SEAWEED artists from Farraige in Ballineen are now being stocked at Forest and Flock in Bantry.
Having trialled their art at a craft fair last Christmas, the new West Cork Seaweed artists decided to start selling their work in shops. They started to sell prints at WildDesign in Cork city in December 2022 and Le Chéile in Dunmanway from April 2023. They’re now in Forest Flock, a place they had been thinking about for a while.
‘Forest and Flock was in our minds for a long time. We love this shop, and we are already customers ourselves,’ said Orla Twomey. ‘Whenever we visit Bantry we make sure to call in. We love the local craft, the peaceful and creative atmosphere, the originality and personality of the place.’
Farraige developed from the creative wills of Orla and partner Armand. In February 2022 they started to wander on the beaches of West Cork with the goal of foraging and making their first seaweed pressings.
Orla says: ‘Working with seaweed as an art material has seen a resurgence recently. It is inspired by ancient practices that had mostly scientific purposes. The colours and shapes are amazing and when people see the real seaweed on watercolour paper they always ask if they’re drawings or paintings and are astonished to learn that such colours exist in the seaweed world. We both always wanted to make something different that has a connection with nature and we were immediately hooked.’
Since then it’s been almost a year of working ‘behind the curtain’ with a lot of trial and error. Now that they perfected their own technique and process they sell seaweed pressings made with real specimens and prints of their creations.
Armand explains: ‘It takes between four days and several weeks depending on the seaweed to have a finished piece and to be able to see if your pressing is how you want it to be, that’s why it took us so long to even start thinking about selling them.
‘We took some time to perfect our product but also to choose our partners and suppliers as we love to work with locals. We take our frames from Strand Framing in Clonakilty, they have amazing products. We’ll be working with Bantry Glass for all the framed pressings from August 2023 as they have UV resistant museum glass which is the best quality on the market to protect the seaweed as it is very sensitive to sunlight. For all the pressings that we decide to scan, we have it done in Cork at ImagineArt, who’s doing stunning detailed work and so close to the real seaweed.’
Last June, at the occasion of Borris Literary Festival, Farraige met Vincent Doumeizel, author of the book The Seaweed Revolution in order to show some support to his cause and offer him a special pressing as a gift, an art piece of the writing ‘The Seaweed Revolution’ entirely made out of seaweed of course.
In addition to the prints they’re selling, they have other projects too, among them gift cards and letter paper. They’ll be also organising workshops at Le Chéile and if interest requires it may become a monthly event.
