I’ve been meaning to blog about The First Cut , the latest exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery, for a while as it involves one of my absolute favourite crafts – paper cutting. I was lucky enough through my work as a press officer to attend a special private viewing and chat to the curator, Fiona Corridan, who talked about the resurgence of paper cutting in art. I also spoke to three of the artists – Nicola Dale, James Aldridge and Andrew Singleton. Nicola Dale’s work Sequel depicts a real “tree of knowledge” – with leaves made from reference books covering all areas of learning, while Downed (pictured below) features a drift of paper feather made from Ordnance Survey maps which were being thrown out by her local library. Nicola Dale - Downed She said: “Because we are moving into a digital world books are suffering – particularly reference books. Consequently, charity shops are full of reference books so I go in and hoover them up! At least I’ve rescued the...