Rule Britannia!

the summer has been a busy one and my long awaited vacation is here. i am off to England. i did say it was my home away from home. it's been two years since my last visit and what can i say other than through all the Jubilations and Olympic spirit i am curious to see how Old Blighty is really doing. see you in a few weeks. - jw 

Art Walking

Day 1: i am all set up and ready to go! at the Whyte Avenue Art Walk. very hot but keeping hydrated... drinking water and iced coffee. friends stop by. meeting lots of wonderful people. met the young man who bought three of my paintings months ago! sold two paintings!

Day 2: very... very hot today!!! decided to set up on the other side of the street. being beside the pub's patio couldn't be that bad. the patio's speaker blaring the likes of Neil Diamond, U2, and Queen. lots of traffic today on the avenue. sometimes the people have been standing in line waiting to move up or down the sidewalk. saw lots of dogs. more friends stopped by to say hi and see how i was doing.  

i moved my chair over to the other side of the sidewalk under the umbrella i brought to get some relief from the sun. with the steady flow of people i decided to sketch out some ideas. these are them. sold three paintings!   

Day 3: Rain! Rain! and more rain! stood in the rain for seven hours. at times the rain came down so hard i thought the sidewalk was going to overflow and everything would be washed away. my friend Robin had her display to the right of me. we kept each other company and warm with lattés. there were quite a few people out. most people stopped and chatted and admired both of our determination. sold one painting and it was worth it! 


Thanks to everyone, who purchased my pieces and have given them a new home, who stopped by to say hi and chat about my art and poetry, those who inquired about custom pieces and to my family, my kidlets and friends thank you for your support! 




© copyright all photos, artwork, sketches are property of Jacqueline Williams. artwork by Jacqueline Williams. publishing/reproducing prohibited unless with the author's permission.

over the past months i have been gearing up for this years Artwalk. painting many canvases and ceramics. this is one of my most current paintings that will be coming with me. it's not titled, yet. it's bright, bold and ready to hang somewhere other than in my studio. 

© copyright artwork by Jacqueline Williams. 11x14 acrylic on canvas. photo by Jacqueline Williams. publishing prohibited unless with the author's permission.    

Whether it's anticipating the fortune cookie at the end of a meal or simply looking under a cap sometimes there is irony with those words of wisdom.  

Jean Rhys

another writer i have been reading is Jean Rhys. This pocket sized book, La Grosse Fifi has four short stories; La Grosse Fifi, Vienne, Tea with an Artist and Mixing Cocktails. Due to the fact that all eight-five pages had caught my attention, i found this...

Tigers Are Better Looking; first edition, 1968, Andre Deutsch Limited. Not only does it have the four short stories from La Grosse Fifi, which were a selection of stories from The Left Bank. It has fourteen other short stories.


During World War One Jean Rhys volunteered in a soldiers canteen. While her third husband was in jail she went to go live with English writer Ford Maddox Ford, whom she met in Paris, and his long time partner, Stella Brown.   Soon after an affair ensued. By 1940 she seemed to have disappeared from the public eye until she published her novel, Wide Sargasso Sea in 1966. For which she won the W.H. Smith Literary Award for in 1967. 

Street Songs

after reading about Edith Sitwell i was determined to find some of her work. and i did just that. i found this 1943, second edition of Street Songs. not handwritten, it is dedicated to her brother, British writer Osbert Sitwell and contains the poem Still Falls The Rain, about the London blitz. the book only has 34 pages but the collection of poems are beautifully crafted. interesting note about Sitwell, she would knit clothes for her friends who served in the army. one of her friends was actor Alec Guinness for whom she knit a pair of sea boot stockings.  - jw    

being a person who writes and paints, i am always searching for new places where i can write, sketch and read. being inspired can happen anywhere and anytime. new surroundings can help refresh. while the repetitive places can hold you ransom... harbouring your ghosts. i try not to be so frequent with my visits to certain places. making them more into a cycle. one big loop. i used to go to one place religiously and now almost everything about that place irritates me. for me, nothing flows there. in the pursuit of new places to resume the creative flow finding them has it's obvious advantages. - jw        

open mic night

last night i took the stage at Cha Island Tea's Open Mic Night. i was smack dab in the middle of the show with a whole bunch of musicians around me. the entertainment was plenty and rockin'. my segment went very well and so did the others. months ago, Cha Island was the place where i had my art up and i managed to sell three pieces! what a great way to end the month!!!   

this non-descript book i found is a poetry book by Welsh poet and writer W.H. Davies. this copy of Nature Poems and Others is a fourth impression printed in 1922. the 62 pages are filled with lovely prose on nature and life. Davies was a part of the Georgian poetry movement and lived most of his life as a tramp or hobo. he was related to the famous British actor Sir Henry Irving. his most notable work is The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp. Davies also lived in the United States and made a brief appearance in Canada, which cost him his leg from the knee down. 

the world is round

in my travels i also found this book by Gertrude Stein. it's the first Camelot printing, 1972 and if you can believe the spine hasn't even been cracked. which made taking photos of the illustrations hard. i wonder if someone bought it with the intention to read it, never got around to it and realised they had the book when doing some cleaning and decided to give it away. a shame really. books always have stories of their own. another reason why i bought this book was because of who illustrated it, Clement Hurd. he illustrated many children's books. Goodnight Moon and the Runaway Bunny are the two he is most famously known for.

just a sample of Clement Hurd's lovely illustrations that round out this tale about a girl named Rose.

Robert Burns

Last week i decided to go to one of my favourite secondhand bookstores, The Bookseller and browse the poetry section. I found these little gems. A three volume set of Robert Burns by Morris, all leather bound and in great condition. Lots of poems and songs to read. At the back of volume three there is a Glossary of Scotticisms. Which seems to me to be like a glossary of terms, of Scottish words from A-Z. Just in case you need brushing up on.