BELLA MAY LEONARD

Visual artist working with hand embroidery processes and patterns from accross the world. Based in Manchester, UK www.bellamayleonard.com

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‘Warehouse Pulleys’ artwork for Orient House, Manchester 2018.   

“At the beginning of the twentieth century in Manchester’s city centre, Orient House was a textile warehouse storing, compiling and displaying woven fabrics from Lancashire for a global market.  At this time, Jacquard looms used punch cards to determine patterns in the weave of a fabric. These cards and the pulley ropes used in the warehouse are echoed here as wooden panels that have become a surface for stitch in cotton, jute, sisal and cords.”

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I am very excited to announce I have recently been commissioned by Deco Publique and Super Slow Way as part of the Art in Manufacturing program within the first National Festival of Making 2017.  Since the end of February, I  have taken up a creative residency at the mattress company Silentnight!  

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Follow my findings here: https://bellamayleonardfestivalofmaking.tumblr.com/

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Everyone is welcome to the main event on 6th and 7th May, across Blackburn. My installation will be installed in the crypt of Blackburn Cathedral:  You are invited to walk around, sit and lie on this artwork, to visually explore for yourself the inner workings of a mattress.  Although powerful machines are use in the factory, the presence of the human hand is still essential for measuring, cutting, marking, sewing, assembling and moving fabrics and material.  They are the literal heartbeat, vital for the factory to flow.  This artwork is a playful interpretation of Silentnight’s processes, it encourages you to relax and let your dreamlike ideas and thoughts intertwine, even unwind.

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Museo di Storia Naturale "La Specola" - lacey guts and muscles of thread, pulled backed skin and cross section of wisdom teeth revealing all. 

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Palazzo Davanzati painted rooms and lace collection.  I was so surprised how bright the embroidery samplers were, even finding what seems like a little blue headed alien...

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Firenze.

Jan Fabre sculpture, mosaic stone work and Gallileo’s neighbours’ home in Arcetri above Florence.

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Roma.

Occupy squat Forte Prenestino, for ‘workers day’ on 1st May.  Sculpted dogs and key holes found in the city over the weekend.  Mussolini's palace was too big to photograph.

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We did it! Me and Susan Syddall have co-curated Neo:Gallery’s first textile art exhibition: STRUCTURE.  We spent the last week putting up the work of the collective ‘eleven’, even going on Bolton FM to promote the opening!

‘Eleven’ is a group of 11 textile artists, including me and Susan, who met in 2013 at the Knitting and Stitching Shows.  This is our first exhibition altogether.

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I’ve started a project in Grenoble in response to the Gens de l’Aples exhibition at Musee Daupinois.  Inspired by the decorative wood carving of the mountain people I have begun to also carve, but onto lino and a vinyl.  I have been using stitch aswell to create a print, stitching the prints themselves and re-printing these again also.  I began to explore these techniques in Mexico and now hope to continue, with intentions of becoming more 3D structures...maybe...

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I finally finished my Mexican Crowdfunding rewards!  These sacred hearts are sewn onto bags with skulls cut from material I bought in Oaxaca during Dia de los Muertos festivities.

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Spring in Meylan, looking over Grenoble and an Indian/Iranian concert at Musee Dauphinois.  Incredibly delicate yet powerful sounding instruments I’ve never seen before, with a style of Iranian singing that sounded distinctly feminine yet even animal.  The singer had incredible control over her voice.

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‘Cafe Rock’ night in Sappey-en-Chartreuse. I helped artist Sophie Magdeleine with her performance installation.  While the bands played and another artist painted his canvases (shouting at various intervals the band too), we threw balls of wool across the room, over the audience, to create a web of threads above.  People were eager to join in and didn’t mind occasionally being hit!  The best effect came with the lights dancing across the stripey yarns.

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Lieden, Bike museum in Nijmegen and Amsterdam shop window!

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AFRIKA MUSEUM in Berg en Dal, Netherlands.  Amazing treasures; a mask that is disfigured was to be worn by misbehaving youth as a punishment; carved wooden lids that a wife would put on her husband’s food basket/bowl, to show her husband and the community what was going wrong in the relationship.  Objects can possess powers and have great energy.

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I recently led six creative workshops over two days with Years 1 and 2 at Broad Oak Primary School in Manchester.  We created two collaborative art works on the their themes ‘Carnival’ and ‘Towers, Tunnels and Turrets’.  Both works are now on display for at Didsbury Parsonage Trust Gallery , free public entry!

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I ‘Stitched my own Brain!’ for Monika Auch.  For more on her exciting project exploring the mental benefits of the hand stitch please see here: http://stitchyourbrain.com/  A new exhibition of many other stitched brains will be on display at Gawthorpe Hall this year.