My friend Weimin He’s highly recommended online workshops

Weimin  says

‘I spent an hour and a half in the print room to study Raphael’s original drawing. I tried to draw the same size as the original and I presume Raphael might have spent no more than 1.5 hours to complete the two portraits and the two pair of hands. It was not an easy task to draw this great work in such limited time and this was my second attempt. I’ll do an online workshop to analyse the techniques of Raphael’s masterpiece. Next week I will work on Michelangelo’s drawings, on 3rd March will draw Rubens. There should be a few places available. If you or your friends are interested please click the links below.

“Principles of Drawing” by Weimin He

17 Feb/ 24 Feb/3rd Mar

https://www.ashmolean.org/…/the-principles-of-drawing…

https://www.ashmolean.org/…/principles-of-drawing-24…

https://www.ashmolean.org/…/principles-of-drawing-3-march

I’m privileged because Weimin not only  provided the cover illustration for Oxford Castaways and Poems in an Exhibition but also sketched me and numerous events I have been involved in . Here are some of them:

    

Above Some of my family at the launch of  Sculpting the Elephant 

Below  Compering the launch of Ray Foulks’s Stealing Dylan from Woodstock 

The Shakespeare in Oxford Project I organised with Victor Glynn and Polly Biswas Gladwin

The wonderful Peggy Seeger at  the Fifties Fandango Gala Night I organised for KOA

Weimin’s calligraphy and Peggy’s!

Below This sketch of a Koro player was made  at  Dai Richards photography exhibition on behalf of Asylum Welcome . Fabulous ….

The Food of Love. Cooking up a Life …coming soon

Gosh ..  Claret Press has started to promote my memoir!

https://www.claretpress.com/

Do you like the cover?

Food_of_Love_Cover_

Writing the lives of the 118 Oxford castaways and the fictional memoir of artist Little Winter in Brushstrokes in Time made me start work on my own. I want to tell the untold story of white women like me who married men of colour – when that was hard.  That’s why Claret Press wanted to publish it. At a time of partisan hostility on public platforms leading to a lack of trust, I hope my perspective can add a spoonful of kindness along with the recipes from family and friends at the end of chapters.  They are a sensual expression of Britain at its best when it relishes diversity .

Thank you Weimin He for your delightful caricature of me which is on the cover.

 

#food#class#gender#race

Make the Headington Shark a heritage site !

You have one day left to support the proposal to make the Headington Shark a heritage site. The Shark is mostly associated with the owner of the house Bill Heine seen in this pic. Bill was my friend but the artist JOHN BUCKLEY who made it should be better known.

John is a much under celebrated artist and modest too. When I interviewed him, he forgot to tell me that because of his work as a war artist working for the Land Mines Advisory Group, he went to Stockholm with the charity to collect their Nobel Peace Prize! It wasn’t on his website or the MAG website! I attach John’s story.  His work has been on the cutting edge raising awareness of human rights abuses not often talked about.

Read his story here .John Buckley

Oxford City Council spent 6 years trying to get them to take the shark down. During the long boring enquiry John sketched. He has found them!  He will show them for the first time at the Oxford Indie Book Fair on April 2.

John recently made this bronze model of the shark house.

In my forthcoming memoir  Food of Love .. I mention the Headington shark as a symbol that in life, we need to expect the unexpected.

When I saw John’s sculpture Embrace, it led me to write a poem about it. (below) Embrace was intended for the Berlin Wall but when that came down the idea was abandoned. I suggested a wall much closer in  Belfast .

Embrace

Joined at the hip; you have tasted the apple.

whatever tension, whatever the pain

Be bound -wrapped around -inseparable.

 

Trapped in tender embrace you struggle.

you ask why and how together you came

Joined at the hip; you have tasted the apple.

 

From different communities you blame

the other, you fight, you cry, you soften,

you are bound – wrapped around -inseparable.

 

One from the church; the other the chapel.

A fateful kiss and God willing amen

joined at the hip; you have tasted the apple.

 

With distrust and hate you must still wrestle

but as you battle your bindings stiffen.

You are bound – wrapped around – inseparable.

 

Stand upon the wall and be a symbol.

Bask in sun, survive the rain and remain,

joined at the hip; you have tasted the apple.

Be bound- wrapped around-inseparable

 

 

 

 

 

Beijing Spring coming soon.

This film about the courageous Stars artists will come to the UK soon. I’m delighted because I wrote Brushstrokes in Time to tell the story of the Stars – it’s the ONLY novel inspired by them.
I’ve had more good news .
John Gittings who was in Beijing in 1979 sent me this endorsement for the cover.
Sylvia Vetta evokes in her lively narrative China’s turbulent political culture of the 1970s and ‘80s, when China’s youth struggled for self-expression. Whether describing how students were ‘sent to the countryside’ or how, after Mao died, young artists hung their experimental work outside the national art gallery, Vetta is always accurate with a grasp of vivid detail.
John Gittings
Chief Foreign Leader-Writer at the Guardian(1983-2003)

Just launched – The Nasio I love reading project to build the first library in an area as big as Oxfordshire.

Nancy Mundenyo Hunt , the joint author of  Not so Black and White  which is inspired by her life, was on BBC regional news last night .

If you find this video uplifting you will like our novel. It’s inspired by Nancy’s life experiences growing up in Kenya and transforming lives through the Nasio Trust but also by her experiences of racism in the UK and of her work as a Diversity Trainer for the Thames Valley Police. We can change lives IF WE WANT TO. Nancy has changed thousands of young people’s lives for the better.

On  Monday she came to lunch and we launched

The Nasio- I Love Reading Project

Our aim: To build a library in Kakemega County in west Kenya.  Kakemega is the size of Oxfordshire but has not a single library anywhere.

We have the land in the Mumias township primary school and the headmistress and the teachers are praying that we succeed. They know that when children read for pleasure they learn fast, have a skill for life and knowledge of the world is at their fingertips. We will install computers and a reference section that can be used by the whole community.

Our patron is the children’s book illustrator, African born, Korky Paul who will support our fundraising.

Our corporate sponsors  Claret Press and Essential Audiobooks will fund the early years running costs of the library ie. the electricity and the librarian’s wages.

A v. small fee from adult library users and computer users and other users of the building will sustain it beyond that.

What do we need to do?

To build , on this site ,  a 40 ft by 25 ft library plus a veranda and small office (that can be used like an advice bureau) we need to raise £10,000.

Will You Help Us?

Attached to the outside walls under the veranda either side of the entrance will be colourful display boards. Under the heading I Love Reading, your name as a donor or the name of a child or grandchild can be inscribed for a gift of £50. If you can’t give that much yourself, you can hold a  Nasio Library Coffee Morning or Tea Party for a few friends to raise £50 towards the project and have your name or group name  on the board. Recommend us to your book group, library friends group, church or youth group and have the organisation name inscribed for £50.

We need just 200 names to give a community access to knowledge. Interested in being one of them?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Get WALKING!

Before the Oxford Castaways books and my three novels,  I produced a book of ten mostly five mile circular walks for KOA.  They were originally led by Jack and Margaret Ibbott, who I thought had walked every inch of Oxfordshire’s  footpaths.

Oxfordshire Rambles

Because of Oxfordshire Rambles , The Oxford Mail asked me to suggest walks for their readers .

Here is one of them: https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/19386891.enjoy-ramble-takes-iffley-village-oxford/

I’m so lucky to live on a beautiful stretch of the Thames . Wanting to encourage families to get  children walking and connecting with nature, I’ve recently written a short series of 1-2 mile shire walks in Tuesday editions of The Oxford Mail.

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/19452310.enjoy-circular-family-walk-around-kennington-sandford/

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/19436233.watch-wild-birds-circular-walk-radley-lakes/

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/19419579.fascinating-walk-families-ancient-pit-near-abingdon/

Some local readers of Sculpting the Elephant asked me to suggest a walk that took in the locations in my novel.  This takes you to the Oxford most tourists don’t visit – Harry King’s TOWN sites as well as to the spires of Ramma Gupta’s  ‘gown.’

 https://www.sylviavetta.co.uk/2021/07/05/the-sculpting-the-elephant-an-alternative-town-and-gown-tour-of-oxford/

 

If you go to London, here’s an unusual London walk compiled by my fellow Claret Press author Julie Anderson . There are a lot of intriguing underground locations in her thriller The Plaque 

 

Click to access plaguewalktrifoldv2.pdf

To buy copies of Oxford Castaways 2
Go to
http://www.oxfordfolio.co.uk
and click on the cover image.