Middle-earth Journeys

Well – best to fess up straight away as I know we have a reputation to live up to - I didn’t take any notes. I regret it now of course, but leaving your note book at home when you are out on a mission as part of the MeJ reporting team is… well… less than stellar. You’ll be pleased to hear that Marbretherese scribbled non stop and thus has several brownie point to my miserable ‘must do better.’

We drove to Moreton in Marsh this year, instead of taking the train, tootling through sleepy stone villages and past gently rolling fields and pollarded willows. But the first thing we saw when we arrived at Moreton in March was a Funfair plonked in the middle of the high street – so much for a sleepy, idyllic Cotswold town! The brightly coloured Dutch Tolkien Society Van parked outside the Redesdale Hall (see above) looked like it could just possibly be part of the funfair. I wonder if anyone tried to take a LotR themed ride in it. ‘The Falls of Rauros Experience’, ‘Escape from Moria’, ‘Throw a Ring around a Balrog’….


Apparently lipstick has had to be removed from the van… .

We were greeted in the Hall by a very nice and very burly security guard who seemed to be taking all the Tolkienealia and assorted Tolkies (hey, a new word…) in his stride. He didn’t stop us as we clearly had Hobbit-Huggers written all over us. Once inside we decided to go straight upstairs to the paintings. No hanging about – we knew we wanted to check out the new offerings from Ted Nasmith, Ruth Lacon, Jef Murray and Peter Pracownik. Once again I have to say how beautiful the Redesdale Hall is, it’s a great venue with its wooden rafters and stained glass windows. We were pleased to see that there were a lot of new paintings in the exhibition and, quite honestly, it’s hard to get tired of looking once more at the old favourites anyway, as they are so good.


We headed for Ruth’s paintings first where she was showing a wonderful series on Roverandom. My favourite was a huge painting of the little dog riding to the moon on the back of a seagull. It was full of little details like horses running on the grassy globe of the earth as it fell away below. It’s even bigger than Niggle’s Tree and I loved it. Marbretherese had her own favourite which I’m sure she’ll tell you about! Once again I agonised over buying one but they are a bit beyond my budget and I suppose I ought to be selling paintings not buying them… but there were two or three more modest ones that I really coveted, including Bilbo arriving at Mirkwood and the Death of Smaug.


She has also been experimenting a lot with acrylic for her Tolkien work. These are much freer and she explained that the medium is more suited to scenes in which there is a high level of emotion, where she can push around and build up the paint to express it. Several of these were very 3D, especially her painting of Luthien’s growing hair tumbling out of the tree (Marbretherese will probably have the proper title in her trusty notebook…). The hair was so thick you could almost pick it up, make a rope and climb out of the Redesdale Hall windows with it! For myself (always the tidy, controlled painter), I prefer her more detailed and delicate gouache work, but it’s always good for artists to develop new mediums and styles to express different things in different ways!

While we were admiring the art a falconer was walking around amongst us with a pigmy owl. You have never seen anything so tiny and cute in your whole life. It even had ‘eyes’ in the back of its head where feather markings had evolved to put off predators trying to attack from behind. Marbretherese whipped her camera out and started clicking away like mad. The Oxford cow population had nothing on this.


As soon as we saw it We Were In Love. Aragorn, eat your heart out, it’s pygmy owls for me…. your beautiful eyes (all four of them), your tiny little screech, the way you shake your little itty-bitty feathers….

….er…. where was I?

Oh yes. Art. After Ruth’s we had a look at Peter Pracownik’s paintings. Peter used to be a backing artist with Hawkwind. Marbretherese will be able to tell you more about this as she revealed her wild and mis-spent youth by admitting to have actually been to a Hawkwind concert when I was still trembling at The Tremeloes and thinking that going to local youth club hop in a purple midi was a daring act of rebellion. I loved Peter’s Gollum, especially the froggy one (he had two paintings of him on display). He explained, when we caught up with him outside the hall on the way to lunch, that living amongst slimy amphibians might have made him more and more like them over the years in a similar way that dog owners often end up looking rather like their dogs. Peter uses a lot of symbolism in his paintings, something I really relate to! There was a lot more I could have asked him about that aspect his work if I’d had the chance. Maybe next year.


