A Passage of Time - an exhibition by Millie Wood Swanepoel

I've said it before, but Stroud is such a great place to be if you are an artist or an art lover! We have the wonderful Site Festival and Open Studios to look forward to every May as well as regular art exhibitions in the Subscription rooms, Museum in the Park  and Lansdown art gallery.  Several local cafes and art shops also host exhibitions on their walls!
Currently showing  at Lansdown Art Gallery until 26th April is Millie Wood Swanepoel's, "Passage of Time".

It's an  exhibition of a wonderful collection of objects in a variety of media, including ceramics and found materials; an expression of her childhood in Zimbabwe.

If you don't manage to get there before it finishes, you can visit Millie's studio which is listed on Page 22 of the Open Studios Brochure (Venue 28). Unit G4 of The Old Convent, Stroud GL5 4BJ www.milliewoodswanepoel.com

Events coming soon ..Open Studios in Stroud and the Tetbury MayFair Art exhibition

The online brochure for the Stroud Site festival and Open Studios week-ends is now available on
www.sitefestival.org.uk.  You will see both brochures on the right hand side - follow the links to view all the events in the festival starting at the beginning of May and the studios of the 84 artists will be open for the two week-ends of 10-11 and 17-18 May .  Along with several others in Bisley Road, my studio (page 16 - venue no 13) will be open and all details are listed there.  As usual, the yellow and black signs will indicate where studios are to be found.
This year we were asked for square format photos for the brochure and I was lucky to be able to provide an image of one of my Patchwork quilt stamp collages, which happens to be perfectly square!

Lots of interesting work to see all over Stroud and surrounding villages. Brochures to carry around as you visit the studios are now available in many outlets in Stroud including Tourist Information office in the Sub Rooms.

Worth mentioning here that I will be taking part in the Tetbury MayFair Art exhibition  on the last week-end of May in the Dolphins Hall too! Saturday 24th - Monday 26th May.

Waiting for Bob Marley - to include in my stamp collage flag of Jamaica

Canvas prints of some of the national flag collages I've made were exhibited  at The Guildhall in March, bringing  enquiries about other countries' flags, including the flag of Jamaica.  I've started making this beautiful black, yellow and green flag to add to the portfolio. (There are others which are currently works in progress too!) I love to include iconic images in the flags and couldn't possibly leave out Bob Marley! However stamps commemorating this famous reggae star were sadly lacking from my stock books. But today, I'm pleased to say I received just what I've been looking for - a set of stamps issued in 1995, on the 50th anniversary  of his birth, showing portraits throughout his  musical career, so now I can add the final touches to this one!

Other stamps or details of stamps include the celebrated Jamaican bobsled team, the first Jamaicans to take part in a Winter Olympics event, which was in 1988 in Calgary. They subsequently qualified to take part in later Winter Olympics, and the film Cool Runnings told their inspiring story.
1968 cricket stamps commemorate the MCC tour of the West Indies. I remember having  these in my own childhood stamp album. The vibrant green of the pitch against the palm trees and blue sky are quite a striking memory, so I'm glad to see them again!
It's sometimes difficult to find stamps of a certain colour and yellow is always a challenge. So now I am trying to track down a few more to complete the yellow cross - luckily the smallest area to cover! Work in progress .. but still needing a few more stamps!

Boars of Belarus

My recent blogpost about the Boar connection with the Markwick family brought a lovely card from Belarus today! (From Maria, my  friend via Postcrossing! Thanks, Maria!).  She tells me that apparently there were 81,500 wild boars in Belarus a year ago, but now there are only 13,000 as they were said to have caused an epidemic of Swine flu in 2013 and hunters were issued cheap licences, resulting in the drastic reduction of the board population.

However, you can now see wild  boars in the Beloroczskaya puscha, which is an area of protected woodland near Brest, not far from the Polish border.

Closer to home, we've recently heard about the wild boars in the Forest of Dean, which have been causing devastation to gardens in various local villages. But there is a certain fondness for these creatures in spite of their activities.

The attractive stamps on the postcard are from the series, Zoos in Belarus:

Artistic license versus accuracy .. and the Mandarin duck stamp of Japan

One of the many problems to be solved when deciding on a subject for a stamp collage picture is how true to the subject I need to be. The current challenge which I have set myself is to make my own version of Japan's Mount Fuji,  one of  the most well known images in the world, and certainly in Japan.   It appears on paintings, stamps, postcards, packaging, advertising materials, clothing,  and is visited and climbed by thousands of visitors every year and photographed by the majority of them too.

