In The Current Issue

November/December 2021

from the editor

Ideas around rootedness, home and belonging – where we choose to make and how we choose to live – thread through the creative lives of our featured artists in this issue. Alice Fox works, whenever possible, with whatever natural matter is to hand on her allotment. This wild space is a vital part of her practice, and she reveals how she grows and processes her own materials.

The Australian artist Kasia Tons has a studio in the city, but finds license to live and express herself most authentically when working off-grid in the Adelaide Hills. Canadian artist Jennifer Smith-Windsor has lived in many places, and the humble blanket is the perfect cipher to explore ideas around belonging. Italian designer Giulio Miglietta shares how he set out for London with little more than a dream in his pocket, and came to realise a passion, founding a unique chainstitch design studio in the capital.

When Nigel Cheney decided to return home, it placed him back in the heart of his family, prompting a creative reappraisal of his practice and processes, as well as a series of new work around ancestral history. Like Nigel, Maria Thomas explores family bonds and the negotiated space of close relationships. Working from her cosy home studio, filled with inspiration helps Megan Ivy Griffiths build an intimate connection with the embroidered characters she creates. Finally we take a look inside Pauline Burbidge’s unique studio, located within a converted farmstead in Scotland. Home, it seems, remains where the heart is.