By Michelle Hickey Legge
Represented by Rhyme Studio’s Textile Art Advisory
3' x 4' Hand woven and hand dyed Galway wool made to order with lead time of 8-10 weeks and custom sizes available upon request
USD$6900 EUROS€6,900
The Galway Tapestry is an extraordinary wool sculpture created by Irish artist and researcher Michelle Hickey Legge, whose practice engages deeply with the cultural and ecological significance of Ireland’s native materials. Made entirely from undyed wool of the rare Galway sheep, Ireland’s only native breed, this work embodies a tactile story of land, craft, and rural resilience.
Suspended like a soft, sculptural topography, the tapestry blends hand-spun forms, knitted gestures, wrapped spheres, and improvisational fibre structures. Its cascading clusters and organic contours evoke lichen, rock, storm clouds, and the textured geology of the west of Ireland. Every element is shaped by hand, grounding the work in an intimate relationship between maker, material, and landscape.
Hickey Legge’s background in fashion design, tailoring, and sustainable creative research informs her highly evolved fibre language. Over 25 years she has held roles across Ireland’s creative industries: she is a member of the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland, Visual Arts Ireland, Fibreshed Ireland, and the representative of the Galway Wool Co-op. Her practice explores the possibilities of rebuilding rural economies through art - centering overlooked materials such as native wool and tracing their journey from land to hand.
Her ongoing artist residencies with Wool in School and the Galway Wool Co-op have shaped a body of work that is both ecological and sculptural. The Galway Tapestry emerged from this dialogue, created from wool sourced directly through the cooperative and developed through a slow, embodied process of improvisation, learning, and unlearning. The result is a piece that resists convention: neither decorative nor functional, it sits proudly in the lineage of contemporary fibre art, environmental storytelling, and Irish material culture.
Rhyme Studio is thrilled to present this work as part of our expanding Textile Art Advisory, showcasing exceptional women artists working with wool and fibre. The Galway Tapestry reflects our shared mission: to elevate genuine Irish-grown wool, support heritage-based craft practices, and bring forward artists whose work bridges sustainability, cultural regeneration, and sculptural design.
This piece stands alone as a significant work of contemporary Irish textile art, sensory, sculptural, and steeped in place. It speaks of the land that grew it, the hands that shaped it, and the creative future being woven from Ireland’s native materials.
By Michelle Hickey Legge
Represented by Rhyme Studio’s Textile Art Advisory
3' x 4' Hand woven and hand dyed Galway wool made to order with lead time of 8-10 weeks and custom sizes available upon request
USD$6900 EUROS€6,900
The Galway Tapestry is an extraordinary wool sculpture created by Irish artist and researcher Michelle Hickey Legge, whose practice engages deeply with the cultural and ecological significance of Ireland’s native materials. Made entirely from undyed wool of the rare Galway sheep, Ireland’s only native breed, this work embodies a tactile story of land, craft, and rural resilience.
Suspended like a soft, sculptural topography, the tapestry blends hand-spun forms, knitted gestures, wrapped spheres, and improvisational fibre structures. Its cascading clusters and organic contours evoke lichen, rock, storm clouds, and the textured geology of the west of Ireland. Every element is shaped by hand, grounding the work in an intimate relationship between maker, material, and landscape.
Hickey Legge’s background in fashion design, tailoring, and sustainable creative research informs her highly evolved fibre language. Over 25 years she has held roles across Ireland’s creative industries: she is a member of the Design & Crafts Council of Ireland, Visual Arts Ireland, Fibreshed Ireland, and the representative of the Galway Wool Co-op. Her practice explores the possibilities of rebuilding rural economies through art - centering overlooked materials such as native wool and tracing their journey from land to hand.
Her ongoing artist residencies with Wool in School and the Galway Wool Co-op have shaped a body of work that is both ecological and sculptural. The Galway Tapestry emerged from this dialogue, created from wool sourced directly through the cooperative and developed through a slow, embodied process of improvisation, learning, and unlearning. The result is a piece that resists convention: neither decorative nor functional, it sits proudly in the lineage of contemporary fibre art, environmental storytelling, and Irish material culture.
Rhyme Studio is thrilled to present this work as part of our expanding Textile Art Advisory, showcasing exceptional women artists working with wool and fibre. The Galway Tapestry reflects our shared mission: to elevate genuine Irish-grown wool, support heritage-based craft practices, and bring forward artists whose work bridges sustainability, cultural regeneration, and sculptural design.
This piece stands alone as a significant work of contemporary Irish textile art, sensory, sculptural, and steeped in place. It speaks of the land that grew it, the hands that shaped it, and the creative future being woven from Ireland’s native materials.