There was a lot of Ted Nasmith’s work on display, including his (for him) rather small painting of the Swan Ships of the Teleri being towed by birds. I really love this painting, though from Ted’s talk (more on that in Part 2) it turns out that he’s always surprised that people like this one so much. Jonick (who has never been to anything like this before, and who was thoroughly enjoying himself) was very taken with Ted’s work especially. The detail of his work really is astonishing and the more I look at it the more incredulous I am. He said in his talk how much he loves painting the sea and his mastery of it really is amazing. And rocks. And clouds. And trees… if anyone makes me want to burn my brushes its Ted. Ted rocks. In fact I’m so in awe of Ted I still haven’t managed to go up and talk to him about his paintings, despite promptings from Marbretherese and Jonick. If I did I’d probably fall down and lick his feet.

While mooching around the paintings we caught up with Becky who had her portfolio with her containing a fabulous new work based on the heraldry of (I think – where oh where is that notebook) the House of Feanor. If it turns out to be someone else’s house I apologise right now! The delicate blues, soft reds and golds and the intricate knot work was very beautiful. Hopefully (if her computer behaves) Becky might make it here herself to tell us a bit more about it.

We took time to listen to Angela Gardner talking about her book ‘Black and White Ogre Country’, which has several stories by Tolkien’s brother, Hilary and which is illustrated by Jef Murray. Angela described the excitement of going through newly discovered letters and family items which revealed so much more about the relationship between the brothers and Hilary’s overlooked talents. When she came across new information she experienced that frission of ‘I know something no one else knows’ excitement (I think we’d all understand that!). Thank goodness she had the persistence to share it all with us as Hilary’s writing was very hard to read at several points, but she kept plodding through it until she’d got every word. As question-setter and quiz-master of the infamous Oxonmoot quizzes she also took an evil delight in throwing questions to the floor throughout her PowerPoint slide presentation; ‘Who’s writing is this?’, ‘Who’s this in the photo?’. It kept me on my toes, I can tell you.


Jef Murray’s illustrations for the book were also on display at the Hall. Angela had shown us that his Black and his White Ogre were based on Hilary’s own drawings, but I fell in love with a little drawing of a terrier. There was also an even bigger multicoloured wall of his paintings than last year – it really is an amazing sight to see them all together. I managed to stop him at one point to say how we liked his new works (especially Thorongor flying over Gondolin) and he remembered that one of us (Marbretherese) loved his Eagle of Manwe painting, which was still there on display. I especially wanted to tell him this time around how much we loved his talk last year, and how it had changed how I approach my painting. Because of his words I play music that inspires me and try to prepare a meditative mood. It really helps and I know Marbretherese has been influenced by his words too. But I forgot to tell him. I know Jef picked up on this report last year so….. Jef – if you’re reading this – a very BIG THANK YOU! You were an inspiration.

All this and we weren’t through the whole morning yet….

Part 2 tomorrow: Ted Tells All, Big Birds and nice fish and chips.

The Exhibition is, of course, arranged by ADC Books.
Most of the artisit's latest works can be seen in their catalogue here

Jealous! Jealous! So VERY jealous, yes we are, my Precious! Wants to see lovely paintings for ourselfs, yes we does!

Your reports are always a mixture of goofing off and delighting us with artistic details. Thanks so much for writing them as I'd never would have known about such events. I love you!

That tiny owl is adorable, and I can't wait to hear from M and more from you. And a big thank you for the link to the catalog.

The floor must have been very slippery from little puddles of drool everywhere. I'm drooling right here, seeing all that gorgeous art!

Thanks so much for the great write-up and pictures! Can't wait for part 2!

I am PEA GREEN with envy and loving every word and image from your reports!!

Please sir, may I have some more!

I'm really glad you're enjoying the reports - when marbretherese has a chance to catch up with her 'first half' I'll post my second.

The paintings are unbelievable - we're very privileged to have such a great opportunity to see them and really appreciate them. We're very lucky over here, I know, and the least we can do is share as much as we can.

And that owl.... I really was entranced.

Well, as Iolanthe has explained in Part 1 of her report, the three of us had a Grand Day Out on Saturday. Thanks to a bit of nifty map-reading by yours truly we discovered a cross-country route to Moreton which reduced our journey time to two hours. Yes, we really are that close LOL! Jonick was really impressed, not only with the paintings on display but also with the Redesdale Hall itself, decked out in splendour with what looked to me like some new banners:
It was great to see familiar faces at the Exhibition; everyone welcomed us like old friends and we had several chats (and a cup of tea) before we ever got near any pictures. The two paintings of Ruth’s which I really liked were The Inescapable Wave - a Japanese style painting reminiscent of Tolkien’s recurring Atlantis dream, and which someone else liked enough to buy during the day - and Bilbo Finds Himself East of the Misty Mountains, which was full of air and space and had a real sense of distance (unfortunately I didn’t make a note of the title of the painting of Luthien growing her hair).

