Our fragile lives.....
With all the worrying news around - but perhaps with more time on our hands sitting at home - we thought you might need a little cheering up so here are a few things that have made us smile recently:
Many thanks to the always interesting Textile Artist for their recent
Breaking through blocks: 10 ways to reclaim your practice
Drawing a line under Faber-Castell…………… fascinating.
Feel like a new project? The American company, Quince, produce their beautiful yarns as locally as they can thus minimising their carbon footprint and helping to keep American ranches from turning into parking lots. They also make sure products used in their yarns are grown in conditions that are healthy for the soil and for those who tend and harvest it. And if they are looking for an animal fibre, they check to make sure the animal was raised in a way that sustains the earth and preserves the culture of the people who care for it. Worthy principles and wonderful yarns and patterns (most of which can be purchased in the UK at Loop) They are currently offering two levels of Quarterly Subscription Boxes which will arrive every very 3 months, each containing a different project and yarn, with the Level 2 box including a larger project or higher value yarn.
How does the human heart — that ancient beast, whose roars and purrs have inspired sonnets and ballads and wars, defied myriad labels too small to hold its pulses, and laid lovers and empires at its altar — unbusy itself from self-consciousness and learn to be a heart? That is what artist and illustrator Corinna Luyken explores in the lyrical and lovely My Heart — an emotional intelligence primer in the form of an uncommonly tender illustrated poem about the tessellated capacities of the heart, about love as a practice rather than a state, about how it can frustrate us, brighten us, frighten us, and ultimately expand us. (thanks to Brain Pickings)
My heart is a window, Some days it’s a puddle.
My heart is a slide. Some days it’s a stain.
My heart can be closed Some days it is cloudy
and heavy with rain. or opened up wide.
Drones are definitely de rigeur these days, whether it be for movies, documentaries, TV series or just plain old photography. So documenting the jewel-toned waters jutting up against beaches and the salt-speckled lagoons, Tobias Hägg frames some of Earth’s most striking landscapes using this revelatory aerial technique. Based in Stockholm, he uses his photography to capture nature’s movement and the inevitability of change within environments, offering a broader view of the planet’s beauty. To see more of Hägg’s stunning aerial shots or to add one to your collection, head to his site.
Most of us will have heard of Le Corbusier, but the name Charlotte Perriand is less well known. Almost 100 years ago, in 1927, and two years after studying furniture design in Paris, Charlotte moved into a photographer’s attic studio and converted it into her apartment, in which she designed everything. The open-plan space, divided by low stainless-steel storage cabinets and shelves, featured rotating “swivel” armchairs and stools made from chrome tubular frames and black or blood-red leather; a wall-mounted extendable dining table made from steel and rubber that could seat up to 11 people; and a steel, aluminum, and glass bar and card table with snooker-pocket drink holders, known as “Bar sous le Toît” (the bar under the roof). It was a radical departure from traditional interior design employing industrial techniques — welding, folded sheet metal, mechanical hinges and screws — and the style was neither Art Deco nor decorative Beaux-Arts (the two dominant aesthetic movements in France at the time). Later that year, the 24-year-old’s designs appeared at the Salon d’Automne and and as a result Le Corbusier offered her a job as his design associate; she worked alongside him for 10 years advancing her iconoclastic vision of modern living before moving into architecture and urban planning: she created pre-fabricated, affordable bathroom and kitchen modules that could be craned inside the apartments and quickly connected together. C21st thinking long before its time!
Whilst a number of our workshops are now full, there are still places available at the Laughter Lab 4-Day event in May, as well as the fabulous Blues & Boogie Weekend in July. With the coronavirus not far from anyone’s travel plans at the moment, we have decided to waiver our “terms and conditions” and offer a full refund for either of these events should you book now but decide to pull out up to 6 weeks beforehand.
