Haven’t done any portraits in ages but couldn’t resist this one. What a heroine she is – in this age of self self publicity and power seeking, a woman who had power thrust upon her at a early age, she accepted the role with grace and carried out her considerable duties with dignity and charm worldwide for all these years. A national treasure and a real diamond!
Jubilee Jazz Festival at Strawberry Hill House 3 -4 June
Jubilee Jazz at Strawberry Hill – oil on canvas Lee Campbell
Delighted to be invited to show paintings at the Strawberry Hill Arts Village and have produced some new paintings especially for the event.
Jazz 1 – oil on canvas- Lee Campbell
Jazz II- oil on canvas Lee Campbell
See link to site: www.jubileejazzfestival.com
Art Workshop at Warren House- 14th July 2012
In collaboration with Warren House I will be holding a one day Drawing and Water Colour Workshop. This an ideal place to explore drawing and painting skills in a fabulous location with a highly experienced professional artist – it is ideal for both complete beginners and those with some experience. Participants will be given a set of materials to keep and all techniques will be demonstrated. Buffet lunch, tea and coffee provided.
The Rose Room Warren House
Spaces are limited – to book please contact Warren House; http://www.warrenhouse.com/event.php?id=163
Other exciting news this month was collaborating with Mike of Asana Health in Kingston to provide artwork for the purpose built yoga and therapy centre on London Road, Kingston. There are now two of my larger pieces in the centre – see below:
Revelation oil on canvas Lee Campbell
Petersham Dusk – oil on canvas Lee Campbell
News from Asana Health
A new series of monthly “Optimum Health Evenings” commencing on Monday 21st May 2012 @ 7.30pm which Mike and his team of therapists and yoga teachers think would be of benefit to you.
For more info please visit the web site: www.asanahealth.co.uk
New Roses (or neurosis?)
Heart of Gold – Lee Campbell
Heart of Rose oil on linen Lee Campbell
Peonies oil on canvas Lee Campbell
Deep Red oil on canvas Lee Campbell
At least once every year I feel the need to paint roses and these are the latest ones. This began with a commission to paint a single red rose and reached it’s peak with the design of Union Jack comprised of roses on a baby grand piano during a public art project in Soho 3 years ago. May have been generated by growing up surrounded by rose patterned wall paper perhaps..they would ‘swirl’ in a disturbing way if I stared at them too long.
Since then I have produced several paintings of this design and it also available as a giclee print.
Union Jack/Roses – Lee Campbell
Highland Views
Loch Morar Sunset oil on linen Lee Campbell
Highland Cow – oil on canvas -Lee Campbell
Loch Morar – The Red Boat -Lee Campbell
Loch Morar – Oil on linen – Lee Campbell
Delighted to be commissioned by Edinburgh Arts who produce quality Giclee prints of my work to do some painting of the Scottish Highlands. This area is so similar to the South Island of New Zealand – an area I know very well having hiked both the Routeburn and Milford Tracks in Fjordland – that I feel a real resonance with these places.
There was a magnitude 4.1 earthquake 20km north-east of Christchurch early this morning. The quake hit at 5.21am at a depth of 15km. GNS seismologist Caroline Holden said 19 people had reported having felt the earthquake to GNS as of 6.20am. It was slightly off shore and, at that magnitude, you would have to have been close to it’s centre to have felt it, she said.
“It was quite a gentle earthquake.”Yesterday was the first anniversary of the February 22 earthquake when 185 people lost their lives.
9,988 and counting
Feb. 20th Bev says they are ‘still having earthquakes …we are up to 9,988 now and that was a couple of weeks ago so be more than that now Just when you think they are slowing down to go away then we get another around 4.3 -4.5 just to let us know that mother nature hasn’t finished with us yet.
I feel that we will still get another bit one around the 7 mark yet before it is finished …forever hope not but it is in the back of my mind all the time’.
Darkness at the Heart – Christchurch one year on
From the Guardian 20th Feb
There are new shops built from shipping containers, a theatre and a rugby ground soon to open. But at night, the empty city centre is a dark smudge among the suburban lights
Shops built from shipping containers in Christchurch’s central business district a year after the devastating earthquake.
Viewed at night from the southern Port Hills, the centre of Christchurch appears as a dark smudge among the suburban lights. Almost a year after the earthquake that killed 185 people in NZ’s second largest city, much of the central business district remains in the “red zone”, cordoned-off and uninhabited but for the work crews that pass through the security gates each day in their hundreds.
This building site enclave is a strange echo of the city that stood there before it was thrust upwards and sideways by the 6.3-magnitude quake just before 1pm on 22 February 2011. Blinker your eyes and parts of the city appear untouched. But look to either side and the picture is of demolition work.
The broken shell of ChristChurch Cathedral, this South Island city’s most famous landmark, stands deconsecrated and uncertain in a central square that grows bigger by the day, as demolition booms peck away at the surrounding buildings.
In empty lots where buildings were bowled over, waist-high weeds grow from the cracks. Billboards are frozen in time, promoting events for March 2011.
So familiar have tremors become in Christchurch that locals are unnervingly good at instantly estimating the magnitude of an earthquake. They have had plenty of practice. Since the 7.1 quake in September 2010 – the first and biggest, which caused no fatalities in part thanks to its arrival in the middle of the night – geologists have measured more than 10,000 earthquakesin the region.
