Our 2022 programme of ‘Supporting Local Artists’ sees the welcome return of painter Karin Hepburn, who this time chose a Mackintosh landscape from his time in Port Vendres. Nerves were calmed by a glass (or two) of prosecco at the start, and then Karin led the artists through the process of doing their own versions. Once everyone had mastered a Grisaille (a painting executed entirely in shades of grey or of another neutral greyish colour) she finally uncapped the colours and suddenly the room was full of beautiful blue skies and seas.
Happy World Book Day!
Episode 9 of our podcast 'Time For Tea:1903' is perfect for World Book Day as it's all about Art Nouveau book design. Did you know Mackintosh designed some book covers for Blackie Publishing? Or that Blackie commissioned Mackintosh to build Hill House on the advice of his art director, Talwin Morris? Or that Talwin Morris designed some of the most beautiful Art Nouveau covers out there? Have a listen here:[][1]: https://www.willowtearoomstrust.org/podcast-episode-9
Welcome Back, Museum Handling Box!
You may not know this, but we have a brilliant resource available for primary schools to borrow: a handling box! It's full of props, costume bits,artefacts and a whole term's worth of lesson plans to help those hard working teachers out a wee bit. You might even be able to spot Miss Cranston's ostrich feather hat, but my personal favourite is the antique Moustache Cup. Those Victorians really did think of everything!
This term the handling box has been living at Garnetbank Primary School, and one particular lesson was very popular, according to the teacher- namely the afternoon spent sniffing all the different sorts of loose leaf tea!
Next stop for the handlng box is Hillhead Primary and a lucky class of P3s. If you are a teacher and would like to reserve it (for free- we'll even bring it to you!) then just drop us a line.
Festive Visits From Our Local Community Groups
What a lovely visit from U3A East Renfrewshire this month! If you aren't aware, the U3A is an amzing umbrella organisation that has lots and lots of special interest groups you can join. It helps to tackle social isolation and keeps everyone active in both body and mind. We were delighted that they chose here to come for a visit to the interactive exhibition, a look around the Salon de Luxe and then of course a festive afternoon lunch. See you next Christmas, folks?
Supporting Local Artists: Life-drawing Edition
It's taken us a long time to get here but we've finally managed it- life drawing in the beautiful Billiard Room! This evening class took place just in time for Halloween, which is perfect as Margaret Macdonald was very much inspired by fairytales and all things 'Spook School.' Life drawing was part of our CLE strand 'Supporting Local Artists' which waives room hire fee so that professional artists can earn a living wage from their craft. Keep an eye out for our next workshops: bookbinding, lampshades and Winter Eco crafts.
Abercorn ASN School Visit
Abercorn School returned for another visit this year, and we were especially delighted as they are neighbours! A visual treasure like this is a perfect learning resource and this time my favourite part of the exploration of the building was everyone laughing at how the curved stained glass in the fireplaces distorted their faces. Abercorn made some beautiful works of art in our stencil class, sampled the tea and cakes in the tearoom and finished off their day dressing up. We give the underskirt+parasol look a 10/10!
Supporting Local Artists: Painting Edition
Our second 'Supporting Local Artists' workshop was painting and what a success it turned out to be. Led by artist Karin Hepburn 11 painters turned their hand to Frances Macdonald's beautiful 'Spring.' But before the brushes came out there was a tour of the building for inspiration, and a glass of prosecco for courage! Half time cakes helped everyone when it came to adding the colour.
In 1903 and 2014 this building benefitted from incredible artists bringing it to life, so we're more than happy to provide ways to support local artists in any way we can.
Keep an eye out for more workshops coming up, including lifedrawing, paperfolding and more painting.
Bus, train, bus, seaside! Residential home outreach programme
It was a very early start for our Creative Learning Manager recently when she left the Southside of Glasgow for an outreach session in Cramond, Edinburgh this month. Of course the old truism of Scottish weather (if it's raining in Glasgow it's sunny in Edinburgh) proved the case when the bus finally pulled up in Cramond village.
One of the strands of our 3 Year Creative Learning Strategy plan is to tackle social isolation in older people by providing outreach visits, and most especially to care and residential homes. We kicked off the programme with this visit, and what a lovely one it was. Residents enjoyed a talk and presentation about Mackintosh At The Willow, and it was great to hear folk's memories of shopping on Sauchiehall Street back when it was a bit more upmarket than it is nowadays (Daly's department store, anyone?)
Supporting Local Artists: Paperfolding Homeware Edition
As part of our 3 year Creative Learning Strategy Plan we are committed to supporting local artists in their careers. As any freelancer will know, it's almost impossible to make ends meet when you have to pay for transport, materials and room hire for workshops. Many of Scotland's incredible artists end up earning less than minimum wage after they've covered all these costs.
Here at Mackintosh At The Willow we are fortunate enough to have a dedicated Creative Learning workshop room that we use for schools and community groups. It makes sense that we offer this for free to Glasgow's artist community, to mitigate the cost of teaching crafts. This A-listed building wouldn't exist without all the talented original and 21st century craftpeople who have contributed to it, so it feels like the right thing to do to lend a hand where we can.
We were delighted to welcome professional paper artist Kate Colin to the building to run our inaugural workshop. Her incredible homewares (lampshades, vases, baubles) are both eyecatching and unique. It's truly amazing what you can do with a piece of good quality paper and a scoring tool!
ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL DOORS OPEN FESTIVAL
September is a very special time in the city's calendar as the wonderful Doors Open Festival takes place. The ethos of Doors Open is 'access to heritage buildings for everyone' so places such as ourselves open for free for folk to come and explore. This weekend we ran early bird and evening tours for free, which allowed around 100 people to come and visit this masterpiece. Most folk had never been here before, most were local and lots said 'ach, I've walked past loads of times and never come in and now I'm so glad I did" so hurrah for Doors Open!
This year the theme of the festival was 'sustainable communities' so we also made a digital film showing off how we upcycle our chipped Burleigh crockery into lovely new jewellery (well, Jon from Crafted glass does all the hard work...) If you'd like to watchit just pop onto the Doors Open Glasgow 2021 website: https://glasgowdoorsopendays.org.uk/activities/no-name-6/
Roll on Doors Open 2022