On Friday 7th July in the Legislative Buildings, the Department of Education, Sport and Culture hosted the annual ‘North American Manx Association Awards’. This recognises the outstanding achievement of students across the IOM in a variety of areas. Our very own A-Level textiles student Aalin-Grace Foster won the Outstanding Achievement in Arts & Crafts Award for her textiles piece ‘Mooinjer Veggey’.
Grace is currently studying Textiles at A-Level after achieving an A* at GCSE.
Grace has always produced work based on the Isle of Man, drawing on its natural beauty and wonder. The winning piece ‘Mooinjer veggey’ is inspired by The Fairy Glen, and is where the ‘little people’ of the Island reside. The garment is a wonderful display of carefully considered mixed media textiles incorporating traditional techniques such as hand embroidery, felting and embellishing with merino fibres to more modern computer aided machine embroidery. Each technique exploring the flora, fauna and foliage found in the Fairy glen. If you look carefully you might just spot the fairy cottages nestled amongst their woodland home.
It was a lovely afternoon where, after a speech by Mr Paul Crain, MLC, Grace was presented with a medallion by the President of the association Kelly McCarthy. All Grace's family and her textiles teacher Mrs Alman were able to celebrate the occasion with afternoon tea in the Barrool Suite alongside other winners to mark the occasion.
We look forward to seeing what Grace produces in the upcoming year when she will complete her A-Levels.
Well done Grace!
