Celebs and Culture – May 2011

Congratulations to gifted Adelaide naive artist, Marie Jonsson-Harrison, whose work will be shown at the prestigious 4^th World Festival of Art Naif Katowice (Naive Art Exhibition) in Poland.

Marie and husband Bryan were invited to attend the prestigious event in the SZYB WILSON Gallery in the Katowice region of Poland on Friday, June 17, but were unable to attend because of house renovations.

She has submitted three artworks – Snax Attack at Hungry Jack’s, a handmade ceramic and mosaic; