WAVES, wharfs and waypoints will be set artistically adrift in the upcoming August Craft Month.
The 10th year of this event will have a nautical feel, as demonstrated by a new exhibition from internationally celebrated local potter, Jack Doherty. The Portrush-born, award-winning ceramicist and "last in a generation of fishermen, sailors and boat builders" is launching Craft NI's flagship event at the Market Place Gallery, Armagh, on July 28 with his solo exhibition, Waypoint.
With the title maritime shorthand a reference point for navigation, it follows that the event will be something of a landmark, anchored in inspiration taken from the wild Co Antrim coastline and a variation on a theme first developed in Doherty's adopted home of Mousehole, Cornwall, last year.
The visit 'home' will be particularly poignant for the harbour master's son: he opened his first studio in nearby Scarva, Co Down, after graduating in Ceramics from the Ulster College of Art and Design in Belfast and working for a time at the acclaimed Kilkenny Design Workshops.
Waypoint is being shown in conjunction with the John Hewitt International Summer School, the week-long annual literary festival in honour of Northern Ireland’s most famous poets – a collaboration the potter fully supports.
"I have read his Hewitt's writings over the years and have collaborated on cross-cultural events, but never on a literary festival," he says.
"I have always been interested in this kind of collaboration that can be generated between different forms and different ways of expressing ideas."
With the expression of 'ideas' something of an occupational necessity for a creative craftsperson, it is lucky Doherty is surrounded by oceans of natural stimulus – as well as having a treasure chest of childhood memories of life by the sea.
"I am the last in a generation of fishermen, sailors and boat-builders who made their livelihood in one way and another from the sea," he says.
"I was to follow my own path into a life of clay and firing, but, as a boy, 'making' had always been integral to daily life.
"The term 'waypoint' means a reference point or landmark used for navigation so it fitted naturally with this exhibition which charts my personal journey of memory, time and place from my childhood in Portrush to my adult life in Cornwall."
Curated by his partner Sarah Frangleton, Waypoint – featuring soda fired porcelain ceramics created by dramatically firing diluted soda bicarbonate directly into the kiln – was first exhibited at historic fisherman's chapels at the St Ives September festival 2015.
"I was born into a family of fishermen and as a child the harbour was the most fascinating place in my universe," Doherty recalls with some nostalgia. "A space charged with emotional content that literally shaped my world."
The Market Place Gallery may not instil quite the same sense of atmospheric reflection as a stone chapel in St Ives, but it will still be a special homecoming for Doherty's collection of "functional pots" which, while looking decoratively at home hanging impotently from a wall, can just as easily be "be taken down and used to store plums".
"I am intrigued and inspired by the potency of archetypal vessel forms; anonymous and uncomplicated pots from pre-history which have been used for storing, cooking and keeping people safe, but which can also function in other ways," Doherty explains.
"I have experimented with many materials in order to develop a new palette of colour and surface texture closely integrated with the form. Over the years the process has become simpler and more refined in the belief that stripping away what is unnecessary can produce work with complexity and depth."
'Waypoint' is one of over 140 craft events taking place across the north in August, from exhibitions, festivals and workshops, to craft fairs, artisan markets and art trails, showcasing the best in everything from ceramics and glassmaking to wood turning.
And it is not the only highlight to have been inspired by a seafaring experience: Saintfield stone carver Sheena Devitt, one of the 'makers' taking part in the Film Makers exhibition at R Space Gallery in Lisburn, used drawings of wave patterns of the "extraordinary tides" in Strangford Lough to translate into hand-carved shapes.
Also this year, a new 'Creative Coast' mini craft festival organised by the Creative Coast Artists Collective joins the programme with a series of craft workshops.
Craft workshops of a nautical nature are also taking place aboard the newly refurbished HMS Caroline docked at Titanic Belfast, while on dry land, some more offbeat offerings include 'Build a Boyfriend' rag doll classes and the 'NI Big Sock Project' in which people can help sew up what hopes to be a Guinness World Record-breaking Christmas stocking.
Alan Kane, chief executive of Craft NI, said this year’s programme was "testament to the incredible diversity and range of talent" of Northern Ireland’s contemporary makers, with the 10th August Craft Month marked out to be "one of the most memorable yet".
:: The full programme can be accessed at Craftni.org.
