Couple share artistic life (From Stroud News and Journal)

Couple share artistic life

STROUD has become known over the last few decades as the home of creative artists. The town and surrounding areas boast a rich talent of people.

Many artists flock here to live alongside like-minded people and draw their inspiration from the area but few are as prolific, nor have contributed so much to the town, as Marianne and David John, of Bisley Old Road.

The couple, have both produced pieces that have been displayed in locations across the world and they both revel in the liveliness of the Five Valleys art scene.

Rachel Pegg went along to their studios to find out what brought them to this corner of the world.

MARIANNE, a painter, has created pictures for clients as far away as Kenya.

Her work, which now mostly consists of brightly coloured abstract paintings, has been exhibited in America, Germany and Switzerland.

Her husband David is a sculptor whose past projects have included pieces for Winchester and Liverpool Cathedrals and St George's, Southwark.

He was also commissioned to design a work for the cathedral in the city of Salisbury, Rhodesia.

At the time he was told his original idea was too African and needed to be more traditionally European Christian.

The city is now known as Harare, capital of Zimbabwe, a former British colony that won its independence in 1980.

Marianne and David came to Stroud nearly 15 years ago.

They moved from Berkshire, where they had brought up their six children.

Marianne had fallen in love with the area while visiting a friend in Nailsworth.

She said: "What we didn't know then was that Stroud is packed with artists.

"One of the best things about the town is the liveliness of its art scene."

"It's wonderful."

For the past three years, the Johns have opened up their home as part of the month-long Open Studios festival in June.

During the festival, artists all over the district allow members of the public into their workshops, in an effort to break down barriers between those creating art and those enjoying its products.

This year 95 studios were involved.

Marianne said: "It is interesting to take part in the festival, though it can be exhausting talking to so many people.

"Some just want to see what the inside of the house is like. "Others come along because they are intrigued by what artists do.

"Last time was fantastic because we saw lots of our neighbours who we hadn't met before.

"This is a great area. It's like a little village."

One positive effect of Open Studios, she said, was that it brings together separate groups of artists, who did not mix with each other six years ago.

Marianne was born in east Germany but left at the age of eight, before the war.

The granddaughter of a Jew, she and her two sisters were sent to boarding school in Scotland. She now says she feels entirely British.

Her mother, a sculptor, stayed in Holland to look after her own parents, who had been smuggled over the border but could not come to Britain because it would not accept elderly refugees.

Marianne trained as an artist in Liverpool, St Martin's School of Art, London and the Institute of Education, London University. She met her husband-to-be at the age of 20.

David, then 23, was born in the West Indies and studied at Birmingham College of Art and Wimbledon School of Sculpture.

He had studied painting in Birmingham, but by 23 was sculpting in stone.

He met Marianne the summer after he finished college.

David said: "I was already carving stone sculptures in my bedroom. "Mother wasn't pleased.

"My first workshop was in a stables, where I had to work surrounded by horses. "The next was in a chicken coop."

Within a year, Marianne and David married in Liverpool.

They spent seven years in a cottage in Berkshire, near Newbury, where five of their six children were born.

David remembered: "We lived in a tiny, 18th century cottage. "The ceilings were so low that our doctor, who was more than six feet tall, couldn't stand up properly.

"And one time the roof leaked and the wall paper on the ceiling swelled up like a balloon. "Our children still go back to see the house.

"It's nice that they have a happy picture of our beginnings."

The family spent 26 years living near Reading and have 12 grandchildren.

Their children inherited their creative talent and include an illustrator, a jewellery maker, an embroiderer and a graphic designer.

Their youngest son, who died from cancer 18 months ago, had recently become a furniture maker.

The couple have a particularly strong bond because they share the artistic experience - something which they said can make them feel lonely at times.

They often visit each other's studios to talk during the day.

Marianne said: "You can still feel isolated, but not as lonely as if you were on your own.

"Art is a lone experience and, as an artist, you're like a spider - you have to pull the work out of yourself, no-one else can do it for you."

Marianne also writes poetry and has been published in local collections. Before moving to Stroud, she worked as an editor for The British Council.

Now she attends poetry workshops at the University of the Third Age, in a local group for people over 50.

She said: "There are so many people with tremendous skills and abilities. "It seems a shame to waste them when they retire."

David's latest commissions include pieces for Leeds's prison chapel and a stainless steel jubilee sculpture for a Cheltenham park.