THIS springtime might be called a ‘silent spring’ – with apologies to the late Rachel Carson – in Jersey, as elsewhere, as at the time of writing we take the very first tentative and uncertain steps towards coming out of ‘lockdown’. But spring is happening nonetheless and so we show a springtime painting of sheep in a Jersey field by Anna Le Moine Gray.
Anna spent much of her life in Jersey but has now moved to the wild west coast of Brittany where, with her husband, Philip, she has been restoring an old ruined farmhouse.
Five years ago, she sent us this image of a painting for inclusion in RURAL magazine.: Les Trois Moutons. She wrote:
‘Seeing a field with sheep takes you back in time. It is a feeling akin to opening a medieval Book of Hours. There is a permanence emerging from this fleeting vision of a new born lamb surrounded by hawthorn bloom. Jersey is now one of the rare places where you can still find small meadows with old hedgerows…they have, for me, an irresistible appeal and I hope that my paintings will carry the joy I find in witnessing such scenes.’
