrub, berry, fruit and provides information on folklore, herbal uses, Irish names and their meanings, and other little titbits of information.

She collaborated with the marvellous Pilgrim’s Restaurant of Rosscarbery for the latest (2018) calendar. We’ve eaten there a couple of times and been blown away by their approach to food – simple, fresh, delicious, and often with foraged ingredients. I’m still living on the memory of their blackberry and meadowsweet sorbet. So with this calendar not only are you getting Sonia’s wonderful botanical prints but recipes from the Pilgrim’s chefs as well.

This is Sea Mayweed and Orache intertwined. Pilgrim’s recommends a one-minute steaming for the Orache, and pairing it with white fish (like hake), new potatoes and a cream sauce. You can also mix it with other “tidal greens” such as rock samphire, sea aster, and sea beet.

The painstaking drawings she lovingly creates for her calendars also go into her cards. That’s great, because they should outlive their ‘year’. The card packaging is a work of art in itself – I’ve given many a set as a gift.

Because I’ve spent so many hours myself photographing wildflowers I know what goes into identifying, researching, and then reproducing each one, but only on a superficial level compared to the kind of attention each one gets from Sonia. Watching her getting the colour of each leaf exactly as she saw it was illuminating, and humbling.

Sonia sells her work in various stores throughout Ireland, but you can also order from her online shop. There’s still time to get those 2018 calendars!

Sea Campion – the front cover illustration for the 2018 calendar

Although I was aware that Sonia was also an accomplished sculptor, I was unprepared for what I found in her studio. She works in stone, on both a small and large scale. She makes beautiful bowls, sundials and plaques as smaller, more affordable pieces, and they are popular buys at the summer markets.

But her passion is her figurative work. These are large-scale carvings, mostly in Kilkenny limestone, which she polishes to a beautiful finish using finer and finer grades of sandpaper. It’s physically demanding work, but I get the impression that when she’s engaged in it, she’s lost to time, and indeed to everything except what’s under her chisel.

Her work has a quality to it that I can only call ‘questing.’ The eyes look far away, seeking answers to some great question. In one case, they are blindfolded, forcing the quester to look inward. The bodies fold in on themselves, or on one another, or are rigid, as if acting as mere plinths for the imagination or the brain.

It’s powerful stuff, and left me wondering why artists such as Sonia face such difficulties in the market place. Sculpture, I now understand, is much harder to sell than paintings. You can see a range of Sonia’s sculpture on her separate artist’s website. She has exhibited widely.

Sonia works with her husband, Eamon Quinn, a master joiner. Take a look at his beautifully-crafted furniture on their website. It’s inspiring to spend time with someone like Sonia, someone so dedicated and talented and committed. The good news is that, even if you don’t happen to live near her, you can still enjoy her art every day of the year.

*All the images of Sonia’s work are used with her permission. Please respect intellectual property issues and copyright for all the artwork in this blog post.