Pavilion

Shelley Rhodes is having an Open Studio Weekend to celebrate the publication of her new book, Sketchbook Explorations: for Mixed-Media and Textile Artists, on Saturday 29th September to Sunday 30th September.

Many of her sketchbooks and work featured in the book will be on display. Signed copies of the book will be available to buy along with artwork and cards.

Shelley’s mixed media work combines paper, drawings, photographs, prints with fabric and stitch. A central part of her practice is working in sketchbooks, sometimes as preparatory work but often as an end itself. Whenever she travels, she records the journey. Drawings, paintings, collage, words, photographic images and found objects become an integral part of her sketchbooks. She enjoys the freedom and spontaneity that working in sketchbooks brings. She also uses sketchbooks as a place to investigate and develop new ideas for her mixed media work.

In Sketchbook Explorations: for Mixed-Media and Textile Artists, Rhodes explores many different approaches to using sketchbooks, showing examples of her own works as well as examples by highly regarded contributing artists.

When: Saturday 29th September to Sunday 30th September, 10am to 4pm
Where: Hilderstone House, Hilderstone Lane, near Burton in Kendal, LA5 9RR (directions can be found via google maps or email shelleyrhodes1@gmail.com)
Price: Free

For more information please visit the Shelley Rhodes website.

Come along to Sapperton Village Hall on Sunday 9th September at 2:30pm to hear textile artist and author Anne Kelly talk about her work and her new book Textile Folk Art. She will be showing examples of different folk art from around the world and signing copies of her new book after the talk.

Textile Folk Art is a practical and inspirational guide to textile folk art from cultures all around the world, accompanied by step-by-step projects. From samplers and quilts in Europe, to tribal and nomadic cloth further afield in Mongolia and China, folk and traditional designs have played a crucial part in the development of textile art and craft. In this book, Anne Kelly explores the traditional motifs used in textile folk art and shows you how contemporary textile artists use these in their work today.

When: Sunday 9th September, 2.30pm
Where: Sapperton Village Hall, Sapperton GL7 6LE
Price: £7.50 + booking fee (gives you £2.95 off the book on the day)

This event is organised by The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop. For more information and to book tickets please click here.

Open House London is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. As part of Open House, the National Theatre is hosting a free talk by author John Grindrod on Saturday 22nd September at 11.30am. The talk will focus on his new book How to Love Brutalism, published by Batsford earlier this year.

In How to Love Brutalism John Grindrod shares his fascination for this strange and beguiling style of architecture and explores what it is that makes brutalism worthy of such passions. With never-ending enthusiasm, he takes the reader through the different elements that make brutalism so special: its history and ideals, design and construction; the culture that surrounds it and its global impact; its brief flowering, sudden death and strange afterlife.

John Grindrod is passionate about buildings and how they shape our lives. He has written for the Sunday Times, Guardian, Financial Times, Big Issue and The Modernist. He also runs the popular website Dirty Modern Scoundrel.

When: Saturday 22nd September at 11.30am
Where: National Theatre, Upper Ground, Lambeth, London SE1 9PX
Price: The talk is free but you do need a ticket

For more information and to reserve tickets please visit the National Theatre website.

While you’re there, don’t miss out on the National Theatre’s free drop-in backstage theatre tours. Open on Saturday 22nd September (11am – 5pm) and Sunday 23rd September (12noon – 4pm), starting from the Dorfman foyer.

Image by The Brutal Artist

Pitkin has been the first to publish a celebration of the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Megan Markle, which took place on Saturday 19th May.

Harry & Meghan: The Royal Wedding Book was in stores on 7th June 2018 – less than 3 weeks after the event which had an estimated global audience of over 1 billion people.

This royal souvenir edition, in commemoration of the special day, showcases photographs from historical royal weddings, childhood and careers, to the couple’s engagement and the spectacular images that capture every detail of their wedding day, and is the celebration of a truly modern love story.

Pitkin’s team of writers, editors and designers worked through the night and over the weekend to ensure they would be the first to publish on this very special event.

Halima Sadat is the author of the Pitkin Royal Collection, including Harry & Meghan: A Royal Engagement, and The Queen & Her Family. Her book Catherine: Duchess of Cambridge will be published in September this year.

Harry & Meghan: The Royal Wedding Book by Halima Sadat was published on 7th June 2018 in hardback, priced £9.99, ISBN: 9781841658063.

Join Rebecca Cahill Roots, author of Modern Lettering, to learn the basics of brush lettering with Tombow ABT brush pens at Foyles, Charing Cross on Saturday 23rd June at 1pm.

In this two-hour workshop you’ll learn mark-making techniques, colour blending, composition, and how to master a brush lettering alphabet. At the end of the session you will get the chance to use your new skills to create your very own hand-lettered bookmarks to take home.

This workshop is perfect for beginners, and the skills you’ll learn can be used for journaling, handmade cards, and combined with other crafts to make your own unique creations.

