It's easy being green

My friend Sandra told me this morning that I should be making nothing but tags. [she loves my tags] My reply was, I wouldn't mind because I love making them. But then I would get restless; I like variety in my work.

My Irish tags are authentic. I come by my ephemera honestly: I'm Irish by marriage and have a direct channel to old photos and stamps and documents that I use in my artwork. The photo on the middle tag shows a farmeress in County Wexford in the 1950s... The Irish goodnaturedly suffer the "stage Irish" thing, as they call it, but Ireland is not all about leprechauns and begorrahs (in all my years in Ireland, I never heard the word begorrah even once!).

I was looking through Nicholas Mosse's book Irish Country Style and the section on embroidered motifs inspired me to sew the little shamrocks. Primarily a potter, Mosse is one of my favourites. I own one of his older pieces (photo below) in his unmistakable style.

Have a great day, bedad and begorrah!!!!