An artist who tells stories

While browsing Jurgen Wolff's Time to Write blog I discovered the following post on Portugese artist, Paula Rego:
Paula Rego's paintings always suggest a story--often a dark story. It was interesting to read what her daughter said about her mother's process in an article in the London Sunday Times magazine some time ago:

"Pivotal to her work was storytelling, and inspiration would come from everywhere: nursery rhymes, poetry, plays, novels..She also addressed issues that were close to her heart, like abortion and the political oppression she'd grown up with in Portugal. Her work has always been visceral, symbolic; a world where humans often end up as animals--dogs, rabbits, bears, monkeys. It's all about the joy and pain of the human condition."

Because her style was different, Rego struggled for years to get recognition. But she was compulsive about creating and eventually she broke through. Just looking at her paintings is a great stimulus for any storyteller.

Pasted from

Intrigued by Jurgen's post, I googled Paula Rego and found some fascinating paintings by Paula and another interesting blog post telling of the link between her art and storytelling which I have copied below:

 Paula Rego is not only a leading contemporary female artist, but also a wonderful story teller. All of her paintings are narratives, based on literature, observation, experience, or imagination. Looking Out is the story of a woman who wastes her entire days looking out her window hoping to catch a glimpse of the priest with whom she had an affair. The Jane Eyre lithographs were inspired by the novel The Wild Sargasso Sea, which is about Bertha, a character in Charlotte Bronte’s masterpiece Jane Eyre. In addition, The Maids is an account based on Jean Genet’s play in which two sisters kill the woman they work for and try on her clothes.


While Rego’s primary goal may be to entertain viewers through the art of storytelling, as a woman painting women it is impossible for her messages to be completely separated from gender. As I see it, most of her works including the ones mentioned above serve as a commentary on the position of women in society. The woman in Looking Out has been condemned to a life of isolation and imprisonment because she got pregnant by a priest. Meanwhile, the man walks free without sharing the blame and continues his life like nothing ever happened. The Jane Eyre lithographs, on the other hand, portray a strong, brave, admirable character to which the entire female gender can look for inspiration. Meanwhile The maids is a psychologically intriguing depiction of women which gives some insight into the complexity of the female mind and emotions.


Pasted from www.artscape-barbara.blogspot.com/

I have used paintings to stimulate writing for myself and in my creating writing classes. Later this week I'll post an exercise using Impressionist paintings. In the meantime you might like to search the web for paintings which inspire you. Do let me know what you find! If there's any Paula Rego fans reading this, please tell me your favourites.

Natterjack want writers!

Natterjack is a fabulous online magazine of new writing in prose and verse. Read and/or submit articles and reviews, poetry and fiction. You can also become a member of the site and contribute to their discussion forum, Natterbox. I've pasted Natterjack'sVision and Philosophy from the site below:


Natterjack is a free independent online polyphonic magazine, which aims to produce unexpected juxtapositions of different kinds of writers and readers and bring them together in an online community of words. I say words because words are where we’re starting. In time we hope to expand into music, visuals, and multimedia presentations. Just give it time.
Essentially there are two sides to it:
The poetry and fiction section will combine poems and stories by established writers with those by obscure writers, new writers, experimental writers, children, and some of the famous names from the past. Sometimes the words are on the screen, sometimes they're in the speakers. There’ll be commentaries exploring links between these pieces, plus a forum (Natterbox) where you can add your own comments and questions. For more detail see the poetry policy page (under the poetry and fiction tab).


The articles and reviews section will feature a wide mix of material. So far we have articles promised on global warming denial; studies of blues guitarists; the fall of the Roman Empire; head lice; God; how to lose money on the horses; schizophrenia; how gypsies get their MOTs; etc. We will also have articles on running a home business, and on education.
Our emphasis is on entertainment, not on hard information, though we have some of that as well. Our content aims to be “quite interesting” (as Stephen Fry would say), even if it’s not always quite factually reliable. Some of our content is straight talking, other parts are spoofs and satires, and we credit our readers with being able to sort out the difference. We believe that laughter, ridicule, parody, the deconstructive, the carnivalesque, are valid vehicles for approaching truths, understandings and insights. Natterjack is not an academic site – though some features may be of interest to students and teachers.
We believe that a very wide range of voices can be worth hearing – though some of them may need a bit of careful editing first – and that some of the resonances of these voices can be brought out by unexpected juxtapositions. So, we aim to combine experienced writers with new writers, the very old with the very young, the mainstream with the marginal, the polished with the raw, and all stages in between. Sometimes we’ll provide commentaries exploring links between pieces we’ve put next to each other. Other times, we’ll leave readers to make their own connections.
While we welcome submissions from experienced writers, part of our purpose is also to encourage new writers who may have less confidence. We can offer various levels of support, ranging from light-touch proofreading to advice on content, style and structure, or editorial help with spelling / punctuation / grammar / layout etc if you want it. We can also offer more fundamental re-writing and ghosting services where appropriate. So if you have something to say but you’re not sure how to say it, we still want to hear from you. See the How to submit work page for more details.
The website itself is FREE to visit, and to read, look at, and listen to. You can download texts and quote from them freely, but we do ask you to acknowledge the author and the source. If you quote us online, please include a link to Natterjack.


Beyond the website, we are developing a series of larger-scale products, as ebooks, CDs and DVDs. There will be information about all these on the site as they progress, and they'll be available in the Natterjack shop.


But the shop's not open yet. Enjoy what's on the site.

Check out the site at http://www.shiftingsands.webs.com/ Whether you're a reader or a writer, you'll find something for you. I adored the seascape picture links too!