Design Life: A quilt that covers the issues

By Aileen Lee

Design life of Textile artist, Mary Palmer.

What’s your background?

I grew up in Detroit. We moved to Ireland in 1989. I had never made a quilt before coming to Ireland.

I am mostly self-taught, with lots of workshops and classes along the way.

I had a very small business selling quilting supplies from the house, and I did that for about 10 years, and then I sold on the stock, so I could focus on my own work.

I offer a quilting service. I also teach, give talks, and advocate for craftspeople through volunteer organisations.

I am involved with Cork Craft and Design; the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland; the Quilters Guild of Ireland; the Irish Patchwork Society; and CorkTextiles Network.

What’s a typical workday like for you?

Generally, I am not in the studio until 9.30-10.30am but I could work until dinnertime. I could be fielding calls during that time as well, or I might need to pop out to a meeting.

Depending on what’s going on in the evening, I might go back out into the studio and work until 10pm.

If I am on a deadline, I could work until 3-4am. I do better late at night. I think it goes back to when the kids were young, and it was a quiet time to get work done.

Tell us about a recent/favourite project or design you have worked on?

My husband did some voluntary work in Lesbos in 2016 and 2017 — in 2016, it was at the worst of the Syrian crisis.

There was a mountain of lifejackets on the island because as people landed, they discarded them. He took the foam out of some of them and brought me back the material and said: ‘You need to make something with these’.

I’m involved with an international quilt art group and we had an exhibition last year and I thought this would be an opportunity to explore how to use those.

A friend was helping me cut up the lifejackets and I said, “Imagine, losing six million people in a few years, and she said, ‘Well, something similar happened here’.

As an immigrant myself, I’m not always in tune with some of the collective histories as someone who is native to Ireland would be.

I made a pair of quilts, one of which is a piece of Kufic calligraphy transposed into quilt form.

Kufic calligraphy is a type of a calligraphy used in Syria. I cut up some linen — it was leftover from the Youghal carpet factory — and I stained it and distressed it and chopped it up into tiny pieces and made a second quilt, based on a pattern called an Irish Chain.It disintegrates to show loss and disintegration, and I called the two quilts Prayer and Lament.

That was my piece in the keynote exhibition for this year’s Cork Craft Month. I think they get the message across, I hope they did.

Lilliburlero by Mary Palmer.

What’s your design style?

It varies from project to project, but I love using colour and my designs would be heavily textured.

What/who inspires your work?

Lots of things would inspire me: Music; memories; colours in memories; childhood, but that tends to be more colour than visual; politics; current affairs; how people communicate.

What’s your favourite trend at the moment (if you have any)?

I’m quite interested in social activism and how I can bring that into my work.

What’s your most treasured possession?

My favourite sewing machine is a really basic one but would be my most treasured possession in terms of work.

Who would be your favourite designer, or style inspiration?

I’m fascinated by the Arts and Crafts Movement as well as the Bauhaus Movement. They both focused on producing art through craft but went about it in very different ways.

What would be a dream project for you to work on?

I would love to work on something for a large space, an installation of sorts.

Have you any design tips for us?

Be true to yourself, but in an educated manner. You need to be aware of what good design is and within that, be true to what you like.