April Hares, Cut and Paste
You may or may not be following Les Soeurs Anglaises’ new Instagram page @CollageCardConnections but the idea of collage is so brilliant, so simple, so rich and imaginative in every way, that you might wonder why nobody had thought of collage as an art form before the Cubists came along . But, in reality, collage - and its sister, assemblage - has a rich history stretching back hundreds of years. If you feel like having a bit of creative fun with scissors and glue, then hit the button below, add your postal address and we’ll send you a “starter” collage …….
2. Can’t get to the Louvre these days? The Museum has just opened it’s on-line archive where you will find all your favourites…….
3. A book I am thoroughly enjoying at the moment is written by actor Gabriel Byrne: “Walking with Ghosts”. Structured around an imaginary, haunted visit to the Dublin of his youth, it has more to do with conjuring up a now-vanished Ireland, than a profile of the movie business and is by turns poetic, moving and very funny. As Edna O’Brien says in her review of the book, “it has been written by a man whose amazing story is the stuff of literature!”.
4. Confused about how to use your surplus fabrics? ….. Take a look at these simple instructions using left-over fabrics to make one of these delightful, useful circular rugs.
5. Not to be missed, hugely entertaining free on-line class with American cartoonist, author, and teacher, Lynda Barry, best known for her weekly comic strip, Ernie Pook's Comeekas, well as 1988 illustrated novel The Good Times are Killing Me which has been adapted into a play.
6. Not as difficult as it looks …. apparently. Stefan Mogyorosi shows you how to take “splash” photos.
7. March is the traditional month for hares, but I’m a little bit obsessed with these fine creatures, and it seems I’m not the only one. On a good day, with the fields still clear, we might be lucky enough to catch sight of one standing stock still in the garden, or rampaging across a ploughed field for no apparent reason other than the sheer joy of it. But they are generally shy and elusive creatures and mostly I have to make do, between sightings, with admiring the hare creations of others .
8. Want to listen to a story whilst creating? New York Public Library stream a new story every week not only in English, but also in Spanish and Mandarin in case English is not your first language.
9. And who could resist the swaggering pigeon in Emmit Fenn’s new music video?
10.
Spring
by Gerald Manley Hopkins
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
