Julie French: From conception to creation

Textile Artist Julie French’s work focuses on the wild side of nature, dance and motion. Each piece is unique.

Using the sewing machine as a tool for continuous line drawing, Julie’s work explores movement and texture with often unpredictable outcomes, which have been likened to ink illustration. The speed and capricious nature of the sewing machine, when used in this unconventional way reflect characteristics of the subjects.

In this article, part of our From conception to creation series, Julie talks us through the creation of her astonishing piece, ‘Kingfisher’. We learn how this magnificent bird captured her heart and imagination and why on discovering banana fibres at the Knitting and Stitching show she was driven into action.

Name of piece: Kingfisher

in Publications

A landmark exhibition investigates Leonardo da Vinci's early years as an artist

On view at the Yale University Art Gallery from June 29 through October 7, Leonardo: Discoveries from Verrocchio’s Studio investigates a virtually unknown period in the career of perhaps the most famous artist of the Italian Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519). The exhibition focuses on the claim of Leonardo’s first biographers that as a boy he was apprenticed to the sculptor, painter, and goldsmith Andrea del Verrocchio (ca. 1435–1488). Verrocchio is a mysterious personality. While many of his sculptures in bronze and marble are today admired as iconic masterpieces of 15th-century Florentine art, scholars have never agreed on a list of surviving paintings that might be by him, or even whether any of them are by one artist alone. Consequently, previous attempts to determine what Leonardo might have learned from Verrocchio have rarely led to serious proposals to identify the earliest works of that revo

in Publications

Forgotten treasures rediscovered: Sotheby's London exhibits ancient works of art

Following the strong results of last season’s sale, which soared beyond pre-sale expectations and totalled £3.9 million, Sotheby’s forthcoming sale of Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art will return to London with a vast selection of works spanning ancient Egypt and the Near East to Classical Greece and Rome. Sotheby’s Worldwide Head of Ancient Sculpture and Works of Art, Florent Heintz, says: “Not only does this year’s sale offer an incredible selection of objects spanning 2,600 years, but, through dogged and comprehensive research, we have been able to trace several of the objects back to important collections, and to identify works of art once thought lost, including a Roman wallpainting fragment which once belonged to Gothic novelist and arbiter of taste Horace Walpole and a Roman portrait of a man which once belonged to Wilton House – imagine our delight in discovering that the portrait I had been starin

in Publications

Art In Public Places Artwork Revealed For Canada 150 Project

Migration lands in centre of St. Anne Street roundabout

After extensive public consultation, the award-winning, Québec-based Artist Team of Jean-François Cooke and Pierre Sasseville (also known as Cooke-Sasseville) have been selected to create their artwork titled Migration in recognition of Canada’s 150th Anniversary.

This Canada 150 project will be the City’s largest single artwork commission to date and is set for installation during the fall of 2018 in the centre of the St. Anne Street roundabout. Composed of three golden-yellow sculptures, from a distance Migration will resemble stalks of wheat. Upon further inspection, residents will discover 72 Canadian geese featured in the piece—systemically arranged and ready for their yearly journey. Building off the sense of community essential to successful migration, the geese embody group strength, while the sheaf of wheat reminds us of the importance of agriculture to Canada’s economic and social development post-confederation. As Cooke-Sasseville state,

The communities that forged the identity of St. Albert are represented in a symbolic, monumental piece that overlooks the site of integration, towering nearly 10 metres above. Seemingly all heading in the same direction, our Canada geese illustrate community spirit, mutual aid, and achieving common goals.

in Publications

PAFA exhibits more than 100 new acquisitions and rarely seen gems

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts invites you to explore the idea of space and unique spaces in Infinite Spaces: Rediscovering PAFA’s Permanent Collection, on view June 30 – September 9, 2018, and occupying both the Fisher Brooks Gallery in the Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building and the Richard C. von Hess Foundation Works on Paper Gallery in the Historic Landmark Building. Infinite Spaces brings together a range of objects, including paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, video, and installation to explore the ways in which artists have navigated their surroundings from the eighteenth century to the present day. Placing historic works in conversation with modern and contemporary works, Infinite Spaces highlights more than 100 new acquisitions and rarely seen gems from PAFA’s historic collection of American art. One of the new acquisitions on view, Frederic Edwin Church’s masterful oil painting, Valley

in Publications