Well, a slight pause in my blog entry, but a lot has been going on but I felt I had to post today that I finished my first painting since I've been here! After all that is the reason I moved to France - to concentrate on my painting full time.
The gallery that represents me in the UK,
Byard Art has this year asked its artists for submissions for Christmas cards and for the last few years I have been painting Madonnas.
A Black Madonna might not be the most obvious choice of subject for my recent arrival in the Dordogne, but in fact there are at least two Black Virgins in the region, most notably at
Rocamadour
The story goes from what I remember (an anecdote told to me by a friend) that some 50 years ago the village suffered a bad flood, but the local priest acted valiantly in assisting the villagers in their crisis. As a result, one lady villager visited Rocamadour to give thanks for the saving of the village and returned with a little figure of a black virgin which now resides in the church in the village. Apparently there have been benevolent happenings associated with even this little lady and her little son since placement in the church dressed in sky blue. And in particular Our Lady at Rocamadour is associated with miracles relating to water. Need to do a bit more research into that.
More black virgins to come later this week, going a bit more West Indies this time but still French ....
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