Of those, more than 400 have registered over magnitude 4.0; more than 40 have surpassed 5.0. A cluster of three earthquakes measuring up to 6.0 struck two days before Christmas, causing fresh damage to buildings, including the cathedral, and closing the airport.
Days later, the state geological agency predicted that the area could expect aftershocks to continue for more than two decades, albeit with the likelihood of diminishing severity.
From his sixth-floor office on the edge of the red zone, Roger Sutton, chief executive of the Christchurch Earthquake Recovery Authority, lays out a map of the central city, with buildings shaded in black and grey that have been, or are likely to be, demolished. “You can see it’s pretty extraordinary really,” he says. Sutton, who impressed Cantabrians with his enthusiastic and engaged response to the February earthquake, when he was chief executive of the local power company, took a hefty pay cut to join the government agency. He remains upbeat.
“The level of destruction that we’ve got there is such that we’ve actually got an opportunity to do something really fresh,” he says. “And people are feeling optimistic now. What we had before was just mishmash from historical accident, so to speak. Now we can think about it much more carefully and do something much, much better.”
It is impossible to gauge how many people have left Christchurch for good. Predictions of a mass exodus have proved unfounded. An estimated departure of 10,000 could soon be offset by the arrival of workers, including from Ireland, lured by the appeal of a rebuild costing up to $30bn (£15.5bn).
With unemployment only slightly increased, and encouraging turnover at the port and airport, there is reason to remain positive, Sutton says. “The economy is still going gangbusters here. So despite the fact we have had a massive earthquake, and a large part of the central business district is still shut, all the economic indicators are actually positive.”
He believes 2012 will be a “defining year” for the city and points to the rebirth of Cashel mall’s shops, the newly opened Court Theatre and a soon-to-open 18,000-seat rugby stadium.
Together with the much admired Gap Filler community initiative, which illuminates vacant sites with everything from fun fairs to bicycle-powered cinemas, such projects have clearly encouraged residents.
Shipping containers have become the all-purpose emblem for the city. The Cashel mall has been built from them. They form makeshift braces for celebrated older buildings such as the cathedral. And they worm their way, stacked two-high, beneath the steep cliff on the road out to Sumner, protecting drivers from the ongoing landslides. Above, the frames of luxury homes lurch drunkenly from retreating foundations.
Sumner was among the worst-hit areas a year ago. The seaside village, less than four miles to the east of the epicentre, was pounded by falling rocks and landslides. Water, electricity and sewage systems were cut off for days.
Today, character is returning to the suburb. “I think there’s huge opportunity here,” says Karen Sheridan, who has opened a furniture store comprising two brightly painted shipping containers.
“The city’s changed now, there’s more focus out in the suburbs. Sumner was always very much a destination anyway, especially in the weekends and over summer. That’s coming back. Things like this are helping to draw people to the area. But it’s going to take a long time.
“People are sick of the earthquakes, the constant aftershocks. But we’ve all learned to get on with it. After February last year, the place was shut. It was like a desert. There was no one around. All the women and children left, and it was basically all full of men.
“I’ve been very, very lucky. Our house wasn’t too badly damaged and I haven’t had to move out. But a lot of my friends are having big trouble with their insurance companies, and struggling to move on. A lot of people are still stuck back in that day in February.”
But the mood in Christchurch is hardly one of unified optimism. Disaffection with the pace of recovery, especially in the eastern suburbs where thousands of homes are unsafe, is high.
Months of building frustration found a lightning rod in the recent decision of the city council to award its chief executive a $68,000 (£35,000) pay rise – a decision that in the circumstances “bordered on wilful ignorance”, according to the Christchurch Press.
Even after he agreed to forgo the increase, a protest calling for his resignation, along with that of the mayor, Bob Parker, the former TV host who had been so lauded in the months after the February disaster, attracted more than 4,000 people a fortnight ago.
Leanne Curtis, spokeswoman for CanCern, a network of residents’ groups, says people need to see firm timetables for the restoration of their homes and community facilities. “Without that you become a very depressed city,” she says. “It’s a very bad place for us to be mentally – you can’t build, innovate, be entrepreneurial. You lose motivation, capacity to get up and help ourselves. You can’t remake a city out of depression.”
Communities in the east, and especially those which still await a government decision on whether their land is viable for rebuilding, are boiling over with frustration – with the insurance companies, with the authorities and with a sense of being overlooked, says Curtis.
While roads have been patched up in most of the city’s suburbs, in parts of the residential red zone bordering the Avon river as it snakes from the CBD to the coast, streets still betray the bumps and fissures of the 2011 earthquake.
The approaching anniversary is weighing heavy on people’s minds, she says, with any adrenalin from the early recovery period having long drained away.
“There’s none of this ‘we’re so resilient, we’re so strong’ from anybody on the ground,” says Curtis. “In the east, people don’t feel resilient, they feel tired, frustrated, like nothing’s happening. There is very little vision, very little leadership, very little co-ordination.”
