Wivenhoe Library
have invited me to do another Exhibition of my Oil Paintings
Library Opening times: click link below or scroll down to next blog
http://webapps1.essexcc.gov.uk/findalibrary/libdetail.asp?LibID=78
Look above the bookshelves and elsewhere on the walls :
sunsets on the River Colne, dawn sea mists, butterflies...and more...
30% on all sales goes to Library Funds.
click here for my website www.janetdriver.co.uk
at a recent exhibition someone asked me
Why on earth is this painting called 'The Eye of the Needle' ?
Can you guess ?
clue : the small natural archway:
apparently it is only just wide enough for a dingy & oars to go through, and, so the story goes, the stone masons who cut stone from these cliffs nicknamed the bay "the eye of the needle".
I would like to know why the contrast between shadows and brilliant sunlight shining on these limestone cliffs reveal so many abstract human-like shapes. Is it just the result of natural weathering, or did the stone masons enliven their labour by cutting these shapes ?
I made two studies before painting this, and nearly called it "Stone Carnival", but then I suddenly saw the link with what Jesus said: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God". Certainly these gigantic "stone people" could never pass through this particular "eye of the needle" archway. It seemed to make a visual tongue in cheek parallel.