I've been doing my research of course. It's a part of the process which I really enjoy , and I spend hours reading, looking at images and searching through the stamp hoard for Japanese stamps which will be incorporated in the picture. (It's not quite that bad - I do have a few pages of stamps ready and waiting now..).  And guess what is on the lid of the Japanese musical box in the picture below ..

When asked the question" How long does it take you to make one of your pictures?" I should probably add many hours into the equation for the research and reading time.
I'm currently enjoying "36 Views of Mount Fjui - On finding myself in Japan", a brilliant book by Cathy N. Davidson, an American teacher who taught at an all women's university there. The title is taken from Katsushika Hokusai's series of 36 woodblock prints of Mount Fuji, and these head each chapter.  It's as if Mount Fuji is visible from almost anywhere you go in Japan and I just wish I could go out there and do my Primary research for this! Some views are from countryside, while others are from the surrounding  lakes.

 Hokusai's "Fuji in Clear Weather" is on the cover of the book, and also features on a stamp issued in 1999 for International Letter writing week.
  I have decided to have a lake in the foreground of my picture - now very much a work in progress - and  have also chosen to use a quantity of iconic stamps to make up a large area of the water.  This is the Japanese 5Y light blue Mandarin duck stamp issued in 1955. Anyone in their 50s who collected stamps as a child, as I did, probably had this little stamp in their own stamp album, and my mother remembers it as one of the first "bundleware" stamps (stamps bought in quantities of 100 or more) purchased when she and my father started to run their stamp approval business before I was born.  She can't remember how many they sold, but there still seem to be a lot of them around .. so I'm making good use of them in another way!

Which brings me to "authenticity".  I  found some information about the Mandarin duck (aix galericulata),  now endangered due to the destruction of its forest habitat.

There are now only about 5000 pairs in Japan.  They prefer densely wooded areas near shallow bodies of water and feed at dawn and dusk. I'm not sure how deep the lake is but  I'm glad I chose to paint a sunset in the background as this is when the ducks would actually be on the water, as opposed to being on the ground or perched in trees during the daytime, so possibly a combination of artistic license and accuracy for at least part of my picture.  Will have to see what will happen with the remainder of the picture.  Watch this space ..

Boar is part of our family!

Researching the history of the Markwick family some years ago revealed that the family crest included the image of a Boar, and this has given rise to a number of jokes over the years, which I won't bore you with.
Needless to say, the subject crops up every now and again and birthday presents can be ... interesting!  Our house now has a stone Boar's head on the front - this was not my idea as I had given it to Geoff for his birthday thinking he would hang it somewhere discretely indoors.

When my friend Jilly Cobbe showed me a preliminary sketch she'd made for  a piece to be exhibited in the "Selected at Newark Park" exhibition , I was enchanted and asked if I could buy it to add to the growing  family collection of Boars. However, this piece was not for sale, but I did  manage to persuade her to have a giclee print made for me, and here it is! Jilly's work can be seen on her website : www.jillycobbe.co.uk

Newark Park, a National Trust property, is a former hunting lodge, and will be hosting the exhibition from 23rd April until 8th June 2014.  Jilly,one of a number of artists taking part, will be exhibiting pictures in various media portraying hunted animals. Other artists will be displaying work in a variety of media throughout the property, including textiles, glass, ceramics, sculpture and paintings.
The exhibition will be part of the SIT (Stroud International Textiles) festival and many other events  are being organised and will be in the SIT brochure which will be available in various outlets in Stroud as well as online. For the Selected at Newark Park exhibition it's also advisable to check opening times on the Newark Park website.

Russian stamp of 1969

Boars of course also feature on stamps from many countries and this could I suppose form a thematic collection for a Markwick family member such as myself!

Hungarian Boar stamp

Mount Fuji - Japan - work in progress .. coming soon!

Having recently completed some Landmark stamp collage pictures, other themes have come to mind and one which I hope to start soon is an image of Mount Fuji.  I have never visited Japan, but having been immersed in researching the country and its landscape, and Mount Fuji in particular, I can't wait to get started.   I have a number of stamps and more are on their way, and I will then get down to the task of arranging them accordingly.   Mount Fuji has featured on many Japanese stamps and is such a beautiful sight.  One of the oldest stamps in my possession, is this one issued in 1926.

I have yet to decide on the view to recreated as from wherever you are, it is just as beautiful!