Jan 9 2012 A 4.1 magnitude earthquake has hit Christchurch overnight. The quake struck at 3.38am, 20km east of Christchurch, at a depth of 10km. GNS Science said the quake was felt across Canterbury. Earlier, two small earthquakes struck on the Hawkes Bay.
A magnitude 3.4, centred 20km north of Napier at a depth of 30km, struck at 1.48am, and was followed by a magnitude 3.6, centred 30km southeast of Havelock North at a depth of 20km, at 2.06am.
For a positive view of the re building of Christchurch and comparison with the Napier earthquake of 1931 in see Roger Sutton’s 14th Jan piece :http://www.starcanterbury.co.nz/news/roger-sutton-recent-aftershocks/1235708/
For predictions of future shocks see Ken Ring(The Moon Man) a NZ writer who has used lunar cycles to predict weather and earthquakes. He terms his predictions “alternative weather” and has authored books about the weather and climate. Ring publishes almanacs each year for New Zealand, Australia and Ireland in which he provides weather predictions for the entire year.
He has recently broken his silence after creating near panic in Canterbury earlier this year with his prediction of a large earthquake.
The fallout from his March prediction led to hate mail and death threats against Ring who denies scaremongering. Dubbed the ‘moon man’, Ring said all he does is predict trends and patterns and he was only trying to be helpful. However he said he accepts people were scared and “I do regret that”. His comments created panic in Canterbury but he told Close Up tonight he doesn’t feel he terrified the people. “I apologise if anybody did take fear out of that situation.” Ring said he doesn’t hold any umbrage against anybody for the backlash because it was a time of great structural strain. He said that he has always maintained in his timeline the quake activity would start to diminish after April and although that is the case and the quakes are starting to move north, it’s not over. “People can start to rebuild their lives, people can move back to Christchurch, but there will be odd big ones still coming.” Ring said the issue is a big area of international research and the largest earthquakes always occur when the moon is closest to earth. There’s a definite pattern to it and the position of moon to earth influences earthquakes and the weather, Ring said. He said the information can be used to examine a trend, apply it to now and then extrapolate forward until “it’s a matter of history”.
See latest up date on his predictions (8/2/12):http://www.starcanterbury.co.nz/news/ken-ring-says-another-big-quake-coming/1083669/
Discounted by scientists , Ring looks forward to a time when he can work with seismologists and geologists. “The more information we can bring to the picture helps everyone.” He said everybody wants information, certainty and predictability. “It is a very, very old science and the time is coming when we will all work together.”
Anna Turner- When a City Falls
Anna Turner is a Star Reporter and Saturday columnist at the Christchurch Star.
As the lights dimmed in the movie theatre I felt an anxious knot tighten in my stomach.
I was at the premiere of the Christchurch earthquake documentary When a City Falls with my good friend Emily, and about 200 other nervous Cantabrians.
I didn’t know what to expect. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to re-watch some of the horrific scenes from February on the big screen, less than nine months after they happened.
If I was feeling apprehensive, I couldn’t imagine what was going through the head of Emily – a reporter at CTV.
Emily was out working on a story when the quake hit, a fact which saved her life. For her, the footage was even more real; the bodies being pulled from the wreckage were her workmates and friends.
I gave her arm a squeeze as the movie began.
It wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I cried – that was expected. But I also laughed. It wasn’t just doom and gloom and scenes of terror, it also showed our city’s resilience and was, in a way, uplifting.
The audience was mostly silent throughout the movie; it wasn’t the sort of film during which you whisper or munch down on popcorn. Everyone seemed to be quietly reflecting on their own memories.
And that’s what I think the film is great for – it’s a moving, raw look at everything that’s happened to our city since September 4.
It isn’t a sensationalised Hollywood blockbuster. It simply showed what has happened. In the years to come I’m sure it will become a powerful record of everything our city has been through.
But there was one part of the film that made it particularly heartbreaking for me personally.
The movie was dedicated to my friend Rhys Brookbanks, who had worked on the earthquake documentary after September’s quake.
Rhys, the joker of our journalism class, was killed in the CTV building’s collapse. He had started working at CTV just weeks before the February quake. In fact, he was recommended for the job off the back of work he had done on When a City Falls.
The last time I saw Rhys he was just about to start working at CTV, and was very excited at the prospect. We talked about having after-work drinks every Friday – him, me, Emily.
Instead, less than a year later, here were two of us watching a film he worked on, about the tragedy that claimed his life.
Life is so unfair sometimes.
Leaving the theatre, I felt incredibly lucky to have Emily alive and well next me. But I’m sure both of us felt the presence of an empty seat in the theatre that should have been Rhys’. And I know we both shed a tear for him in the dark.
Update of Red Zone images – Sept. ’11:
see link:http://www.starcanterbury.co.nz/photos/red-zone-tour/8935/
The Cathedral Sept '11
One year on from the September 4 earthquake, Cantabrians are still asking when the aftershocks are going to end. Just this week, three jolts magnitude 4 or larger have shaken the region, following weeks of a relative lull in seismic activity.
In the twelve months since the magnitude 7.1 earthquake, more than 8,000 aftershocks have struck the region. The number is likely to be much higher, with many of the smaller ones going unrecorded.
