Leah Macmillan

 

'Please touch the Art!' Leah Macmillan's degree show was a tactile invitation to explore with the eyes of your fingertips. Inspired by her Nana's loss of sight Leah wants to create art that is accessible without relying on sight. 

Robert Williams

Utter insanity to start July with; 'How to tell the birds from the flowers'. A manual of flornithology for beginners by Wood, Robert Williams (1868-1955) published in 1907.

Ana Silva

Ana Silva, born in Angola in 1969, is an artist living and working in Portugal who uses mixed-media and delicate embroidery to create deeply personal artworks. Her pieces often address the theme of intergenerational trauma stemming from the Angolan civil war, which she experienced as a child.

In her 2020 series, “O Fardo” (a Portuguese term for bags used to transport secondhand clothes to Africa), Ana Silva uses discarded bags as her canvases. On these found materials, she embroiders scenes of Angolan life using materials like lace, thread, and traditional fabrics. Through this work, she builds a visual narrative that connects continents and critiques issues like overconsumption in the fashion industry and the negative impacts of global capitalism. Thank you

Her work tells the history of an object that crosse several continents on the occasion of humanitarian missions, without thinking that one day it could come back to its origins, in a new shape.

"After years in a market, used as shadow, tidying bag, napkin or even as a simple product whose ultimate goal is the trash, I discovered the beauty of its texture, then I try to tell a story by creating these characters that add value and poetry to its existence." Ana Silva

Isabella Ducrot

 

Isabella Ducrot born 1931 in Naples Italy has had a career of art and writing a true inspiration at 93. 

   “I must tell you immediately that I have never been so happy in my life!... I am terrified also, naturally, because friends of mine, old people, are dying,” she said. “But happiness is another thing. I think I am helped by the words that come to me—words are more generous with me now.” NY

Tins

 I bought all of my kids in my class a tin of spaghetti hoops this week, the cheapest I could get at 20p each and then got them to rip the labels off and invent new ones for what ever food stuff they wanted. 

I can tell you this was great fun, all of us really enjoyed ourselves!

David Schmitt II

 

More magic from David Schmitt.

Isol Misenta III

'Loose Threads' written and illustrated by the incredible Isol Misenta, what a timely and incredible book this is. The combination of thread and collage is sublime, this is a book to cherish!

 “Loose Threads is inspired by a shawl with traditional hand-embroidery that I was given on my visit to the Tamer Institute in Palestine… I thank the Palestinian women who embroidered it and the generous people who gave it to me to bring home to Argentina. Creation and generous travel far, and they inspire and bring together humankind."

 

”It weaves together gorgeous Palestinian Tatreez with a story of imagination and the idea of letting “the other side” slip through to the everyday, to how there’s a symbiosis between the wild, untidy, strange, and our usual striving for certainty and rules."