I have two photos of the pygmy owl to share with you. She came courtesy of the Cotswold Falconry Centre and didn’t seem at all fazed by the attention she was getting (which was considerable). Here’s a close-up:
And here’s another which I like because she has Ted’s painting of Luthien growing out of her head I hadn’t expected to like Peter Pracownik’s paintings (I’d caught a glimpse of a couple somewhere else and thought them a bit too Fantasy-based for my liking) but they absolutely blew me away when I had a chance to study them properly. I particularly liked The Way is Closed (based on Tolkien’s design for the entrance of Moria) and Middle Earth, which had a definite feel of a 1960’s album cover (King Crimson springs to mind) and Peter agreed; he was a musician for many years - in his heyday he played the Roundhouse in Camden with Hawkwind, and yes, I was there!! Eventually he decided he could make a better living as an artist, although he still plays in a band now. Peter and his partner Nicola (also an artist) run a gallery in Tintagel, Cornwall, which you can find out about at http://www.peterpracownik.com. He had a stall in the dealer’s hall where I bought some postcards and a fridge magnet (I can never resist a fridge magnet. This one has the Green Man on it).
Ted Nasmith had a wide variety of paintings and prints on show - some large, some small. Jonick would have happily taken several home with us - and so would I, but we would have chosen different ones! My favourite was Boromir’s Last Stand, although the Luthien one runs it a close second. Jonick tends to go for the more visually dramatic. Ted was exhibiting some tiny paintings, too - a sensible move in these days of recession. I was tempted by one of Frodo praying to Elbereth . . .

By now the hall was filling up with visitors and Becky arrived with her wonderful design based on the emblems of the Noldor (at least, she had the word ‘Noldor’ emblazoned at the bottom of it ). It was absolutely fabulous and several of us - including Ruth - crowded round making admiring coo-ing noises over it. She had laid it on the floor for us to see and it looked like a sumptuous rug . . . we were so engrossed that when Angela’s talk was announced we realised all the seats were taken. Still, standing at the back we had a good view! I smugly got out my notebook while Iolanthe hung her head in shame (OK, I made that bit up).

Thanks to Chris Tolkien (Hilary’s grandson) a whole heap ( several heaps) of Hilary’s unpublished papers have been made available to Angela and she is in the process of writing his autobiography as she feels Hilary should be given his due place in JRR Tolkien’s life. The brothers were very close. Black & White Ogre Country is a lovely little book of Hilary’s reminiscences. I was particularly struck by this extract, which I read on the train this morning: “We used to live a big part of the summer up trees, particularly a certain sycamore . . .” Angela showed us a Christmas card drawn by the boys’ grandfather, John Suffield (Mabel’s father). He used to make one every year, and this sample had trees recognisably in the same style as Tolkien used to draw; and a tiny rendering of the Lord’s Prayer in a little circle. So that’s where JRRT got the idea of the Father Christmas letters from! Interestingly, the book contains a small painting by Hilary in a similar style and apparently Tim Tolkien (I can’t remember where he fits in) also draws and paints in the Tolkien - or should I say Suffield - style.

Jef Murray had a huge amount of paintings on show - my favourite The Eagle of Manwe was there, along with a similar one Mearas - and the illustrations for Black & White Ogre Country went down very well - several had sold. The terrier Iolanthe refers to was called “Bobs” and belonged to Father Francis Morgan, the Tolkien brothers’ guardian. I think that was my favourite drawing too. I was chuffed that Jef remembered me liking The Eagle of Manwe - he said he often recalls people by the paintings they prefer!

Wonderful reports, ladies, as always! It would be fun to see all the paintings and hear the talks, but I think it would be even more fun to spend time with you!

So why were there no marbretherese and Iolanthe paintings in the display?

There! I knew Marbretherese would have all details to fill out my vaugue mumblings! It's adds so much to Angela's interesting talk that I've forgotten. I think her biography of Hilary Tolkien will be a must when it comes out.