“Particularly after some of the bigger earthquakes you miss some of the smaller ones just because they are lost in the noise – so you don’t pick them up in the same way,” GNS Science seismologist and geohazard modeller Matt Gerstenberger says.
Casting his mind back twelve months, Dr Gerstenberger says the thousands of aftershocks fit what was expected at the time. “I think it has fallen in line with what we would expect,” he says. “It’s not unexpected given the size of the main one.” However the two destructive magnitude 6.3 tremors, on February 22 and June 15, were less expected.
“More often than not, you would not get two in that size range,” Dr Gerstenberger says. “It is certainly not unexpected that they occurred but it was not the most expected outcome.” Unfortunately another large one cannot be ruled out. There’s a small possibility now for another [magnitude] six, but if you look at the numbers we have it is quite small but we can’t ever rule that out.”
According to GNS latest forecasts, in the next year there is an 82 per cent probability of a quake measuring between 5 and 5.4, a 39 per cent chance of a quake 5.5 to 5.9, a 10 per cent chance of a quake between 6 and 6.4, a 5 per cent chance of a magnitude 6.5 to 6.9 and a 2 per cent chance of a jolt measuring 7 to 7.9.
Dr Gerstenberger says the aftershocks may continue for “decades”, although felt events could be months or years apart. For example, there are still small aftershocks from a magnitude 7.8 quake which struck Buller in 1929.
“As you can see in the last weeks and months, the numbers of events per day are gradually slowing down, [but] it will take many years for it to get back to the level that it was at prior to the occurrence of the [September 4 magnitude 7.1].
“But the felt events will get spaced further apart in time, it will soon be weeks and then months between the felt events.”
One year on, the sequence of earthquakes has given GNS Science a wealth of data, which is being used to help better understand the volatile ground beneath us. GNS Science is also involved in 22 Canterbury rebuild projects.
“We’re focusing a lot on the rebuild – that’s our main focus,” GNS Science communications manager John Callan says. “But in the background the scientists are doing research on all the data which has been captured in the last year. There’s a huge amount of data which will take them quite a while to sift through and analyse. They’ve only done first cut analyse at this stage. But it is a real treasure trove of information in terms of earthquakes. – Paul Harper, Christchurch Star
Aftersocks!
What a lovely surprise to discover that the enterprising Rural Women of NZ have produced stylish and practical socks to raise money for the earth quake fund. Even better to have been presented with a pair:
In the Cantabrian colours and made from Merino wool. Fabulous!
See www.aftersocks.co.uk
Snow on the Plains!
For the second time in a month heavy snow is falling again in Christchurch as forecasters warn of two more days of snow, hail, sleet and gales before the bitter Antarctic blast starts to lose its sting. Many roads closed.
Christchurch under snow Canterbury Plains
After an unusually mild June on the 27th July Christchurch had the thickest snow fall since August 1992 and the second coldest day since 1918, there has also been a heavier than usual smog blanket hanging over the city which is attributed to the aftermath of the earthquakes.
Hope perhaps?From the NZ Herald 8th July
An American expert believes the city can be cautiously optimistic that the worst of the earthquakes is over. Dr Mark Quigley says that prediction was based on the fact June’s aftershock sequence was less energetic than that which followed the February earthquake which is a fair observation.
However, Dr Quigley doubts it’s all over.
“We want to move on, we want to say this is it, but I think anyone looking at the data and anyone who has compared it to other cities, I think it would be silly to say we’re totally out of the clear,” he told Newstalk ZB.
But Cantabrians are not letting that threat stop them from rebuilding their city, with the largest construction site in the country currently inside the Christchurch Red Zone.
Close to 100 diggers and 80 trucks are working there for 20 different demolition companies.
Christchurch Press: ‘Damaging magnitude 6.0 and 5.5 earthquakes which rocked Christchurch today have not lessened the Government’s resolve to rebuild the shattered city, Prime Minister John Key says. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 1pm, 10 kilometres east of Christchurch at Taylor’s Mistake beach, at a depth of 11 kilometres, and sent people scrambling for cover. It was followed at 2.20pm by a more powerful magnitude 6 quake, centred 10 kilometres southeast of the city and 9km underground.
At least ten people were taken to Christchurch Hospital with injuries due to falling building material after the 1pm quake. Other residents from the devastated city cried in the streets and hugged their children. Police said there were no reports of injuries following the second aftershock today.
The quakes are the latest in a series of dozens of aftershocks to hit Canterbury following the devastating February 22 earthquake, where 182 people died, and a damaging magnitude 7.1 earthquake last September. The February 22 quake measured magnitude 6.3 and left 100,000 homes damaged – 10,000 beyond repair. Christchurch’s CBD was left in ruins, with 900 buildings – many in what has become known as the ‘red zone’ – expected to be demolished.’
There have been over 6,500 shocks altogether – all this in a city where earthquakes were unknown. Winter temperatures makes the lack of power and water particularly daunting but happily it’s back on now in most areas.
Link to photos taken shortly after quake on 13th June:
Other news of a happier nature from Christchurch is that thanks to this blog I have been contacted by Graeme Edwards from Chch who is living England and was searching for the History of Willow Nook – he has been able to fill in some gaps for me as to the house’s history and has just purchased it with a view to restoring it. What a great positive bit of news!
