As an artist who truly celebrates nature in all its beauty, Marie-Therese King is an certainly one whose
admiration of the studio of William Morris and his group of designers and artists is clear.
William Morris said, ‘Wherever nature works there will be beauty’ and most know this is so true! Marie-Therese feels blessed that it is nature which inspires her so much, it means there is a never ending supply of inspiration and joy all around and as Spring approaches her excitement for new sights, sounds and smells pours into her work.
April is Children and Nature Awareness Month which is a theme of great importance and significance to so many artists including, Marie-Therese. Having touched over 500,000 children with her empowering children’s batik workshops across the country, she feels honoured to see how much children have loved learning about the power of nature in art and have then hopefully helped them discover their own creative identities through these Batik art workshops.
She is constantly observing nature and recording its every exquisite detail and no doubt much of the inspiration for this part of her life came from her childhood. Her mother’s passion for horticulture and her dear late father’s passion as an amateur wildlife photographer, a combination that fused to create her love of nature and art. Growing up with six siblings and a huge garden for their playground it was inevitable that she would be captivated by the beauty of wildlife, birds, butterflies, wild flowers, insects and the need to share her vision through art.
Children are always fascinated by nature, from the robin and wild birds on the bird house they feed every week to the ecology and importance of a bumble bee feeding on a flower or the marbled white butterflies on the meadow flowers and the beauty of the English garden. They become absorbed in how they can translate their visions of nature into their art to share with others, whether this is through the beauty of Batik or indeed the simplicity of paints and crayons at home. The desire to learn about nature and teach others about its absolute importance and value in our lives is so important and creating these giant Batik’s in schools enabled the children to truly create something both beautiful and useful – I think William Morris would definitely approved!
So in this month of raising awareness for nature and its impact on children we would recommend allowing all children to enjoy the freedom of nature and art and if lucky enough to visit an exhibition we might suggest a wonderful exhibition that children will love and soak up even more artistic influences such as Hockney’s ‘Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) exhibition at King’s Cross ‘Lightroom’ on now, and as Hockney said ‘I hope it gives young people some ideas!’ .
