S2E8: Claire McGovern and her Soft Power

Claire McGovern is a sustainable interior designer, art advisor and manufacturer, whose recent work uses Irish wool as its basis, a textile she has come to see as a 'miracle fiber' and after listening to this episode you'll think so too.

Claire spent her formative years in a small enclave in south Dublin called Dartry, nestled between the more well-known suburbs of Milltown and Rathmines.  Perhaps it was under the shelter of these leafy idyllic suburban surroundings that she first developed her creative flair, and a passion for nature's sustainability on a fragile, threatened planet, or perhaps this evolved on America's 'Left Coast' during her years in San Francisco. 

Either way, it is all reflected in her work and in her business.   Though she learned early that she, and her family, would not always be sheltered from life's harsher side,  she has persevered, always listening to the voice of entrepreneurship inside her,  always creating beauty for the rest of us to enjoy, as she draws on the many strands of a thing called 'soft power'.

Claire likes to use the word 'trajectory' when she narrates her life, describing her various physical locales, or the steps of her career.  The word connotates propulsion and flight,  up off the ground, and is an apt one for Claire to adopt.   She used Dublin and her education to catapult her to the States, all the way to the other side of if, before, in the ways of the boomerang, turning back towards the east and New York.   And that eastward trajectory is not yet done.

And in New York, she has taken motherhood, that big thing, in her stride along the way.  That particular flight path also has a way to go!

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Links of Note for Claire:

Rhyme Studio
Donegal Yarns–the genuine Donegal
Kerry Wollen Mills
Cushendale Woolen Mills
Dartry
Burning Man
Claire in the Irish Times (June 19 2020)
The poetry of Cecilia McGovern (Claire's mum!)
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Thanks to Purple-Planet  for music, and to FreeSound for sound FX,  and music too.

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