Timeline
1870 – Edward ARMSTRONG marries Sarah Elizabeth WILLMER
1885 – Sarah Armstrong arrives in NZ from England (Newport Pagnall?)
1886 – Edward Armstrong arrives in NZ from England
1896 – Parker Westenra – A farmer from Dunsandel purchased 40 hectares
1901 – Edward & Sarah Armstrong buy 4.5 hectares and establish Willow Nook farm.
1963 – Willow Nook sold to Kathleen & John Leversedge
2001 – Willow Nook 100 years old and still owned by John & Kathleen Leversedge
2001 – 2011 – Property sold during this time to Korean Young-Gi Lee who set up the property as a guest house named “Rodem House” for foreign students and this was also linked to the “Christchurch North Apostolic Church”
2011 – Property purchased by Graeme Edwards
Possible leads for further history from people who have been tied with this house are;
George and Ted Armstrong
Kathleen Leversedge, possibly a member of the Christchurch Bridge Club.
Young-Gi Lee
Anyone who stayed at Rodem House
Please contact Graeme or myself if you have any tales or memories of Willow Nook: weedie_one@hotmail.com
‘I grew up Mundys Road, near Burwood Park which is about a mile from Willow Nook. Purchased my first house when I was 23 which happened to be in Torlesse Street which is just around the corner from Willow Nook. I remember going past the house every day on my way to work and always loved it and wanted to own it. Now I have the opportunity to own it and hope to recover as much of the history as possible and restore this beautiful piece of East Christchurch’s history.
I first saw the house for sale in the beginning of Feb 2011 and recognized it straight away. My girlfriend also loves this house and we are both very keen to come back to Christchurch to set up a family home. My parents went and looked at the house for us and sent over some photos and informed me that it will take a lot of work to restore the property. The next day, the 2nd earthquake hit Christchurch. I informed my parents that if it was still possible to purchase the property then we were both still keen. We had to have an engineers survey and it all still looked good. The insurance Co. and bank agreed and I now own this wonderful piece of history. My girlfriend and I were not fazed by the amount of work ahead of us.
The house has suffered some damage, both the chimney’s have been knocked off, there are a few surface cracks and some of the night store heaters were damaged. There has also been some damage to the water heater. All in all there seems to be nothing major.’ Graeme Edwards Willow Nook – History
An Avonside settler, Parker Westenra, of Dunsandel, bought 40 hectares in 1896. His boundaries were approximately from Woodham Road (Mile Rd), Ngarimu Street (Westenra St), Kerrs Road and Avonside Drive (Rhen River Road). But he did not keep the land intact for long. Five years later, in 1901, Edward & Sarah Armstrong bought 4.5 hectares, the land that established Willow Nook farm. Armstrong was a Methodist lay preacher keen to establish a small farm.
Edward and Sarah Armstrong
Farmer Armstrong’s son, Ted, milked 12-18 cows for a milk round run in conjunction with Willow Nook farm. Delivery, as far afield as Litchfield Street, was with a two wheeler horse-drawn cart with a small rear-door opening. Milk ladled into billies and jugs was delivered to the door.
Before his homestead was built, Edward Armstrong lived in a sod hut along Avonside Drive (then River Road), about four houses from Retreat Road.
The Armstrong property was in two parts, Sarah’s farmland extended from Ngarimu Street to a couple of houses past Torlesse Street, back to Holland Street, while Edward’s land was an area that in now Avon Park, opposite Kerrs Reach.
An early directory shows Willow Nook homestead was 516 River Road. It is now 690 Avonside drive – a bit confusing because both sides of the river were then called River Road. Now River Road is the north side of the river and Avonside Drive on the opposite bank.
Edward Armstrong died on January 2 1930 in his 94th year. Some of the land had been sold for roading about 1926. The last of the Armstrong’s to live at the homestead was Ella, a schoolteacher.
The house now on 2519 square metres changed ownership from the Armstrong’s the first time in 63 years when the Leversedges bought it in late 1964.
The large villa type home has five bedrooms, two drawing rooms, two bathrooms, two kitchens and a large games room. John added a second storey to the house but in every other way possible has retained original features.
When they bought the property there had been a small dairy out-building, coach-house, and a tall water tank. An old shed is all that now remains. It was quite a showplace in its day with tennis and croquet on the lawn and grounds that extended to the edge of the Avon.
Red Sails (Thames Barge at dusk) - oil on canvas Lee Campbell
The painting above is one of the pieces on offer, a romantic view (30″ x 30″) of one of the last of the Thames Barges which I saw at Maldon in the Essex Estuary some years ago. Magnificent boats! and as my studio is in a boatyard I have learned a great deal about river boats over the years. The ones with the wooden hulls are the best to paint especially when they in dry dock and apparently a metal nail from one will bring good luck (I have 2 and they seem to be working).
Blossoms
Every spring I’m enchanted and seduced by the beauty of the blossoms en route to my studio and foolishly attempt to paint them – these paintings don’t usually survive as I need the canvas for other things, but this year 2 small paintings and one tiny painting (done very quickly from objects at hand) remain as a record of the joys of spring:
Easter - Lee Campbell
Blossoms - Lee Campbell
Daffs - Lee Campbell
Surviving Ghosts
I was delighted to be invited to give a talk to the Surrey Branch of the Fine Art Guild earlier this year. My topic was ‘Thriving on Adversity – Surviving as an Artist’ that covered my experiences of working as a Resident Artist since leaving art college.
