The boyle family artists biography silk

Going through the reading material in the student common room, I found a book about the Boyle family, giving an insight into their photography of industrial landscapes.

“Boyle Family is a group of collaborative artists based in London. Mark Boyle and Joan Hills met in Harrogate, Yorkshire in 1957. Joan had studied art and architecture and was bringing up her first son Cameron whilst running her own business. Mark was in the army, writing poetry. After a period of working separately on visual art pieces, they incrementally moved into a natural collaboration – agreeing that art should not exclude anything as a potential subject.
Wherever Mark and Joan lived became their studio, so it seemed natural and necessary that friends and family be co-opted to help whenever there was a big show going off or an event to put on. From very early on, Mark and Joan’s children, Sebastian and Georgia, went around the studio, doing bits here and there, gradually getting more deeply involved: going on working trips, expeditions, helping to finalise and hang exhibitions. This co-creational approach also was applied to the evolution of the work itself and led to innovative and collaborative partnerships with many artists, performers, musicians, filmmakers and dancers, notably Jimi Hendrix and the psychedelic jazz-rock pioneers Soft Machine…Boyle Family aims to make art that does not exclude anything as a potential subject. Over the years, subjects have included: earth, air, fire and water; animals, vegetables, minerals; insects, reptiles, water creatures; human beings and societies; physical elements and fluids from the human body. The media used have included performances and events; films and projections; sound recordings; photography; electron-microphotography; drawing; assemblage; painting; sculpture and installation.”

http://www.boylefamily.co.uk/boyle/about/

Reading about the Boyle family, it is clear that they have explored the landsca

Coming up for auction on February 4th 2016 with James D Julia in the US

Estimated Price: $18,000 – $22,000

Description: Second half 18th century, probably Fredericksburg, Virginia. This silk work wrought by Mildred Gregory Washington (1777-1805), daughter of Charles Washington and niece of General George Washington. Mildred Gregory Washington, second wife of Captain Thomas Hammond of Charles Town, Jefferson County, Virginia was married until her death in 1804/05. Capt. Thomas Hammond then married Nancy Newton Collins in 1807, retaining the silk work within their family. Their son, George Washington Hammond married Sarah Ann Taylor, retaining the silk work in their family. Their daughters were Florinda Jones Hammond (1846-1922) and Mary Mildred Hammond (1836-1933). Mary Mildred Sillivan (nee Hammond) took stewardship of the silk work. Subsequently she gifted the silk work to her niece, Elizabeth Tilford Keferstein (1874-1941), daughter of Florinda Hammond Tilford and John Boyle Tilford, Jr. A family quilt exists, fashioned over a period of 6 years by the three wives of Captain Thomas Hammond including Mildory Gregory Washington and Nancy Newton Collins. The silk and chenille embroidered picture depicting a young woman in a fitted pale blue jacket with dark trim, with a brimmed cap, wearing a blue and gold striped full length skirt and black shoes, holding a hay rake in her right hand. She is facing a young man in blue jacket with white trousers and leggings, black shoes with buckles and seated on a haystack beside a seated dog, holding a pitchfork, all on a grassy foreground. They are positioned beneath a large central willow tree, a bird flying within. The middle ground with spotted pig, fence, and small farmhouse. Rendered overall in muted and subdued tones of golds, silvers, greens and blues. This rare folk art rendition with similarities to the rural themes seen in the “Fishing Lady” embroideries of Boston and also with regional characteris

It’s a rainy Saturday afternoon in Maynooth and I don’t feel like taking my usual walk so I thought I’d post another bit of local history like I did last week. This is another thing I’ve just found out and thought I’d share. This is a view I took last spring of Maynooth Castle (or the ruins thereof):

The Castle, together with a Manor House that was next to it, belonged to the Fitzgerald family, local aristocracy since the 13th Century. As I mentioned in a previous post, Thomas Fitzgerald, the 10th Earl of Kildare, led a rebellion against the English authorities during the time of Henry VIII. He acquired the nickname “Silken Thomas” because of the ribbons of silk worn by his supporters. The rebellion failed and his family castle was badly damaged. Thomas surrendered and was subsequently executed, along with several members of his family, in 1537. The family fortunes declined pretty drastically at that point but the family line did survive.

Now fast forward to 1630 when George Fitzgerald, the 16th Earl of Kildare married a Lady Joan Boyle. She was the daughter of a tremendously powerful figure by the name of Richard Boyle, the 1st Earl of Cork. Richard Boyle had been part of the Tudor plantation of Ireland and had acquired enormous amounts of land and personal wealth in the process. He spent some of his riches at the time of his daughter’s wedding doing up the ancestral home of his son-in-law, refurbishing the castle and building a new manor house next to it.

Unfortunately this didn’t last long. During the Irish Confederate Wars the Castle was attacked several times and badly damaged. It remained in occupation but by the end of the 17th Century it was derelict. The Fitzgerald family eventually moved to a new home at the other end of Maynooth, Carton House (now an upmarket golf resort). All Richard Boyle’s refurbishment work went to nothing and all that survives to the present day – the Gatehouse and Solar T

In a series of three seperate earlier posts, we’ve looked at the history of Dublin’s cathedral of Saint Patrick’s, from the early Christaina era,  in one post, to the Viking ear in another, and finally to the Anglo-Normans, and “the story of the two cathedrals”.

It’s all a long, immense, complex web of religious and civil politics, spanning from early “Celtic era” saints, to Viking warriors; from Plantagenet kings to Norman archbishops.   Congratulations to those who managed to follow the story,  in all its machinations, twists and turns so far!

Today, we’re going to have a look at the famous Boyle memorial, an enormous, commemorative sculpture, commissioned by Richard Boyle, first earl of Cork, in memory of his beloved second wife Katherine.

Where is it?   Well, let’s imagine we’ve just walked into the cathedral, through that double porch from the bending lane known as St Patrick’s Close.  Just through the second, inner door, we look first to our right, where the great nave of the cathedral opens up, (below)  its looming vaults soaring overhead.  Between the columns we can catch glimpses,  of tombs, statues and memorials, of arches and stained glass.  Naturally we are eager to see them all.   We shall be traveling that way soon, I promise,  in future posts.   There are scores of treasures and stories here to enjoy.

But today we’ll look in the other direction.  Because before we blunder into these great spaces, and maybe miss something, while we are still by the doorway, we first take a look hard left.   Over there we spy an enormous monument.    Our curiosity piqued, we saunter over to the subject today’s post, the superb, massive multi-layered mid-17 century Boyle memorial, carved in wood.

This vast memorial was commissioned by Richard Boyle, first earl of Cork, to  commemorate himsefl and his second wife Katherine, the mother of his fifteen children.  He and her are depicted on it, along with various o