So I’m Jane and honoured to have my fifteen minutes of fame. I was born and lived in Essex until about seventeen years ago. I was the principal of my dance and drama studio in Romford. My husband (Rod) and I made the decision to leave my stilettos and his white socks behind and move to Sunny Suffolk.
We moved to Ipswich, where we lived until we decided a year ago to come to Felixstowe!
Yay! What a decision that was! I couldn’t think of a better place to be locked in a house for 12 weeks!
Living 200 yards from the seafront! Perfect! Until the phone rings at 3am to tell you there’s a flood warning! I cannot tell you how I panicked the first time that happened….Eyeing up the sofa wondering how I would get it up on to the roof, and at the same time being so glad I wasn’t still in those white stilettos! I spent many weeks looking on Amazon for a home build Ark. Needless to say, it was just my camera that was moved to a safe place.
So, photography, I love my camera, I spend hours walking aimlessly with it round my neck, pointing it at various things to take a picture of. My husband always makes a point of locking the bathroom door nowadays!
I know I have a lot to learn, and I never like my own work, but I guess that attitude makes me work harder. I love macro photography, and have a terrible attraction to flies, they have such amazing colour and detail under a good lens.
It’s not so easy at the moment to go out for photos, being allowed out once a day, I take our two little dogs for a walk on the seafront, so can’t manage a camera as well. I had an incident of holding the camera up to my face, and feeling the subtle thud of the warm poo bag gently tapping my cheek. Not to be repeated!
So that’s a bit about me, I could chat for hours! Hope you had a smile.
Tom is an extraordinary pianist who performs at The Orwell Hotel on Friday and Saturday evening, and Sunday lunchtime. He is also available for all types of functions like weddings, birthdays etc.
You can contact Tom through email at: tmetcalfmusic@gmail.com.
For now, enjoy this gorgeous cover of “Titanium” by David Guette and Sia….
Angela Ashford is an incredibly talented artist based in Trimley. She has shown a great passion for helping others – here she is to tell us about the charities she’s worked with and what inspires her work…
Even though I have lived in various places around the world, I was born and brought up in Suffolk. So after all the traveling settled once again in the county I call home, and consider myself a Suffolk girl at heart.
I am mainly a self-taught artist as I never had the luxury of going to university to study art, due to being profoundly dyslexic. This I did not find out until later in life as it was not recognised in the 1960s & 70s as it is today. I am now retired from the NHS where I had worked for the last 10 years and live in Trimley St Mary. It is here and now that I can concentrate fully on art.
I have a heart for sharing my knowledge with others, I am not talking about teaching… I will leave that to those who are professionally trained. But to come along side people and small groups to encourage them to express themselves creatively in art and crafts of various sorts.
Last year I started working with “Insideout,” an Ipswich based charity as one of their artists.
“The charity believes in the power of the creative process to strengthen the spirit.”
It works with people of all ages who live with mental health issues in their lives. Insideout not only offers art and crafts but singing and creative writing as well, different ways in which people are encouraged to express themselves in.
Another small charity I’ve started working with doing much the same as with Insideout and that is “Beam” in Ipswich…. Beam supports mothers whose children have bean adopted and put into care or live elsewhere. It gives them a place they can meet up share and with one another, where there is no judgement, just loving support.
Last autunm my local primary school in Trimley St Mary. They were requiring the help of someone who could help design a large mural for the reception class outside play area, I decided to volunteer. I designed the mural, and together with parents and children, we painted what resembled a giant paint by numbers with all ages joining in to paint the mural. It was such a fun day.
And lastly, I was so delighted last year to be sponsored by Fred Olson to paint an Elmer for the “Elmer’s Big Parade Ipswich,” He was called “Elmer’s Travel Trunk,” and raised £4,400 towards the St Elizabeth Hospice, which is dear to my heart.
In my own work, I normally work in various genres from Portraiture and Prophetic art, (paintings based on biblical truths,) to more recently collages with sea glass and drift wood, as I love beach-combing and try to find ways to show the beauty in what I find on the beach.