This story is about my dear friend and fellow artist Catherine Fitz-Gerald and for some reason the above musical has always come to mind when I think of her, so therefore it goes without saying that when Kate decided her next art exhibition was going to be centered around songs, that seemed like a natural fit to me.

As a matter of fact this exhibition called “Inspiration and Memory” is a celebration not only of Kates wonderful paintings, songs and music that she remembers her mother singing and teaching her as a child but also to celebrate; Marjorie her mother’s 80^th birthday.

ARTISTIC FAMILY

I have known the Fitz-Gerald family since I was 17 years old (just yesterday,lol)and somehow they all seem like close relatives to me, like cousins.  I first met Kate’s brother Lewis Fitz-Gerald while we were both appearing in a theater production at the Festival Theater in Adelaide.  If that name sounds familiar to you that is because Lewis went on to find fame and fortune as a sought after actor in such films as Breaker Morant, ABC’s “I can Jump Puddles” and just lately “Crownies” also on the ABC.  Of course Lewis also appeared in many other exciting films, theater and television performances in between.

The rest of my “cousins” in the Fitz-Gerald family are Mark a photographer, Rosemary a lawyer and Leslie works as a teacher for Autism SA.  Their father Brian is now retired but for many years had a business and even employed my mum for a time.

THE ART OF STAYING YOUNG

That something extra that the whole Fitz-Gerald clan has in common is their incredible community spirit and fundraising – the old-fashioned values of pulling your sleeves up and getting stuck in!  If someone is down on their luck and need a helping hand – who you gonna call right?  To cater and make the food for a 200 people soiree would be just another day at the office for them all and particularly so for the matriarch of the family;  Marjorie Fitz-Gerald, O.A.M.,J.P  who really at 80 is still not showing any signs of slowing down.

She is currently raising funds for Adelaide Festival Center Foundation, Independent Arts Foundation, supporting the Arts in S.A. and providing scholarships for young emerging artists.   Marjorie has been the chair for countless organizations such as Festival Fringe, South Australian Country Arts Trust, Adelaide City Ballet and was the Mayor of the Town of St.Peters.   In 2007 she was awarded the S.A. Great South Australian of the Year for the Arts and later the Premier’s Award for lifetime Achievement, the 2010 Ruby Award.

Springing from this family history it is no wonder that Kates career as an artist took off right from her first exhibition in 2004.

So when Kates new exhibition opened  at Greenhill’s Gallery  with the band Take 5, playing the music and Kates beautiful paintings hung on the walls.  Kate in her own right is a celebrated artist and collected Australia wide, well known for her fruit paintings particularly which hang in at some of the best addresses around the country.  Her Artist Statement read;

ARTIST INSPIRATION

“Nature as inspiration is not a new concept to artists, but somehow it always feels new, fresh with something urging you to create.  To explore the tension between light and shadow, lost and found edges, texture, glaze, memory and the emerging expression of it.

We speak of memory being ‘green’ and my memories of gardens and the songs I learned from my mother as a child are forever intertwined.  So each of these paintings link to a word of inspiration and a song from my childhood.  Even now as I walk through the many gardens I have been privileged to share, melodies spring to mind as each vista or detail emerges.”

Each painting have names like; Renew, Inspiration, Home, Courage, Care, Promise, Serenity, Wonder and Joy.

For instance there is Enthusiasm with the lyrics from “Young at heart” by Carolyn Leigh – ‘Fairytales can come true…if you’re young at heart. For it’s hard you will find to be narrow of mind, if you’re young at heart…and life gets more exciting with each passing day..’

And I leave you with the words for the painting Resilience (lyrics by Bob Thiele & George Weiss) and made famous by Louis Armstrong “What a wonderful World”;

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom, for me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

I see skies of blue, and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces, of people going by
I see friends shaking hands, sayin’, “How do you do?”
They’re really sayin’, “I love you”

I hear babies cryin’, I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more, than I’ll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

Yes, I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Oh yeah

Till next time happy painting and sculpting and maybe singing to you all,

Love Marie xxxx  (c)

If you enjoyed this art blog you may also like this one 110 Artists Lunch

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

On Tuesday this week it was my very overdue turn to have “The Artist lunch” at my house.  You see a bunch of us have been meeting every now and then for the last 20 years, getting together over a good meal and some drinks and talking shop!  Well not just about art, life in general too and along the way we have shared in the ups and downs of life and as you would expect over time there has been plenty of those too.

