...... a visit to the Museum .....
After another delightful week with Julie Arkell and her Museum of the Kind and Curious theme this year, we are ready for a short quiet spell before our Slow Stichery Event commences. We are expecting a full house and the weather (at the moment) looks promising, so we'll be encouraging participants to bring along their cossies!
Last weekend we open L'Espace's studio for a celebration of the life of friend and neighbour, Billie Jean Spillie who died recently after a long and painful illness that she endured without complaint. People who have attended workshops here will have seen her beautiful, idiosyncratic, spiritual paintings in most of the rooms - some of you may also have been lucky enough to visit her studio whilst you were here - and her artistic integrity (she was never remotely interested in making money through her art though when younger she mixed with the great and the good; she just wanted to get it out there) and positive, attitude to life, despite her failing health, will be much missed.
If you are currently in UK we can recommend two exhibitions to take your mind off all the current political shenanigans, one at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; and the other at the Towner Gallery, Eastbourne and both representing some of the best of British Art through from the 1920s through the two World Wars to the 1960s.
I have to confess I am a complete typography and graphics junkie. In fact I have to stop myself from filling my computer with all the downloadable free fonts available on the Internet. Some sites, such as 1001 simply ask for a donation to the designer which seems more than fair, others are much more expensive.
Alexis Tyrsa is a young French graphic designer with a bright future. For him typography is just the starting point of a project and his goal is to reinvent the letter without losing its meaning or beauty. Check out his recent design for Medécins sans Frontières and their Dutch agency, Wieden+Kennedy. We will be contributing all the profits from our Blues & Boogie Weekend this July to this superb charity and we're delighted that young professional artists are donating their talents to such a good cause.
The work of Richard McVetis is both extraordinary and meticulous. Using his fine stitchwork he explores how objects, materials and places, through the action of hands, bear witness to the passing of time. Imagine how exciting that becomes when alongside his creative supervision you learn the traditional mending techniques so beloved by Celia Pym. This September they will be joining forces at our unique, week-long workshop Embroidery & Mending; drawing on their shared love of stitching, and paying special attention to time, labour, care and repair, they will be offering participants the opportunity to learn traditional mending skills and then applying those to a personal project.
The residential places for our popular Blues & Boogie Weekend here in July are almost full now, but if you are in the area you can still buy tickets online to the individual concerts. Don't leave it too late though as there is always a rush for seats closer to the dates and our bijou venue can only accommodate a limited number of guests. With our three internationally acclaimed musicians performing at each concert, and food throughout prepared by Masterchef Sven-Hanson Britt and his team, it'll be a great way to start your summer in ernest.
