A new exhibition of wool art is opening in opens at Cavan County Museum, Ballyjamesduff tomorrow at 7.30pm.
Sandra Coote, a traditional artist originally from County Longford has illustrated the poetry of her husband Alan Coote's great grandfather, Charles. J Coote using the wool from their own flock of sheep.
Alongside her husband Alan, Sandra draws inspiration from rural life to create deeply personal artwork that bridges the past and the present.
Her latest body of work combines Charles J. Coote's poems with handcrafted wool illustrations made from wool from the sheep that graze the very land that Charles once walked.
Sandra aims to offer a heartfelt tribute to Irish rural traditional and the enduring stories they inspire.
Speaking to Northern Sound she explained the exhibition.
"I suppose the first thing was I always had the ambition that I wanted to have an exhibition and I got the opportunity to apply to Cavan Arts for, or to Cavan Museum for, to hold the exhibition there and I had to have, to give them a brief of what the exhibition was going to be. From when I met my husband Alan, I always knew about the poems of his great-grandfather and it had been something we discussed on numerous occasions that it was such a pity that they had kind of lain and nothing had been done with them because I just loved them. There was something about the way that they were written and how much they told about his life and I felt that was the perfect opportunity to try and tie his poetry with the needle felting that I'd done and by doing them in the wool I was using fibre from the land that he once farmed so it really tied the poetry to his place and I put forward my submission, I was granted the exhibition and then I started making the pieces and trying to work towards it, exploring each poem"