Sockin’ it to The Fine Art Guild
It really has been quite a journey! It began in the summer of 1992 when I was commissioned to do a painting of the Haley’s Comet/Giotto Space craft encounter for the Space Research Lab at the University of Kent in Canterbury by Prof. Strange (yes really) – and having just left college so having no studio, I asked if I could produce the painting on location and so began a series of interesting and challenging locations which included a 12th C Dominican Priory- haunted by a weaving monk, an Age Concern Day Centre (doing quick pencil portraits), an 8′ x 4′ sentry box on Grosvenor Dock, St Saviours Church in Pimlico (also haunted – I would feel a presence wafting past me just as the bells chimed 5 pm), several empty shops and most recently the National Physical Lab in Teddington.
Being alone in quiet places can make one aware of many atmospheric entities – some more welcoming than others, and they do tend to creep into my paintings from time to time – observant visitors to my studio will see one who resides in a quiet corner of my studio. Being totally committed to my career as an artist and in need of places to work, I have refused to let such presences deter me from working – so rather than allow them to drive me away – I have ‘employed’ then as models and included them in my artwork.
Most recently the horrors of the earthquakes and the loss of life in Japan and NZ had me thinking of ‘ghosts’ and lost souls and inspired this painting:
In this painting I’m trying to convey the idea that for many there would be no cherry (or any other kind) blossoms this spring – and tiny lanterns floating on the water would carry the souls to a place of peace.
Transitions - Lee Campbell
Another painting in this reflective vein recently completed, was inspired by Japan and a photo I took last year of a heron:
Vigil - Lee Campbell
Commercial Success
Delighted to hear that the Bridgeman Art Library have allowed one of my spookiest ‘Flurry’ paintings to be used on a French novel with a credit on the outer cover no less. These are based on the Robert Graves poem ‘Outlaws’
Mythical - Lee Campbell
Outlaws - Robert Graves
Owls – they whinny down the night;
Bats go zigzag by.
Ambushed in shadow beyond sight
The outlaws lie.
Old gods, tamed to silence, there
In the wet woods they lurk,
Greedy of human stuff to snare
In nets of murk.
Look up, else your eye will drown
In a moving sea of black;
Between the tree-tops, upside down,
Goes the sky-track.
Look up, else your feet will stray
Into that ambuscade
Where spider-like they trap their prey
With webs of shade.
For though creeds whirl away in dust,
Faith dies and men forget,
There aged gods of power and lust
Cling to life yet –
Old gods almost dead, malign,
Starving for unpaid dues:
Incense and fire, salt, blood and wine
And a drumming muse,
Banished to woods and a sickly moon,
Shrunk to mere bogey things,
Who spoke with thunder once at noon
To prostrate kings:
With thunder from an open sky
To warrior, virgin, priest,
Bowing in fear with a dazzled eye
Toward the dread East –
Proud gods, humbled, sunk so low,
Living with ghosts and ghouls,
And ghosts of ghosts and last year’s snow
And dead toadstools.
MORE GHOSTS
I recently made contact with the people at St. Saviours church where I was resident artist for 5 months in 1997 when I returned to London from Canterbury. I was living in Dolphin Square and had nowhere to work so asked the caretakers if I could work in the church and to my delight they agreed.
I had the place to myself except on Weds and Sunday mornings and I hired the vestry and ran art classes there. It was quite gloomy though so I positioned myself in the only place where natural light came in. When the sun hit the pews they creaked as the wood expanded – as if someone was sitting down, but the spookiest thing was the waft of cool air that would whoosh past at 5pm every evening so I wrote this poem about it:
Beyond Silence
The clanging of a bell unseen
measures the hours and quarters
but childish squeals from school released
are carried away in a river of traffic
as the fifth hour approaches……
When summoned from the cavernous gloom,
A restless ghost
Or a sunbeam shaft on the well-waxed oak?
The dark pews resting solemn
now creak joyfully
as if welcoming a dusty presence
breathed to life by the warmth and light.
I feel the intruder,
a witness to a private union
and must return to another place
beyond silence.
– Lee Campbell
Within St. Saviours - Graphite drawings - Lee Campbell
St Saviours, Pimlico - oil on paper - Lee Campbell
Busy couple of weeks getting the dear old piano up and running again for her re-launch in the Plaza on Oxford St. Meeting up with my old friend John – the piano puner and John Ellis (aka Elton John) who did his tribute act bringing the mall to life last Wednesday. The piano had been languishing in the basement of the arcade since last summer and has finally been re-assembled, cleaned and had the paint work re-touched ready to go to a new home which will be decided by popular vote. The choices are between Nordoff Robbins, Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity and The Brit Trust.
To cast your vote – go to – www.facebook.com/theplazaoxfordstreet
What a delight to see the piano being played with such gusto and attracting lunch-time crowds – many taking photos – wonder how many will end up on Youtube etc?
More lunch time ‘tributes’ will take place Weds 17th (Sinatra) and Weds 31st March (Stevie Wonder).