Where: Level 6, Foyles 107 Charing Cross Road
When: Saturday 23rd June, 1pm to 3pm
Price: £15 or £12 with Foyles loyalty card

For more information and to book tickets please visit the Foyles website.

Come and hear artist Adam Dant give the background to Maps of London & Beyond at Stanfords on Tuesday 26th June at 6.30pm. Dant will be revealing his inspirations and artistic process and outlining his cultural allusions. The talk will be followed by a book signing.

Traversed by a plethora of colourful characters including William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Mary Wollstonecraft and Barbara Windsor, Adam Dant’s maps extend from the shipwrecks on the bed of the Thames to the stars in the sky over Soho. Along the way, he captures all the rich traditions in the capital, from brawls and buried treasure to gin and gentlemen’s clubs.

Adam Dant studied at the Royal College of Art, London and the MS University Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda, India. He creates elaborate narrative drawings that examine and depict public contemporary life, space, mythologies and histories. Extensively researched and wittily perceptive, these works of art draw on a deep well of historical and visual sources.

When: Tuesday 26th June, 6.30pm to 7.45pm
Where: Stanfords, 12-14 Long Acre, Covent Garden WC2E 9LP
Price: £4, Redeemable against the cost of the book, Includes a glass of wine/ soft drink

For more information and to book tickets, please visit the Eventbrite website.

Celebrate the launch of Ann Blockley’s new book Ann Blockley’s Watercolour Workshop, by visiting her large solo painting exhibition at Burton House Gardens.

The Exhibition will include many paintings featured in the book as well as other interpretations. Subjects include flowers in the landscape, trees, hedgerows, river scenes and country corners including lots of rustic beehives in magical settings and a few surprises! It will be her fifth year exhibiting in this superb, listed, 16th century tithe barn gallery.

Bourton House is situated in the glorious Cotswolds and has award winning gardens. You can also enjoy tea and cake within the gallery area. There will be over a hundred original paintings for sale and her dvds and a range of new prints and greeting cards will also be available as well as signed copies of all her books.

Where: Bourton House Gardens, Tithe Barn Gallery, Bourton on the Hill, Gloucestershire, GL56 9AE
When: May 5th – 12th (closed Monday 7th), 10am to 5pm
Tickets: The exhibition is free but access to the garden will be subject to an entrance fee.

For more information please visit the Burton House website.

Come along to The Wanstead Tap on Thursday 21st June at 7.30pm, to listen to artist and cartographer Adam Dant talk about his new book Maps of London & Beyond. Organised by Newham Books, Dant will be speaking about the inspiration behind his maps, which offer a compelling view of history, lore, language and life in the capital and beyond. The talk will be followed by a book signing.

Traversed by a plethora of colourful characters including William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Mary Wollstonecraft and Barbara Windsor, Adam Dant’s maps extend from the shipwrecks on the bed of the Thames to the stars in the sky over Soho. Along the way, he captures all the rich traditions in the capital, from brawls and buried treasure to gin and gentlemen’s clubs.

Reproduced in large format, the maps invite the reader to study all the astonishing and often hilarious details within, offering hours of fascination for the curious.

Maps of London & Beyond is published in hardback by Batsford (in conjunction with Spitalfields Life) at £30 on 7th June 2018.

Where: The Wanstead Tap, 352 Winchelsea Rd, London E7 0AQ
When: Thursday 21st June, 7.30pm
Price: £6

For more information and to book tickets, please visit the Newham Bookshop website.

Join John Grindrod, author of How To Love Brutalism as he takes you on a journey past the tough façade of one of the world’s most maligned architectural movements.

In 1948 Swiss-French architect and urban planner Le Corbusier chose not to clad the Unite d’habitation in Marseille and a new architectural style was born. Characterized by concrete, geometrical shapes and sheer elevation, Brutalism remains divisive to this day.

For this event at Foyles Charing Cross, John Grindrod strips Brutalism back – getting to the nitty-gritty of the people and ideals behind the buildings; the culture surrounding the movement and its global impact, physically and on the architectural world.

The evening will be chaired by Catherine Croft, the Director of Twentieth Century Society.

Tickets: £5 standard.
Venue: Level 6, Foyles, 107 Charing Cross Road, London

Butler, author of ‘Quest for Becket’s Bones’ (Yale University Press) and the award-winning ‘Red Dean’, has written a fluent and sweeping account of the archbishops and their turbulent relations with secular powers – The Archbishops of Canterbury (Pitkin, £12.99). A tale of blood and velvet. Hear him speak about the book and the history of the archbishops at Waterstones Canterbury this May.

When: 6.30pm, Thursday 3rd May 2018
Where: Waterstones Canterbury, 6-8 Rose Lane, Canterbury, CT1 2SJ
Price: Free

To book tickets and for further information, please visit the Waterstones Canterbury website.