In the Picture: Islay Artist Nicola Stein
Tuesday, January 15 2008
Bowmore artist Nicola Stein was brought up on Arran but left aged ten when her parents took her to Tasmania for five years. They never settled however and the family returned to live in the UK. A degree at Glasgow University studying Russian language and literature followed and developed Nicola?s love of ballet which took her to a dancing school in Dundee and then to?Moscow - the centre of the traditional ballet world. Nicola did not find Moscow an easy place to live however. The sheer size of the place, the press of people, the practical realities involved in travelling hours to teach young Russians English meant that her thoughts?started to wander back to the west coast of Scotland. Her eyes still smile when she speaks of the ballet, the great classical productions, Tchaikovsky, the exhilaration that comes from demanding discipline from every bone, muscle and sinew. There is a slight lift to her voice when she hints at the?deep satisfaction that only athletes understand when pushing themselves through the barriers of physical pain.
Nicola cannot remember when she first started to draw as a child. Doodles developed and eventually burst into life and evolved a very individual style. Working freehand from the centre of the paper with black ink her very Celtic designs are ?usually based on broken symmetry, and convey the intertwining of opposites?. They recall the illumination of ancient scripts, or Gothic architecture stripped of the gloom, misery and gargoyles, reaching instead to the light. Nicola?s designs can be seen at www.nicolastein.com at the Harbour Inn, the Celtic Craft Shop and at the Islay Craft Fairs.
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