York artist (and St Peter’s teacher) Mrs Lesley Birch has been selected for the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in London.
Mrs Birch, who teaches English at St Peter’s School, initially had two of her artworks shortlisted out of a longlist of around 12000 entries.
Mrs Birch’s shortlisted works were “Pilgrimage”, a monoprint from the “Edge of the World Series”, inspired by Michael Powell’s 1937 film set on a remote Scottish island, and “The Red Beret”, a mixed media with collage work.
She then discovered that “The Red Beret” had made it into the exhibition.
As part of the ceremonial opening of the exhibition, Mrs Birch and other selected artists attended ‘Varnishing Day’. The traditional reason for this day is to allow artists to perform any final touches to their works, but it is now mostly symbolic.
Varnishing Day involved a procession from the Academy down Piccadilly to St James’s Church, where a 
Service for Artists took place. The procession was led by luminaries of the art world Norman Ackroyd and Tracey Emin.
In the historic church, the Academy President addressed the assembled artists and revered printmaker and Royal Academician Norman Ackroyd read words from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream:
The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth
To heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Mr Ackroyd was followed by The Revd Malcolm Guite of Girton College, Cambridge who delivered a thought-provoking address echoing the Bard’s words and inspiring the artists on to keep true to their innermost creativity.
Now in its 245th year, the Summer Exhibition remains a much anticipated highlight of the arts calendar, serving as a unique window on to all areas of the contemporary art world. It is the world’s largest open-submission exhibition, displaying more than 1,000 works in all styles and media, including painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, architectural models and film.
This exhibition is one of the most prestigious in the world, where great artists such as Turner made their name.
Mrs Birch said: "Having tried before and been rejected, this is very exciting for me. Much of my work is based around the literature that we teach in school. Attending the opening ceremony was a very special occasion and one I shall treasure for ever."
Top picture is The Red Beret, copyright the artist, middle picture is The Pilgrimage, copyrigt the artist and the bottom picture shows Lesley Birch.