“Red Sky at Night…” by the collaborative Sienna Sam (Joan Martin and Lara Mellon) - Jan, 2012 The inspiration for the title of this piece came from the weather-lore rhyme: Red sky at night; shepherds delight, Red sky in the morning; shepherds warning It suggests that people were more in touch with their environment unlike today where our culture has disconnected from our surroundings. In the spirit of post-consumerism we chose to work on a found surface and in a collaborative manner. Rejecting mass –produced packaged products and looking with a greater awareness of what already exists around us. Our co-operation makes reference to times when people were more aware of each other’s needs and worked towards a common goal. This piece warns about the danger of disconnecting from our environment and each other.

I have participated in The Sketchbook Project, 2012 - Brooklyn, New York. Thousands of sketchbooks will be exhibited at galleries and museums as they make their way on tour across the world. After the tour, all sketchbooks will enter into the permanent collection of The Brooklyn Art Library, where they will be barcoded and available for the public to view. I chose the theme "A walk through the trees" ... these are scanned images of the pages. Within some of the pages, I wrote thoughts ... I've detailed these below the relevant images.

Initially, I started painting these works for Art on The Way - an annual exhibition hosted by Angie Arbuthnot at The Church on the Way. I found myself 'resting' in these landscapes as I painted them. And so ... I've just continued to paint in this style ... guess I need the 'rest' ...

These works were created for the joint exhibition with Maggie Strachan and Joan Martin held in May 2010 at Fat Tuesday.

Maggie, Joan and I submitted artworks to the city of Chauny (Aisne - France). This city's emblem is "the monkeys of the wisdom". All artworks that were sent to this exhibition will be exhibited and then bound into a book that will be given to schools.

butterflypeople@de-vined.con pincode ***** The work consists of parallel themes of threat and beauty; specifically in the context of being on the net; being on-line. The starting point for this work, was in the representation of ‘the internet, the world wide web’ where users login and connect to information and to other users. To represent the net, I have used Dutchman's pipe (Aristolochia spp.) an environmental weed that

For my exhibition in Berlin, I did this little series of 'Africa in red" ... three sold in Berlin ... including the one called Dawn which was worked from a photo I took of a homeless man on Umgeni Road. He sadly didn't seem conscious of me; and allowed me to get right up close to take a photograph of his beautiful body glistening in the sun.

I recently entered a work for the Natal Society of Arts Member's exhibition where the theme this year was "The Naked Truth". In response to this brief, I presented a sculpture which was well received by the community and received an award of merit. Sculpture: app 800 x 1400 Mixed media: fibreglass, resin, plaster of paris The Truth. Naked we leave as naked we arrive. A naked impression of a body lies within the form of an egg, suggesting that what was there has either birthed from this, a womb … or possibly moved to beyond from what was rather its tomb. At birth we are reliant on the womb to provide us a safe haven to nourish our bodies into the world. At death we are reclaimed to the earth. Our own fragility in birth and in death is represented in the foetal position entombed within the egg form symbolizing that we have no power over our own birth or death. We come into this world naked, possessing nothing material … and leave the same way … as and only ourselves.

My favourite colour is Burnt Sienna ... I even named my beautiful Bulmasstiff Sienna. So, you'll most likely see me adding images of works done where this colour is dominant .. I'm addicted to the rich, earthy, hot, transparent warmth of it ... it really is wonderful.