I love the description of Becky's Noldor painting (that was it, 'Noldor'. Doh...) as a 'sumptuous rug'. That's it exactly. And thanks for the link to Peter's site .

marbretherese wrote:I smugly got out my notebook while Iolanthe hung her head in shame (OK, I made that bit up).

No - it's true. Inside I really was .

Merry wrote:So why were there no marbretherese and Iolanthe paintings in the display?

Because this is only for artists who have Andy Compton of ADC books as their agent, he organises the whole thing. In fact he told us that he had a huge number of paintings there with no room to hang them! I saw them stacked up at the side of the stage. Very tantalising to think what might have been there! When Ruth's painting of the wave was sold a new one came out to replace it.

We'll all be at Oxonmoot together though .

The last part of the morning was spent listening to Ted Nasmith talking about his paintings. I really enjoyed listening to Ted’s talk, even though he didn’t manage to get through the 100+ paintings he had on his PowerPoint presentation! I also managed to ask a question (the only question he got from the floor). I wanted to know how he painted the wonderful translucent water beneath the ships in The Kinslaying at Alqualonde. He explained how, although gouache is a thick paint medium, he uses very thin washes for this effect, allowing the white of the board to come through like it would with a watercolour wash. That explains its beautiful luminous transparency. God, I love that painting! He has several new Silmarillion paintings, including a STUNNING end to that same story, where the sea is a blaze of reds and oranges as the stolen Teleri boats burn in the background. It really is something to behold and show cases the big scenes that Ted does best. When the slide came up there was an audible ‘Oh!’ from the audience. He also described how every Silmarillion painting has to be approved by Christopher Tolkien (who seems to have a thing against paintings of Tolkien’s monsters appearing, including Balrogs and Morgoth). I’m assuming a lot of this is because he feels that as creatures of supernatural terror they should be in our imaginations, not caught and pinned with a paintbrush. In a way I can see how that would diminish them somehow – in the same way that Sauron, in the Lord of the Rings, is never seen or described beyond a ‘fiery eye’. It’s taken Ted a while to be happy with his Balrogs anyway… if one can be happy with a Balrog! The new illustrated Sil will allow for the landscape format that Ted loves, by reproducing some sideways-on images, and he’s had a chance to rework some of his favourite paintings from the old version into the new format. Seeing some comparisons between the two really shows how his art has developed. The light shining through the cleft between the mountains of Valinor is much more beautiful and subtle in the new version where the format really allows the scope of the subject to breathe.

After Ted’s talk we headed for lunch at The Bell Inn. The Bell Inn is a very large, ye olde ancient stone-built hostelry with a courtyard and it’s possible Tolkien knew it through his visits to Moreton. Though possibly not. But there’s probably few pubs there where he didn’t have the odd pint or three. It’s tenuously been suggested that it could be a model for the Prancing Pony – but that’s probably an amalgam of several similar ye olde ancient English inns he was acquainted with. It’s a wonderful old place though. We thought we’d have to fight our way in but it was strangely empty….


Being in a Sam mood I had fish and chips without any Gollum to tell me fish is better raw than served coated in a lovely beer batter. We spotted an enormous ye olde ancient settle by the window and decided that it was perfect for Strider to stretch out on… Marbretherese whipped out her trusty camera before I could say Ringwraithes and leapt over our table with a single bound (maybe there’s a slight exaggeration there… it could have been two bounds). Then we left… WITHOUT ANY DESSERT. How this amazing feat of will power came about I can’t imagine. We must have been overwhelmed by ye olde ancient self control. Even Jonick failed to order the chocolate muffin thingy. This is the first time in the history of the world that I’ve seen Jonick walk away from chocolate. I think I felt ye olde ancient walls shuddering with shock.

Back at the Hall we headed for the Dealers Room. This involved some serious book buying (I got a lovely book on Arthur Rackham), and a chance to check out Peter Pracownik’s stall which was bulging with interesting merchandise. There were enough fridge magnets to magnetise Marbretherese’s entire fridge (which is already so magnetic you can’t get out of her kitchen wearing a buckle). But it was hard to concentrate on books because our new love, the Pigmy Owl, was there on a wee little stand. With those great big eyes, teeny weeny little fluffy feathers, preening its spotty little chest with its tiny, shiny, itsy bitsy beak …

Er… where was I? Oh yes. There was also a humungous big eagle who looked like he could swallow the Pigmy Owl in one gulp. Jonick donned the glove and the falconer put the eagle on his wrist – which is more than I could have done looking at its enormous yellow beak! And this without chocolate to support him too. I took a photo and forgot to turn the flash off, but the eagle barely registered it which it just as well as it was in a position to rip Jonick’s arm off and carry it all the way to Gondolin.

