This week I am in conversation with artist Hanna Varga on her life's passion for working with nature and her journey as an artist and mother. Originally part of the art practice 'Ashleaf', Hanna has recently embarked on a new path alongside her art practice as a foundrywoman and sculptress, setting up a new artist network called Dialogues with Nature. This venture has been something Hanna has wanted to do for a long time and she's put an extraordinary amount of work towards it. Now, during The Great Pause of 2020, her network is more important than ever - supporting artists during this transformative time. The network is private to members. If you are interested in joining and taking part, message Hanna on instagram.

Alongside her practice, Hanna also has her own Podcasting channel, which you can listen to here. She also recently embarked on her '100 leaves project', which you can read more about here. Hanna remains to be one of the most authentic, beautiful souls I have ever met. It seems I am not alone in this feeling - you can read more about Hanna in this blogpost by Elizabeth Cairns.

My field sounds are of course Big Ben, a recording I made back in 2016 when working on Leafscape - I like the juxtaposition of a busy city with today's silence. The recording ends with a Scops Owl which positioned itself outside my bedroom window in Spain for the week. 

In this podcast I bring you the sounds of Cairo, when I visited the city in my search for the blue waterlily of the Nile, January this year. I then take you to Spain, where I talk about my current paintings and what life is like under lock down in my Andalucian studio, 1000m high on the edges of a National Park. 

I decided to place a couple of sounds beyond the 'play out tune' to take you back to life 'with people' at the end. A place where we gather for folk festivals in pubs and bars. Life has certainly been turned upside down for nearly every single person on this planet and it will inevitably be a tricky few months to navigate, but I feel it's important to keep our imaginations and connections alive and I hope that my audio helps you to do this.

I hope you are all keeping well. This is a great time to go within and to look after yourselves. Try not to think too much, say grounded, breathe deeply.

All my love,

Jess x

This is a live recording made of my talk at the Space Mountain International Art Festival in Spain. The event is the brainchild of musician and record producer Martin Glover (AKA Youth / Dragonfly Records) and was curated this year by Lisa Azarmi of Ravenous Butterflies fame. Set in the beautiful Lecrin Valley in Andalucia at the Space Mountain Recording Studio, this festival showcases the work of artists, authors and musicians and features live music and international DJs alongside workshops and talks.

Last October I was honored to be invited as a guest speaker. There was a lot of ground to cover, so I decided this time to talk about INKQ and invited Andrew Burton to join me as designer.

This is our talk. Live and unedited.

Here I talk with presenter and artist Ian Rutter about a unique course I'll be teaching with Granada Concierge in Southern Spain next year. Ian launched Granada Concierge with his partner Andrew shortly after moving to Spain. Almost as soon as they arrived in Andalucia, they knew that they wanted to share their love of the area with visitors who wanted to immerse themselves in the culture and landscapes of this sensually rich part of Southern Spain.

As part of their creative courses programme, I'll be taking a lucky group of you under my wing between 4th and 8th June 2020, showing you how to paint flowers and leaves in the beautiful, historic village of Moclín in Southern Spain. Over the 3 days of the course, you will have the opportunity to learn how to paint our beautiful Spanish flowers, local fresh fruits, leaves and seeds in this idyllic setting. You will learn more about the structure of flowers, how to mix colours and how to use different paper types, brushes and paints. This course is suitable for all levels. 

Limited spaces left.

To book your place or for more information visit:
https://www.granadaconcierge.com/watercolour-painting

In this episode, I talk about my new studio and how working in isolation affects our sense of time. I consider ideas of time and how as painters we have to think about space and time in ways that many might not. I touch on Hockney, but of course one cannot forget the Cubists and early Scandinavian painters who also played with space-time. I am no expert and am merely skirting around a subject that has only just begun to grab my attention as I delve further into blue and what it means in terms of metaphysical longing. I feel another trip to the library coming on!

I then bring you the sounds of Zurich, St. Gallen and the Swiss Alps where I travelled to this summer in my search for wild Gentians. The climb through the mountains was pretty tough as I was recovering from an illness, but it was utterly amazing. The beauty of the Swiss Alps is unrivaled and whilst being in this sublime environment I felt I was able to connect with true 'Strum und Drang' and the kindred souls who first begun the European Romantic Movement, such as Novalis and Goethe. Sturm und Drang, (German: “Storm and Stress”), was a proto-Romantic movement which appeared in German literature in the late 18th Century. It exalted nature, feeling, and human individualism. Towards the end of the 18th Century this morphed into the more commonly known 'Romantic Movement', which continued to emphasize intense emotions as an authentic source of aesthetic experience. Especially those that could be experienced when confronting the sublimity, spontaneity, and beauty found in nature.

After Switzerland, I moved studio in Andalucia before travelling on to Dublin, Ireland to see painter Elaine Moore Mackey. The soundscape, therefore, takes you from Switzerland to Spain and then on to Dublin and then finally to Kildare where I am joined with botanical painter Shevaun Doherty in our search for Blue Irish Linen and Romantic ruined castles. 

As always, I have mashed up and blended the sounds of places so you don't really know where you are. You are just somewhere in time and place.

