Category Archives: LIFE LOVERS

A couple of months ago we mentioned our new sewing community group on Facebook. Have you met our wonderful Patterns Consultant Lauren Linen who runs the group? Have you had a chance to look around? Perhaps some of your pals and fellow seamstresses are already members of our steadily growing 1200 virtual sewing circle. The…

Leading American sculptor Anne Truitt is widely recognised as a singular figure in the Washington Colour School of the mid-20th century, whose monumental columns of colour are steeped with intense human emotion. She successfully weaved her family life into this artistic practice, exploring how the two could feed creatively and intuitively into one another. At…

Like many artists of her generation, mid-20th century sculptor Dame Barbara Hepworth saw the importance of honing an intimate personal style, one that could reflect the same language as her art. And like her bold, sleek sculptures, her way of dressing was equally as elegant, classic and refined, often with practicality in mind. Along with…

With a successful career spanning more than 60 years, Serbian-American artist Marina Abramovic has jokingly named herself the “grandmother of performance art.” In this time, she has pushed her body to the extreme, inflicting pain, suffering, trauma and violence on herself in the name of art. Her work is no theatrical performance – instead it…

Motherhood is a recurring theme in the art of British sculptor Barbara Hepworth, an intimate subject so close to her heart she would return to it over and over again. Mother to four children, she juggled raising them almost singlehandedly, while continuing to create some of the most important and enduring sculptures of the 20th…

Motherhood and creativity: it’s a tricky, loaded subject that has been the subject of much debate. Do the two roles blend into and complement one another, or are they opposing forces pulling women in different directions? As as a mother myself, I know what it feels like to juggle different identities, and yet how the…

In this series, I’ll look at art works featuring fabric by three very different women from Kazakhstan. I’d like to find out why Almagul Menlibayeva created epic videos and photographs of women swathed (or strangled?) by traditional fabrics in front of historical monuments. I’ll discover how Gulnur Mukazhanova reapplies felting techniques to create haunting face…

American painter Jean-Michel Basquiat came of age in 1980s New York, a time when the worlds of art, fashion, music and celebrity were colliding into one. Much like his contemporaries and friends Andy Warhol and David Bowie, Basquiat brandished a public image that was as quirky, distinctive and irreverent as his art. Loose Armani suits…

Dressing up is at the core of American photographer Cindy Sherman’s art, and it’s a passion that has fuelled her career for more than fifty years. Taking her own body as a starting point, Sherman has dressed up in a whole range of fantastical disguises, from old Hollywood starlets to terrifying clowns and fraudulent fortune…