We then had another nose around the exhibition (we still hadn’t really taken everything it, there was so much on display), then we settled down for Ruth’s talk. We could hear the music from the funfair rides all the way through it, which was downright annoying. How she managed to concentrate I don’t know. Ruth showed all her latest work and talked about the new acrylic work she’s done (which I talked about in my last report). She’s painted a lot with acrylic before for her non-Tolkien works, but this is the first time she’s done whole Tolkien paintings in that medium (as opposed to just using it for the occasional 3D highlight). She said a lot of other very interesting things but without my notebook (and lack of any supportive dessert) they’re fading fast. I’m sure Marbretherese can fill us in on a few more details.

After the talk we headed out to the same ye olde Tea Shoppe that we went to last year for a Cream Tea and lemon cake. Lashings of tea was the perfect way to finish the day before driving back home, though I was faintly anxious as to whether Jonick (our driver) would be up for it, running so low on chocolate and all. But it seems that clotted cream and jam has the same effect. I’m sure the Hobbits would have approved.

Roll on next year!

I would have liked to start my contribution to Part 2 of the proceedings with a photo of Ted Nasmith giving his talk - but unfortunately my excitement gave me camera-shake and he’s all blurry. We nearly missed out on seats again because by then we’d bumped into the major book collector Alan Reynolds, whose talk we’d gone to at Oxonmoot. He’d definitely read our Oxonmoot reports by the way because he remembered my photos of cows . Amongst lots of other interesting stuff he told us how even today Tolkien’s views on language are being vindicated: for years Tolkien argued with “experts” that the Roman name for the town of Bath - Aquae Sulis - meant “waters of Sul” rather than “waters of Sulis” because - as every Latin scholar knows - “Sulis” means “of Sul”. All the experts pooh-poohed his idea. Then some relics were excavated in Bath clearly dedicated to the Goddess Sul. They really should have listened to the Professor in the first place . . .

Back to Ted’s talk. He told us that he likes to paint something beautiful in a picture even when the overall subject is grim - I think he likes the contrast, such as the horror of the Kinslaying in such a lovely setting. He talked about the dangers of overpainting (which struck a chord with at least one fledgling artist in the audience) and I was greatly cheered when he said that some of his ideas for pictures have come to fruition over many years. Hope for me yet then . . . Ted discussed the pleasures and pitfalls of being commissioned to do illustrations for The Silmarillion; for example, Christopher Tolkien objected to Ted putting trees and agricultural scenery around Gondolin because JRR Tolkien had described it as standing on a featureless plain; but logic dictates that the inhabitants would have had to grow food etc somehow. I think the discussions Ted had with CT must have been quite lively!
By now we were starving, and,as Iolanthe has said, headed to The Bell for lunch. There’s a strong suggestion that the exterior of The Prancing Pony at Bree is based on The Bell, similarities include the three storeys of the pub building (those little rooms at the top would be ideal lodgings for hobbits!) and its entrance via a courtyard, which you can just see to the right of my photo. I assume that it’s an old coaching inn. Unfortunately many of my photos of the interior were spoiled by the bright sunlight flooding into the lounge, but you can get an idea from this one:
Then, knowing how so many of you folks here at MEJ enjoy hearing about our food, I took a photo of Iolanthe’s traditional fish and chips. Of course, to be really traditional they should be served not on a plate, but in a piece of greaseproof paper, with newspaper wrapped round the whole thing - lashings of salt and vinegar, and eaten outdoors (at the seaside if possible). We were about as far away from the sea as you can get in the UK, but you see the general idea. The green stuff is mushy peas (ugh! don’t ask . . .):
The helpings were so generous we hadn’t any room for dessert (at least, that’s what Iolanthe said at the time). Jonick’s given up chocolate for Lent and I wanted to leave room for the English Cream Tea I was hoping to have at the Market Tearooms later. So we wandered back to the Redesdale Hall, pausing only to admire the local bookshop’s window display. Full marks to them for noticing there was a Tolkien Art Show in town:
And yes, that is a Lord of the Rings related beer you can see at the centre of the display, the close-up reveals that the beer is called SobeRing Thought . . . that’s what I call using your initiative when planning your window display!
Of course, once we entered the Dealers Room back at the Redesdale Hall I lost both Iolanthe and Jonick immediately - Jonick is particularly susceptible to random book-buying and by the time I managed to retrieve him, he had bagged a first edition of Owen Barfield on CS Lewis and a copy of Literary Converts by Joseph Pearce. Both of which I hope to borrow in the near future . I was more restrained, choosing some postcards of my favourite Peter Pracownik pictures as well as the trusty fridge magnet.

