Hasty cheese sandwich in hand...hurrying to catch 253 bus to Abbotsbury on spur of the moment in conversation with brother on phone from Oz...hoping to see Marie Laywine at her studio and have a half-decent chat before she goes to Java. It's a beautiful day and quitessentially English in Dorset...it's raining. A passenger on the bus is talking loudly about ballet and modern dance...the rain ever harder is flooding the gutters and the bus throws a wash much like a speedboat at sea...Langton Herring...Rodden, where the poet Elsa Corbluth may still be alive and well despite illneses of late...she elicited praise from Ted Hughes for her poetry years ago and was a winner of the Bridport Prize one year...i have not seen her in a while...Marie Laywine's studio is near the heart of Abbotsbury...only 25 minutes to get there...she is sitting doing a crossword from The Daily Telegraph...we greet each other and she protests the fotos i am taking good-naturedly...i sit across the table from her and she offers me some cheese pieces left over from her own lunch and tells me about her "project" in Java and her "magic cupboard".."what's in it?" i ask..."Magic, of course," she says...i wish, by magic, i could have stayed all afternoon...there was a great humour between us...but...

 

 

 

Marie Laywine was born in Canada but has been in Dorset for over 20 years. Her studio is an old chapel in the 600 year-old village of Abbotsbury.

Her work is well represented in collections throughout Canada, U.S.A., Switzerland, Australia and the U.K.

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Artist's Statement:

In my painting I work with what I call the "interior landscape"; I use images and ideas from my dreams to help me represent visually the mountain ranges and coastal plains within a person.

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