Stories >Life's challenges
Tales of Heartfelt Studio and garden magic
Life's challenges
By: Liz Gaffney
April 2025
An Elephant Photo; Liz Gaffney
In so many lives 2025 is putting forward challenges many of us find difficult to navigate through. With all my sadness and personal loss this year my garden and my craft have kept me sane.
Structural pruning ( hacking back trees and plants) is cathartic. Pruning away the dead growth with the ambition for strong new life. Setting seeds of dye plants and flowers( grown just for their beauty) a miracle from such tiny beginnings. It’s like that with teaching and passing on knowledge, sharing skills and cultural differences, uniting in the same mediums as crafts people around the world, wool and plants being universal.
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My childhood in Ireland was very family orientated , we worked together and shared tasks and learned by doing. I learned my love of growing and plants from both my parents, we grew many of the flowers needed for our family florist business. I learned from my father about roses and their care, my mother's artistic hands creating beautiful arrangements and wedding bouquets from what we grew. It was my father that taught me to drive vans on the journey to the Dublin fruit and flower market. My love for music I am sure comes from my father who was also a
Seaweed with holdfast
professional musician with Mick Delahuntys band. I worked with my mother in the florist business for many happy years and learned much through her guidance. A musician and an artist as parents was a wonderful start in life for me but i respect very much how difficult things were for them both and just how hard they worked.My close family ties never altered even though I moved away from the country of my birth and this year my family have been my ‘holdfast’, my steady anchor in life’s storms.I am grateful for all I have been given in physical help but also those who held me in their hearts and prayers. It all makes you understand the preciousness of each and everyone of our lives. We cannot change the world but we can change our world, the way we interact with one another each and every day.
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Early May 3rd,4th and 5th is the 20th year of Open Studio here in North Fife please come and visit my studio and some of the 94 artists taking part.I will be teaching at the studio over the Summer and Autumn and also travelling to teach, next month teaching plant dyes in Edinburgh College of Art and June travelling to the lovely craft centre in Dunblane- the Scottish School of Craft.I am happy to discuss workshop ideas you may have in your venue or mine , just drop me an email.
We cannot change the world but we can change our world
