Art for Christmas

NORTH-East artist Sarah Jane Szikora’s trademark gingerbread men are having a special outing for the festive season on calendars and Christmas cards. As well as being cute, they’re good-hearted little chaps too, and a donation will be made to the Alzheimer’s society with every sale.

“As a co-carer for my mother, I have been profoundly affected by how much this disease changes lives,” says Sarah-Jane. “Everyone is, or will be affected by dementia at some point through their life and we need to be increasing the funding into research now and looking seriously at the quality of care sufferers receive.”

Sarah-Jane has been drawing since the age of four, even though she was in hospital following eye surgery. She had problems with her eyesight and back in the Seventies was operated on to correct a squint, but it didn’t work. More operations followed in her teens.

“I’m still blind as a bat. It’s a very poor choice of career for someone with my eyesight. It might be a contribution to the distortion in my art work,” she says. “I have to work with a magnifying glass for the very tiny detail. I have to work on quite a big scale now, just for comfort, just on a physical level.”

She became an artist because: “I can’t do anything else. There was never anything else on the horizon. I hated school. I just left and went to art college. Dead simple, really.”

Born in Bishop Auckland, Sarah-Jane spent ten years growing up in Darlington before moving to Richmond. She’s now living and painting her trademark fat and thin figures in Gateshead.

She has strong views of what constitutes art, mentioning seeing a piece at Tate Modern consisting of ring stains from the bottom of a coffee cup on a piece of paper. “What’s that got to do with art? Don’t get me started…”

Her art, distorted and exaggerated as it might seem, is drawn from real life. She’s always been interested in the figure and human behaviour, being someone who can sit in a train station for hours and watch people. She supposes she has an overactive imagination as well.

Much of her work is autobiographical and the gingerbread man made his debut after she broke up with her partner. “I was single and living on my own and hated all men. I did a painting of a fat lady cuddling a big gingerbread man and called it The Perfect Man.”

Food, whether gingerbread men or jelly babies, often features in her art, a legacy, perhaps, of suffering from bulimia in her early 20s. “Because I was in the grip of an eating disorder I’m sure that contributed to the scale of the figures and everything. But I had treatment, moved on and haven’t really looked back,” she says.

Her dream is to own her own art gallery – “a pink palace filled with jelly babies and gingerbread men” – but doesn’t expect to be welcomed with open arms by the establishment. “My artwork, I like to think, is accessible. The art elite is never going to accept artists like me, but I don’t care because people, real people, like my work.”

■ The calendars are £10.50, cards £5.50 for 12, including p&p, from sarahjaneszikora.com

Roaming reindeer

MARY Ann Rogers, one of the UK’s most popular wildlife artists, is well known for her original watercolours of the birds, wildlife and farm animals found in the hills and valleys of her native Northumberland.

And this Christmas her awareness of animal behaviour is apparent in an exciting new series of paintings of the Cairngorm Reindeer.

Mary Ann spent a week watching, handling, drawing and photographing the UK’s only herd of reindeer at the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre.

Her paintings will also adorn bags, cushion, mugs, aprons and calendars.

Mary Ann was winner of the Best Selling Published Artist 2009 and is often hailed as the top living female artist in print.

■ There will be two special festive open weekends at Mary Ann’s studio on Saturday and Sunday and on December 4 and 5 at Leam Studio, West Woodburn, NE48 2SE.

Along with a welcoming glass of mulled wine and a mince pie, there will be paintings, cards and gifts and as well as chocolate, jewellery, cupcakes, knitted items and slate bird feeders on sale.

marogers.com

It’s a Royle wrap

PERSONALISED Christmas stockings, bathrobes and bath towels by North-East businesswoman Claire Royle make lovely presents for young and old. And gorgeous embroidered present bags are ideal to wrap them in. Personalised bath towels, appliqued in a choice of gingham or vintage- style fabrics are £28. Personalised hooded bathrobes are £32.

claireroyle.co.uk