I completed a commission to paint this misty scene last week – where does it remind you of? I’ve heard a number of personal interpretations and I think that this is probably a measure of success – like haiku poetry perhaps – where simplicity allows people to project personal ideas and memories into it.
'Misty' oil on canvas Lee Campbell
The client is the professional horticulturist Valerie McBride-Munroe – aka Aunty Planty – who is no doubt able to name every species of grass in the painting, so I took care to ensure a degree of accuracy. Although the original is not available I am allowing it to be made available as a limited edition giclee print and The Bridgeman Art Library will also hold the image with reproduction rights. They currently hold over 50 images of my paintings which have been sold over the last 10 years – so its good to know that through this the images can live on, appearing on CD and book covers etc. worldwide.
There has been more international exposure in an Istanbul Art Gallery who saw my work at the Florence Biennale and I am delighted to allow them to represent me. They are able to accept the paintings unstretched which makes transport so much easier for me and means I can re-use the stretchers.
Birthday Blog
So many friends having birthdays at the moment and a great gathering at the Roebuck, Richmond Hill for Sunday lunch, despite dire weather predictions the sun came out and lit up the bend in the old Thames. It’s become a bit of a tradition to meet there to celebrate my birthday – this location is very significant for a great number of people, myself included – ‘The View’ was first glimpsed when driving by on the way home to Thames Ditton where I lived in 1974. I returned to this place briefly in the summer of 1988 then, by sheer coincidence, found myself living nearby in St. Margarets in 2001. Since then I have painted this view many times and never tire of shifting light effects and changing colours.
Birthdays can be times of reflection and with so many years and so many journeys I feel blessed to be living the life I always wanted (every day is different) in my favourite place, with dear people. It has been a fine time to catch up with long-lost friends too – some who have found me through my website and others who I have found through networking sites. People have always been extremely important to me and as a lonely kid on an isolated farm in NZ I longed for the postal deliveries from Mr. Wright our mailman, who drove the red VW van that brought bread, English magazines (Jackie, Girls Crystal), and best of all – letters from my pen friends (India, Japan, UK, Tonga). On sunny summer holidays I would lie in the long grass and wait for the sound of his van on the dusty gravel road – other days I would look down our drive to see if the metal flag on the side of the US style mailbox (fixed to a tall post) was up – this would indicate a delivery.
Much of my twenties and thirties were devoted to travelling to the exotic places my pen friends had described – in fact travelling became quite an addiction (49 countries last count) making it hard to decide which hemisphere, let alone country, that I wanted to settle in. Now with Google Earth, Facebook etc. it’s possible to feel part of the global community and the sense of isolation that haunted my childhood has vanished.
I recently spent a delightful evening at York House in the company of the Riverside Communicators, our local branch of Toastmasters, where I met a lively group of people dedicated to improving their public speaking abilities. I was asked to speak in a spontaneous session at the end – very scary but fortunately the topic was ‘green’ and as any of my painting students could tell you – I am quite passionate about the use of bad straight-from-the-tube shades of green paint instead of either mixing one’s own or overlaying yellows and blues – so I enjoyed an opportunity to air this view to the somewhat surprised audience.
Avatar What an excellent movie! All my foresty flying fantasies brought together in one glorious place. Tall sinewy blue people so thoroughly connected to their environment that they lit up the forest floor where they walked. The use of the reflections in the glass was a real stroke of genius too. Shades of ‘The Field’ my favourite book by Lynn McTaggart which explains the connections between all matter at a quantum level. A life changing read that I thoroughly recommend. My ‘Orb’ series of paintings is based on the self similarity of microcosm and macrocosm – they could be tiny photons or vast stars in far-off galaxies.
While I’m on a nostalgia kick – The first movie I ever saw was Disney’s animated ‘Peter Pan’ – cotton wool clouds and aerial views of tropical islands jewel-like in a turquoise ocean – what an excellent introduction to imaginary worlds.
Also as a tiny child I was given a 3D Viewmaster with discs that could be rotated to reveal stories with a magical depth – my favourite one was Aladdin with jewel-encrusted caves and a magic carpet that ‘flew’ over exotic nocturnal cities. Streams with water so clear you could see every stones and fish transported me from my sickbed to fantastic landscapes. How such things can shape our lives without us even realising it and how lucky I was to have parents who valued the power of imagination.
Below is a commission I completed last week for Ken Sethi of Genesis – the West London company who do the prints of the ‘Union’ painting for me. They do a huge range of image reproduction processes to a very high standard and are an excellent company to work with. I worked from a small photo, scaling it up into a large oil painting. I enjoy commissions because they can be challenging and take me out of my comfort zone.
There was a launch of the book about the musical history of Eel Pie Island this week in Michele Whitby’s shop Par Ici. It had taken much patient research by Michele and Dan Van der Vat to collate all the images and anecdotes of the wild and rich history of the old hotel and now it is all together in one lovely book. It was a joyous gathering of locals and friends with fond memories of the 60′s and 70′s concerts and live gigs – spilling out onto the cobbles of Church St. which glistened under the damp evening lights.
On display were many of the photos and old ephemera included in the book. The shop is also an outlet for my prints and I had just had a large one done from the painting ‘Union’ the union jack and roses, so it was lovely to see that and other artwork included in the festivities.
