SHOWCASE 2005
Showcase 2005 brought some changes to the format of the spectacular, if unwieldy, event. The central Source aisle, featuring craftspeople handpicked for quality and commercial ability by a panel of buyers, formed a sort of backbone and rendered the show more navigable. Other areas of the show comprised the usual mixture of pure genius cheek by jowl with mediocrity. Showcase is too big, but it does carry an exciting sense of unknown talent waiting to be unearthed. This year’s overall winner of the INDEX Top 100 products was Paul Tierney of Trees in Furniture, Co Cavan. Tierney produces a range of handcrafted clocks, furniture, mirrors, and ornate bowls, all of which are made from storm-damaged Irish hardwoods. The pieces presenting themselves as nicely polished slices of tree bring an unstrained individuality to the finished work.

Geraldine Murphy
Geraldine Murphy of Saba Jewellery can always be relied on to provide a good conversation piece. Her latest creation and winner of an INDEX Top 100 award, ‘Shark Attack’, belongs to a new range called Sea Creatures that combines distinctively styled silver pendants, earrings, and bracelets with semi precious pebble beads. The petrol, green, turquoise, and reddish purple beads flow together like swirls of seaweed. Saba necklaces are handcrafted from silver or gold, then textured, formed and polished - a detailed and time-consuming process. Most earring, cufflink and ring ranges are cast in small batches and hand-finished. The shark pendant is handmade in antiqued sterling silver and munches very convincingly on a cascade of garnets, labradorite, rhodelite, and apatite (yes, really). It comes with matching earrings.

Jacinta Edge Moody
Textile designer Jacinta Edge Moody of Jem Textiles has survived the destruction of her studio by flooding in 2000 and, with support from the local community, the Crafts Council and the Carlow Enterprise Board, built up a new portfolio based on her love of nature and passion for natural fabrics - wool, silk, cotton and linen. ‘They’re nicer to work with and nicer to wear.’ Her new collection features handprinted silkscreen wall hangings embellished with embroidery and appliquéd with silk organza, and a range of cushions and throws. The interiors range that won an INDEX 100 is based on the unusual combination of wool and dupion, in red and charcoal grey. Small handprinted silk panels, silkscreened with abstract motifs, are sewn into the cushions and matching throws. Edge Moody is an artist with an inventive approach to materials, and one to watch out for in the future.

Emmet Kane
Taking wood to a different end of the spectrum, woodturner Emmet Kane, whose work has a strong archaeological influence, shows an inventive use of colour in his work. Wood and vibrant colour are not often combined to such strong effect. The Spiky Lad, named by a visiting child, is a sculptural piece that shows that, in the right hands, even toothpicks can become art.

Angela Hope
The handbags of Angela Hope are another exciting discovery. These combine contemporary design with a high comfort factor. The bags are, at their basic level, inspired by blankets. Her collection comprises a range of contemporary, shaped bags which combine the best of Irish, Welsh and Scottish wool blanket fabrics, with sumptuous velvet linings. The bags cater for the particularly female need to combine sharp design with physical softness. Her current collaboration with the versatile jewellery designer Clarisse Wisser, a line of black and dark grey cashmere bags with silver clasps based around a bow motif, won an INDEX 100 award.

Six Times Tables
Six Times Tables is a group of six artists who have come together to form a brand of contemporary tabletop products with ranges that co-ordinate rather than match. It’s a smart initiative that gives the customer an opportunity to create a table arrangement of handcrafted one-off pieces that can be combined in different ways. The Swedish born, Liz Nilsson, who may well be the energy behind the brand, is a textile artist and designer with an interest in the table as a place for communication and interaction. Her screen-printed linen napkins manage, in the politest way imaginable, to communicate some of this energy to the table top. Glass artist Eva Kelly produces platters and bowls in fused and slumped glass. The pieces are both decorative and functional, with a judicious use of textures and bright colours that will combine well with food without upstaging it. Kelly’s colours and forms also complement the ceramic designs of Joanne McKenna whose work is both geometric and fruity, incorporating colour with simple forms. In contrast, the vessels of Michele Hannan, ceramic artist and designer, show traces of flower forms, and are created using a number of hand building techniques in porcelain and stoneware clay. Patrick Hall’s square ceramic plates seem like a contemporary, and not entirely serious, take on the Willow Pattern beloved of past generations, while glass designer and artist, Edmond Byrne makes mainly mouth blown glass in vibrant colours.

Padraig O Murchu Padraig O Murchu Design has recently produced a limited edition collection of contemporary metal sculpture. Individually handcrafted, O’Murchu’s metal sculpture pieces comprise of individually sculptured metal centre piece bowls, candle holders and wine holders with intricate natural leather lacing detail. ‘We draw inspiration from the duality of metal,’ says Padraig, ‘Its ability to be molten and fluid in one state yet cool and structured in another. As an artist, I’m interested in craftsmanship and how basic traditional techniques relate to the overall form of a completed piece’