Midweek Meander

Whilst looking around for ideas on how to display my work I visited one of our makers blogs and found these great ideas, thanks www.made-to-make.blogspot.com

This one is even a little mobil craft store.

I think that the suitcases are a great idea, transport your stuff, open it up et voila

brilliant, now I just have to hunt down some old suitcases!

WE SHOULD ALL REMEMBER

JUST A THOUGHT, ENJOY YOUR DAY.

Visual story tellers.

On this Monday morning I thought that we could enjoy the work of two illustrators Gemeo Luis and Tesa Gonzalez.
Firstly Gemeo Luis who makes his imagery through beautiful and intricate paper cuts, these paper cuts make his work interactive and accessible as he not only uses them as book illustrations but as gallery installations, wonderful, see what you think.

Strange and inventive work.

Fancy a go? See more of this work www.gemeoluis.com

Now the work of Tesa Gonzalez, she is a children's book illustrator who also makes beautiful short animations to promote reading in schools.

Again beautiful and unusual work. More, yes please www.tesagonzalez.blogspot.com

Art is not what you see

but what you make others see.

Georgia O'Keef

Threads of feeling.

This week I discovered an exhibition which I found really interesting and strangely moving. It is an exhibition of 18th century textile tokens left with abandoned babies at the London Foundling Hospital.

The exhibition is being shown online for those who can not get to see it. You can find it here, http://www.threadsoffeeling.com/ 
The snippets of textiles are fascinating especially from a historical perspective but the scraps of letters and documents, for me,  hint at a story of heartbreak and loss. Amazing.

Fabric swatches from the 18th century tell stories of mother and babies parting.



Letter and token left with Florella Burneys at the foundling hospital 19th  June 1768.

'Worckt with flowers'. Linen or cotton embroidered with flowers.

'Flowered all over with cards'. Cotton or Linen printed all over with playing card pattern.

In the cases of more than 4000 babies left between 1741 and 1760, a small object or token, usually a piece of fabric was kept as an identifying record. The fabric was either provided by the mother or cut from the clothing by the hospitals nurses. Attached to registration forms and bound up into ledgers, these pieces of fabric form the largest collection of everyday textiles surviving in Britain from the 18th Century.

For more information you can also visit http://www.thefoundlingmuseum.org.uk/  

The first children were admitted to the Foundling Hospital on Lady Day 25th March 1741, and baptised in new or 'Hospital' names, a practice that continued until 1948.( The child was never told the identity of the mother, neither was she told the 'Hospital name of the child.)