'Union' - Lee Campbell (Available as giclee print)
After a morning of painting on Saturday I joined Steve for a ramble along the riverside – it must be one the most beautiful urban riverside walks anywhere – starting at the Twickenham Embankment we head for Richmond past the Balmy Arms, the White Swan, Marble Hill House (Ham House on the opposite bank) – past the floating home and gardens of our resident hermit and soon reach Richmond Bridge.
'Richmond Bridge'
Into the town centre for a spot of shopping then over the bridge across the A316 and down into the Old Deer Park. We head for Richmond Lock passing a chap using a kite to pull himself along on a skateboard – looked great fun!
The Lock is a glorious old piece of functional Victorian ornamentation which provided an excellent view of the sky and river in both directions. An odd cloud appeared near Isleworth. Love clouds – we’ve taken up cloud-spotting and have a book on it and they often feature in my strongly paintings.
Check out this link http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/hi/gallery
Weird alien cloud
Visitors and Persons of Note
Earlier in the week the intrepid Timi Phillips made her way to the island – braving torrential rain and the noisy working boatyard for a meeting in my studio. She is a Personal Concierge who helps international travellers to organise their lives. A fascinating business which involves a great deal of organisation, diplomacy and sourcing of unusual requirements. She will be entertaining some US visitors and is looking for unusual places to take them.
It can be quite daunting to walk through the boatyard as they are often welding and hammering the huge rusty hulls of the river boats that come up the slipway for repairs. The other visitor to brave the boatyard this week was the photographer Tony Harris who has been a photographer all his life and has an amazing catalogue of images www.TonyHphoto.com
Another very intrepid visitor and dear friend is Valerie aka Aunty Plantie – the garden coach – www.auntieplanty.com – who joined us at our breakfast meeting having spent the last week walking around the Isle of Wight. Valerie wears many hats, Kew Guide, Horticulturist and she is also a broadcaster with an agony aunt programme – for troubled plants no less.
The above words and numbers are all the official property of the Olympic committee I discovered while attending a seminar on how to submit business proposals to them. It was held under a massive chandelier which was duplicated by an equally massive mirror in the beautiful 17th century York House in Twickenham.
York House
The wild shadows it cast and prism-like reflections in the bevelled edges of the mirror gave me some great ideas for painting. That’s one of the great things about having trained ones’ eye to really ‘see’ beyond the obvious – certainly helps pass the time during dry business presentations. With a good imagination you are never bored – agree??
The speakers did their best to explain the arcane and convoluted processes that were involved in extracting money from councils and Olympic funding bodies but the biggest revelation came when someone gave an example of names being put into a hat when the awarding bodies became weary of examining all the forms. Sounds believable. The process can take weeks to complete making it really difficult for small business, so quite dispiriting to think that all that work could be a waste of time.
'Union Rose' - Lee Campbell (available as a giclee print)
This oil on canvas painting is the design that I used on the piano it’s really large but I’ve had giclee prints made of it this week ( by Ken (Genesis) my BNI friend) these can be ordered in any size. It will be up on the Bridgeman Art Library’s site soon . Did you know that if a union jack is displayed the wrong way around it is meant as a distress signal?
Dark drive to Hammersmith this week where I attend weekly BNI business breakfasts that start at 6.30 am (yes that really is am not pm).Is it me or do people drive more desperately early in the morning?
I joined the Hammersmith BNI last spring so it was the first time I’d driven there in the dark, crossing the river twice and passing a cemetery, I also have to negotiate a very narrow rickety ramp leading up to the motorway but it’s all worth it for the warm welcome from my fellow BNI members and an excellent breakfast. We each have a minute during the meeting to talk about our business and educate fellow members in how to find us business referrals. There are not many artists amongst BNI members as a rule (it’s the early morning I think) but we do have a group of ‘creatives’ in the Hammersmith Group – Luna the florist, Tony the photographer, Dan the cartoonist, Ken the graphics printer and Jean the graphic artist, Doug the web designer and there are also 2 architects, one whom is Professor Hans Haenlein.
It’s not all business though and we had our monthly gathering at a pub last Tues night – it’s always good to see people later in the day. No one really looks their best when they have to be up at 5 am (some people travel long distances) but it means that the meeting can end at 8.30 so I still have the rest of the day free.
I completed a commission this week – a tall painting designed to hang in the stairwell of a converted bungalow owned by an award-winning architect.
Another great thing about being an artist is that my work is (hopefully) enjoyed in many homes and public spaces around the world – how amazing it would be to visit all the locations one day and photograph them in situ????
Remember Dave Gorman and how he once gathered all the Dave Gormans together in a big convention? Well there are at least 2 other artists in the UK called Lee Campbell – same spelling – I’ve met one who also worked at the Tate Bookshop – but they are both blokes, and as far as I know don’t work as oil painters. I’ve always thought it would be fun to have a show of our work one day though.
If you’re out there – how about it boys?
Loch Morar – Oil on linen – Lee Campbell
Feb 23 Early morning 4.1 quake in Christchurch.
Anna Turner is a Star Reporter and Saturday columnist at the Christchurch Star.
