Drimoleague artist's postcard exhibition is laced with history

SKIBBEREEN Heritage Centre will host an exhibition of old Irish postcards dating from the 1900s during Heritage Week. 

The exhibition runs from Saturday, August 19th  to Saturday the 26th. 

Textile artist Patricia Tomlinson from Drimoleague has created these mixed media works using old postcards, fabric from old clothes, along with lace and buttons that she has collected over the years. 

The postcards come from the early 1900s when they were used by people to invite their friends to come to tea at ‘short' notice, as postal deliveries were more frequent than they are today. 

Ironically, Patricia was so bad at sewing when she was at school that she was made to stitch brown paper for a whole year. 

Her late father, Con O'Sullivan, told her she had ‘good hands' like her aunt Nell (a dressmaker in Drimoleague) and himself, and not to listen to the teacher. Con trained as a blacksmith in Caheragh and some of the gates that he made in the 1940s and 50s are still standing. 

Her family moved to England in the 1960s and it was only when she returned to live in West Cork in 2008 that she found her creative side. Patricia stitches with the Liberty Stitch Textile Group and she has exhibited in Dunmanway and Glandore. 

This is her first solo exhibition and profits from any sales will be donated to the Heritage Centre. 

Patricia will be at the Heritage Centre from 11am-1pm on Tuesday, August 22nd and from 3pm-5pm on Saturday, August 26th. 

Many of the postcards date back to the 1890s and were posted in the early years of the 20th Century. These Photocrom cards were made by blending photographs with early colour printing techniques which used lithographic limestone to layer on different tones. The process was invented in the 1880s by Hans Jakob Schimdt.