Marianne Crosslé: Becoming a textile artist at 70

Marianne Crosslé grew up in rural Northern Ireland and always thought she would have a career in art. As a teenager, she applied to the School of Art in Belfast but was rejected. It was a blow to her confidence. So much so, that she didn’t make ‘art’ again for a very long time.

Having a successful career as a stage and production manager in theatre, on her 70th birthday Marianne decided it was time to re-engage with her artistic instincts and signed up for a two-year City and Guilds (C&G) Certificate in Fine Arts Textiles. She poured all of her passion and commitment into the course and graduated with Distinction in all four units.

‘By this point, I was a big fan of TextileArtist.org, so when the Exploring Texture & Pattern with Sue Stone online course started to be mentioned, I practically stood at my computer, waiting to hit the registration button as soon as it went live.’

‘I loved every moment of the course. It’s not an understatement to say I’m a completely different person because of what I learned in terms of confidence and inventiveness.’

in Publications

Melanie Kay: Waste Knot, Want Knot – Environmental Embroidery

Have you ever stood in an art exhibition, just absorbing the meaning and purpose of a piece? Well, for Melanie Kay, expressing meaning through her textile art is absolutely fundamental.

Through her work, she highlights the current trend towards mass advertising and resulting manufacture of desire. Combining conventional embroidery with non-conventional processes and materials, Melanie raises questions and stimulates debate.

It was only after an uninspiring stint working in a bank that Melanie, who now lives in Manchester, UK, took the plunge and returned to full-time education, focussing on her first love – embroidery.

She was delighted to achieve a First Class Honours degree in Textiles and Surface Pattern Design in Bolton, Lancashire. Her accolades include winning first prize in the Bradford Textile Society Design Competition, 2011 for a material created by non-conventional means, Embroiderers’ Guild Awards and a Masters Degree with Distinction.

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The Bruce Museum displays the work of four singular American photographers

The Bruce Museum’s newest exhibition, From Butterflies to Battleships, displays the work of four singular American photographers: Margaret Bourke-White, Carl Mydans, Patrick Nagatani, and Brett Weston. From Butterflies to Battleships showcases the tremendous diversity of directions taken by photographers in the twentieth century, whether employing the camera in a documentary mode to record insect development and to chronicle historic events, or experimenting with the technology to create abstract or composite images. Organized by Stephanie Guyet, Zvi Grunberg Resident Fellow 2018-2019, the exhibition consists entirely of photographs from the Bruce Museum’s permanent collection. “Given that the Bruce is a place for both aesthetic and scientific inquiry, I wanted to create an exhibition that tapped into that dual mission. Since photography is a practice that lies at the intersection of art and science, and

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Guardians of Apollo: the curators preserving the Moon mission's legacy

Lying on a workshop counter that is closed to the public at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s annex near Washington Dulles airport, Neil Armstrong’s gloves look almost as good as new. You can hardly tell they made a trip to the Moon and back 50 years ago. To their side is the slightly yellowed “Snoopy Cap” (formally known as a “communications carrier”) worn by crewmate Buzz Aldrin. The space suit worn by Michael Collins, Apollo 11’s third astronaut, is in near mint condition. But the blue silicon fingertips of Armstrong’s gloves have begun to degrade — a process that for now remains invisible to the naked eye — as has Collins’ suit. “After 50 years, we do know that the rubber i

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Exhibition explores the reciprocal relationships between woodcut and sculpture

In the exhibition “The Mysteries of Material: Kirchner, Heckel and Schmidt-Rottluff”, the Städel Museum explores the reciprocal relationships between woodcut and wooden sculpture in the oeuvres of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938), Erich Heckel (1883– 1970) and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976). What the two very different artistic mediums have in common is wood, the material intimately linked with the art of German Expressionism. The three co-founders of the “Brücke” artists’ group became involved with this material by way of the woodcut – a printmaking method in which a relief is cut into a wooden board or block. What appealed to Kirchner, Heckel and Schmidt-Rottluff was the great experimental potential of this printing technique, as well as the work with the material. Engagement with the characteristics of various wood types as

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