How appropriate that my last post should be about my amazing Fine Art Tutor, Artist, Peter Spriggs’. I am now retiring from my Blog until sometime in the future when Covid is well behind us.
Just before Covid Lockdown we visited Peter’s latest exhibition, Sosban Fach, It is raw, emotional and a rare example of what, in my humble opinion, is art at its best.
In 2017, on a visit to Tate Britain to see the Turner Prize, we happened upon the Paul Nash exhibition.
It left me moved beyond words and I knew at once I was feeling exactly how Paul Nash hoped his viewers would feel. He was a artist of the highest calibre.
That is how I felt last night, whilst viewing Sosban Fach, the works of Peter Spriggs.
Having read a background to the exhibition in Wales Online, see below, I was prepared for something very special. However, I was not prepared to be moved by such emotion and to be amongst people who clearly were feeling the same. A truly inspiring exhibition. Absolutely superb. Thank you Peter.
Having finished my photography degree, I spent a further three years at Carmarthen School of Art studying Fine Art, guided, predominantly by the tutoring of Peter Spriggs.
I pestered him continuously for knowledge of techniques which would help me to build the skills I needed as an artist. His patience was stretched to the limits but he never stopped encouraging me. Last night he presented me with the finest lesson yet. The lesson that says “it is when you touch your viewer’s heart that you are truly an artist”.
I have had little time for my art practice since leaving college. However, that time will come and I shall heeding the finest lesson of all, with thanks to Peter. I shall be true to myself, put my heart into my art and create what my heart says rather than my head. Well, I know what I mean. Ha!
I have had, nor seen, little of pain or suffering in my life. I have been very privileged. I have always lived very close to the sea and frequently witnessed its power over the land and our precious coastal trees. It is the tenacity of Nature that holds my fascination and, as an artist, I hope to share that feeling with my viewers and help them to revisit the ‘stand and stare – (in Awe) that is so missing in our modern lives.
“What is life, if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?”
By Welsh poet W. H. Davies, this should be my latest motto. I must find time to get back to my art, once again, ‘stare’ at the incredible landscape around me, and then create from my heart.
Thank you for reading.
Jane & John at the Set House 