IMAGE: Prototype work for Blue Flower: Gentian by Jessica R. Shepherd. Oil on canvas.

This week, I am joined by painter Jenny Coker who talks about her work and how she works with different papers and paints from her studio in the North Island of New Zealand. This interview was recorded back in July 2018 just before everything went a bit nuts on the run-up to Blue Flower: The Antipodes so apologies for it taking so long to publish. 

Born in New Zealand Jenny is well known for her beautiful, sensual paintings of plants and flowers in watercolour and for her more traditional work in oils where she works using the time-consuming Flemish technique. The resurgence of classical realism appealed greatly and a high point of her art journey was a short course on oil portraiture at the Florence Academy of Art in 2016.

Jenny's large scale irises took her over in 2018, culminating in her beautiful series called 'Eros'. Often asked which medium is her favourite, she moves with ease between both watercolour and oil. Jenny travels extensively all over the world and is looking to visit Europe again in 2020. She has a love of languages and is always enthusiastic about making new friends and sharing her skills.

You can follow Jenny on Instagram.

For the last few minutes of this podcast, we are taken to Auckland, New Zealand where I recorded a Tui bird singing in Sandra Morris' garden. Seemed apt with the New Zealand theme. 

IMAGE: Jenny Coker © Watercolour on paper.

In this episode, I produce a solo show discussing my time in Tasmania. After spending an incredible two months in Australia and New Zealand I made the decision to extend my stay and go back to Tasmania to paint the orchids on the land they grew from. Something told me to go back. The time I spent there was incredibly deep and meaningful. It was both the hardest thing I had ever done and the most rewarding.

This recording discusses my experiences not only with the land, but with a new painting medium. I also discuss the exciting future of our precious INKQ newspaper. The next edition of which, will include a four A5 postcard set of my recent Tasmanian Blue Sun Orchid paintings. To make sure that you secure your next four editions of INKQ (there are only 223) and this postcard set, you can renew your subscription here: www.inkyleavespublishing.com/inkq

Dispatch date is March 21st 2019.
Edition is limited to 223 copies only.
Subscription includes postage to anywhere in the world.

With thanks to M & G for making this part of the trip happen. Two of the most loveliest folk I have ever met. 

In this episode, Jess shares with you the sounds she heard in her first month of being in Australia. The episode begins with the birds she could hear last October on her birthday in a remote part of Gippsland where she stayed for a few days off grid near the sea. As the soundscape moves, we are taken on a journey from Gippsland to Northern Tasmania where we can hear some of the sounds from the heath where Jess began her search for blue sun orchids. There is some commentary which was recorded in the field by Jess as she sat with a particularly beautiful orchid in the wind and rain for an hour.

Jess' experience of Tasmania was incredibly deep and moving and as a result she has made the decision to extend her trip and return to the landscape towards the end of December to record it in paint, text and sound alone. 

As a nomadic artist, a fair amount of planning is called for in order to conduct this type of work (especially over the festive season). The canvas for painting on was ordered in a fabric shop in Wellington with Sue Wickison and shipped on to Tauranga where Jess was staying with artist friend Jenny Coker. The paints, oils and turpentine will be sourced in Melbourne, decanted (so some can be taken to Gippsland) with the rest being posted by boat (oil paints cannot be shipped by plane or put in hold luggage) onto Tasmania so that they are ready waiting for Jess' arrival by propeller plane. 

In this episode, Jessica Shepherd takes you through the soundscapes of Wellington, Moana and Auckland in New Zealand. This recording documents the second half of Jess' Australasian tour for Blue Flower.

The New Zealand trip began with Jess finding one of the last flowering Chatham Forget Me Not's in Otari Botanical Garden, Wellington with botanical painter Sue Wickison and ended with her finding an open blue Sun Orchid in Auckland Cemetery with illustrator Sandra Morris and botanist Ewen Cameron. In between these blue flower book ends, Jess flew to Christchurch where she was met with Elizabeth Yuill Proctor who took her to Hanmer Springs, Moana and Hokitika, after which she flew on to Auckland where she spent a few days with illustrator Lesley Alexander. 

This recording documents the time she spent in the cemetery with Sandra and Ewen as they finally locate an open blue sun orchid during an afternoon in one of the largest cemeteries Jess had ever seen.

In this episode, Jessica Shepherd takes you through the forests and the heathland of the Tarkine in Tasmania without commentary. Jess flew out to Tasmania on the 1st November 2018 from Melbourne by a little propeller plane in search for the elusive blue Sun Orchid. A severe weather warning had just been issued and the trip was almost cancelled. However Jess made the decision to travel regardless, as for her, the challenging weather was part of the tale and journey. Sun orchids only open in the sunshine, so locating an open orchid in the storm was certainly difficult. Nevertheless, she found one, like a needle in a haystack. 

The birdsong in this recording is mostly from the ancient forests of the Tarkine, a magical place which is due to be logged very soon. Jess was invited to stay in one of the campsites in the wood as an artist to study the environment before it's disappearance. The experience of immersing herself in this fragile and vulnerable landscape with it's dark history and uncertain future was invaluable. The results of this reflective time will be seen as she works on a collection of new paintings that she hopes to exhibit in Australia in late 2019.