As plein air artists, we are standing on the shoulders of artists who were lovers and orbservers of nature from many centuries ago. This is a celebration of some of these artists in their depictions of the landscape.
Read MoreHow Artists' Work Evolves over the Years /
Does an artist remain faithful to early visions and inspirations for art creation over the passage of twenty-five years? Measuring my own evolution, I find that I have just moved in closer to look at the nature that surrounds us, to marvel at details that often get overlooked in our busy lives.
Read MoreGallery Space and an Artist's Presence /
Does artwork, hanging on gallery walls, confer a presence of the artist, the spirit of that person?
Read MoreOpening a Silverpoint Show in Spain /
Opening Night: "Pensando en Miró: Drawings in Silver" by Jeannine Cook, Sa Tafona Gallery, Deia, Mallorca
The first guests walked into the gallery. How appropriate their timing! I was exhibiting in the beautiful mountainside village of Deia, Mallorca, at the Hotel Belmond La Residencia's Sa Tafona Gallery, and who should be the first arrivals but William, son of long-time famed Deia resident, Robert Graves, with his charming wife. What a wonderful augury!
Read MoreDefining a "Chef d'Oeuvre" /
What is defined generally as an artistic chef d'oeuvre or masterpiece, why and when?
Recently I was listening to a radio interview in France with the actress, Catherine Deneuve, just before the launch of her new film, "Sage Femme/the Midwife". The interviewer asked her if she though this film was a chef d'oeuvre. Her reply interested me because it does not just apply to the "Seventh Art" of films.
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Silk /
Silk has always been my favourite material, sensuous to wear yet so practical and comfortable in all weathers. It is always beautiful, whether patterned, plain, embroidered or subtly woven with textures in it. Even its names - shantung, habutai, tussore, chiffon, taffeta, dupioni, tussah - sound exotic and alluring. One of my earliest connections with silk was the realisation that mulberry leaves, from a tree that I loved and knew well at my home in East Africa, were what feed the silk worms for 35 days, before they are ready to spin a cocoon with their continuous fine silken thread that eventually measures over a mile when it is carefully unwound, prior to being woven into cloth.
Read MoreReacting to Life Experiences as an Artist /
I recently had an exchange of e-mails with a fellow artist friend, whose wife had suddenly become very ill. Both of us commented on the fact that there is such a change of optic when one is struck by serious family illness or some other type of trauma. Everything important comes back into sharp focus and the “small stuff” falls away.
Read MoreCicadas, Chinese and Others /
The wonderful Ming exhibition I wrote about led me to thinking about cicadas. I have always loved their songs, Mediterranean, coastal Georgian and many other versions; to me, their heady, penetrating calls have always symbolised summer days of happiness and peace. There are about 2,500 cicada species in the world, not all identified, and their name derives from the Latin, cicada, or tree cricket. Some cicadas sing at night, others by day. Some live in trees, nestled amid the bark.
Read MoreCreativity in Small Packages /
Seeing an exhibition from the Nanjing Museum about the Ming period in China is guaranteed to be fascinating ahead of time. Indeed, the Caixa Foundation exhibition, "Ming: the Golden Empire", now in Palma de Mallorca after visiting Holland, Germany, Edinburgh, and Barcelona, offers a wide range of objects to tell one of the splendours of the Ming period.
Read MoreTurning the Tables: Artists using Artists for Art /
It was a strange feeling. Suddenly, I was asked to become the subject of someone else's art-making. And not just to sit for a portrait in the usual sense of the word. Portraits are usually fairly straightforward affairs, either commissions or records of friends and colleagues. Artists tend to use their fellow artists as subjects because they esteem them, share creative time together (such as Edouard Manet painting Monet working in his studio-boat) or even, sometimes, because they need an inexpensive model. But my request to be the subject was a little different, I learned.
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