Jerusalem three years ago. She had spent a year here in the 1970's and formed an attachment to the country which never left, using its images in
pottery
and print. To live in this part of the world has been the greatest privilege
imaginable -the tumult that is Jerusalem, its intensity of climate
and colors and emotions, and the roller coaster of everyday life which swings between elation and despair with little in between. Sketching was
an easy automatic response-translating it into paint far more difficult. A great passion has developed for the Palestinian landscape rapidly
disappearing under urban sprawl, settlements, fast roads and rubbish; for remote villages hanging onto a tenuous existence; and for ancient
buildings built by Crusaders, Mamalukes and Ottomans, the patchwork of fields in valleys; for barren hillsides striped with olive terraces and
for the beautiful, still desert. "It is a country of great beauty. "She exhibited many times in the UK. This is her third exhibition of local paintings,
one held in 1997 at the American Colony Hotel, Jerusalem and one in England earlier this year. "Riwaq [Al Bireh- based Center for Architectural
Conservation] asked if I would like to do some paintings in response to Palestinian landscape and architecture." Visits to remoter parts of the
West Bank emphasized both the richness of the culture and the crisis in their conservation. I have had the opportunity to discover and record
some of these treasures while traveling with members of Riwaq and also with the St. John outreach clinic team which visits outlying villages as
part of their fieldwork. The flour mill at Idna is situated next the building where the eye clinic is held. Perhaps the saddest painting is that of Kur, perched of a hilltop and once a thriving throne village with 5 family palaces-now several of these are in a dangerous state; perhaps the happiest is that of the terrace at Riwaq's villa in Al Bireh where the work of this remarkable organization takes place.