Upstairs I was thrilled to find that the eagle - billed as Gwaihir - had arrived. I took loads of photos because you never know when you might want a reference so you can put an eagle in a painting, do you? Here’s the best one:
We still hadn’t had time to get round all the paintings so we took the opportunity to do so before Ruth’s talk. On stage Ted Nasmith, Alex Lewis and Madeline Anderson were reprising the songs they had sung at the last Oxonmoot Ents and it made for a very pleasant atmosphere:
Ruth’s talk was the last of the day. Iolanthe’s already mentioned how she’s using more and more acrylic - she finds that she can get even more textural results than with oil paints. Sometimes she will try out a subject in gouache and do another version in acrylic. The reason she generally puts borders on her paintings is that they represent a safety line between our world and the sometimes strange and terrifying world in the picture. All her paintings are carefully researched - meticulously based on Tolkien’s texts, but also in other ways; for example the one of Beorn dancing with the bears has several distinct varieties of bears in it. She told us that she was careful to represent Wargs rather than grey wolves in her picture Fifteen Birds in Five Fir Trees because she was trying to get away from the idea of a Western European grey wolf (I think she feels they'e had a bad press). Although her paintings are not photo-realistic they are based on reality - hence the need for careful research.

It had been such a full day I was worried we wouldn’t have time for the Cream Tea, but we got to the Market Tearooms just before they closed. Phew! By the time we drove out of Moreton past the Hall the doors were firmly shut for the night. Artists and organisers had all departed for an evening of beer and song at The Bell. And why not? They deserved it!

You two are hilarious! I enjoyed your reports so much. Maybe this weekend, I'll search the 'net for some of these paintings.

I'm not sure I understand the limitations by C. Tolkien: is Ted working on a new edition of the Sil, the paintings for which must be approved by CT?

Please pass on my admiration to Jonick for his heroic Lenten fast. I've given up meat for Lent, and the poor Iowa pigs better run for their lives on Holy Saturday!

Ladies and Jonick, how I wish I could join you on your travels! You sound like such a fun group, and you certainly pause to enjoy exactly the sort of things I like! If I ever manage a trip across the Pond, we must get together!

Again, so jealous of this opportunity to see the lovely art and speak with the artists! Thanks so much for sharing your experiences and photos with us and going to such great lengths to make us all feel we were there as well!

I'm glad you felt you 'were there', Lindariel. That's what we're hoping - that everyone can share the fun. I must admit we do have a good time when we go on these jaunts, and have more planned when we can eventually fit them in - Tolkien related sites around Oxford and the Cotswolds and Sarehole in Birmingham!

Marbretherese mentioned in her first report how much everyone made us feel welcome and greeted us like old friends. It's lovely to feel part of a wider Fellowship, is really is.

Merry wrote:I'm not sure I understand the limitations by C. Tolkien: is Ted working on a new edition of the Sil, the paintings for which must be approved by CT?

I think he's referring to the 2004 edition that came out featuring newly commissioned landscape format paintings. He also has new Silmarillion work in the 2009 Tolkien Calendar and is still working on some new Tolkien related commissions. It's the ones in the 2004 Sil that he was referring to as needing Christopher Tolkien's approval!

I do have a photo of Ted's talk that's not too blurred. I forgot to post it:

This is the painting that I asked my question about.

Merry - you can find nearly all the pictures here:

ADC Books Catalogue

Merry wrote:Please pass on my admiration to Jonick for his heroic Lenten fast. I've given up meat for Lent, and the poor Iowa pigs better run for their lives on Holy Saturday!

I will. It's a true sacrifice on his part because chocolate pretty much runs in Jonick's veins . . . !

Lindariel wrote:Again, so jealous of this opportunity to see the lovely art and speak with the artists!

All the artists involved are incredibly generous with their time and accessibility. We are lucky indeed!