Superfolk

Exploring the salt marsh at Mulranny.

Ómos is a new Irish guesthouse and restaurant in Abbeyleix, Co Laois, which will open its doors for the first time this July. The project has been created by a very talented team, lead by chef .

Superfolk have supplied a range of our products to be used in the project. Can’t wait to see it open and we wish Cuán and all Ómos team the best of luck.

Go n-éiri an bóthar libh.

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This week we decided to make a test batch of our woodland prints, where we have stripped back the colour and celebrate the elegance of nature’s silhouettes.

And we love the result - pieces that are all the more striking for their restraint.

This is just a test batch - available in limited numbers, just for now.

What prompted this mad black and white minimalist moment?

Well here in the west of Ireland, many trees have yet to break into leaf. But it feels like this is probably our very last week of winters silhouettes … the season of black and white - watching backlit geese swim amongst the feathery reedbeds,gazing at bare branches against the sky and watching exposed nests silhouetted on bare tree tops.

And just as we (finally!) say goodbye to winter, I realise we will miss it. I have grown to love winter’s bare stripped back shapes and elegant forms. This time next week the world will be bright green again. So for this week we lingering in the last of nature’s elegant and minimal silhouettes.

“WOODLAND ENEMIES! WOODLAND ENEMIES!”.

“Wood A-NE-MON-ES,” I correct her.

She either doesn’t hear me correcting her or doesn’t care (and knowing her, I would guess the second). 

“WOODLAND ENEMIES, WOODLAND ENEMIES” she points delightedly each time we come upon a patch of anemones.

Eventually it dawns on me - woodland enemies - what a brilliant mistake for a three year old to make.

Wood anemones are a beautiful, delicate white flower. They are one of the first flowers to bloom on the woodland floor in Spring.

But I will forever imagine them now as a small army of flowers … invading the grumpy, dormant winter woodland - like something from an Elsa Beskow illustration.

The army of “woodland enemies” announce the spring, their drooping white flower heads like little helmets nodding together in agreement.

“It’s time to wake up in here. Rise and shine people!” 

The Keeper is a new story - now available to read in full over on the Superfolk Journal - link in profile.

This months story is about the funny logic of children’s misremembered words and the struggling to stay open and inventive as a designer or artist when you’re no longer a beginner.