THE NAIVE GROUP

We were trying to figure out how we met the other day – there were 3 of us “core” people, all 3 naive artists that initially got together, we think it came about when another naive artist Howard William Steer (Story Art) had wanted to meet the new kid on the block, moi!  As he and I had a joint exhibition over in Melbourne very early on in my career, I did not attend the opening so Howard came to visit when we lived in the church and brought Ursula Kiessling with him.

ARTISTS OF ALL GENRES

Ursula paints bush and wildlife in a semi naive repeated pattern – her use of colors is second to none.   How we then met Bronwen Roodenrys (who paints gorgeous sophisticated naive ladies and big cats) is for now a blank, lol but anyway glad we did, and we have added more “core” people to the group and not just naïf but all sorts of artists.  Catherine Fitz-Gerald who paints mainly large succulent and delicious fruits that cover the whole canvas, which makes me hungry every time I see them and Lynley Cooper who can turn her hand to any medium and style and always experiments and surprises us every time often with large scale contemporary works.  My image above is from another lunch that whoops, lol turned into midnight, funny how that happens.  It is handmade ceramic and mosaic and if you look closely on the left hand side you can see me with the ponytail sticking up in the air and hubby a little worse for wear spilling his beer.  Fun time had by all!

ARTISTS & ANIMATORS & WRITERS

The person that hosts the lunch can invite whoever they please and can add and subtract the invitation list as they chose which makes it very interesting.  So in attendance on Tuesday at my place were apart from the aforementioned were Valli Palmgreen, a Finish/Estonian artist who I have admired from afar for many years, she paints quirky pictures with the feel of Beryl Cook but in her own way.  Sarah Philip, the wife of our electrician that did our new house and as it turns out she lives on the same street as us and is a talented muralist and abstract artist.  Jenni Mumford paints in oils in Post-Impressionistic styled landscapes and still life and lives in Encounter Bay with views to die for which no doubt inspires her work.  Also in attendance was Suzie Flashman, my neighbour whose talents include animation (she did my animations on my website) and wildlife photography and she has also recently started drawing in pastels.  Of course we cannot forget Nadine Williams, journalist and award winning Author of the book From France with Love, which is optioned for a movie.  She also runs her own website which is in magazine style and always very interesting.

ART AND FOOD

The only problem now was what to feed these lovely people as I don’t cook, well unless you count burned toast and boiled water as a good menu for a dinner party!  Lucky for them I had a flash of an idea – I am good at assembling, lol.  So off to the supermarket I trot and with help from a great guy behind the counter, who was very amused at my lack of knowledge in the small goods section (as a vegetarian that is not my forte, lol ) I came home with shaved smoked ham, turkey, roast beef and salami.  To that I added cheese, dolmades, boiled eggs, tossed salad, olives, broccoli and capsicum sticks, crackers and dip, red/white wine and sparkling red (my favorite).  The artists brought dips and bread, chicken, coconut rice, fruit and cake, wine and champagne and so we had a feast fit for a king.  Hubby who was supposed to have a rest day could not keep away and was like a bee in the honey pot!  This time around all the artists was women, but that is not the rule!  We finished up just before 5pm and I look forward to the next one!

Another naive artist I greatly admire is Grandma Moses who lived to the ripe old age of 101 and I named my darling dog Moses after her and just like his name sake Moses lived to the grand old age of 18 which for a dog is pretty good.  Grandma Moses didn’t start painting until her late 70’s, a late bloomer so to speak and spent her old age as an American celebrity.  Here is one of her quotes that I like:

“Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting and whatever else you are doing,

Love Marie xxx  (c)

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALE and SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

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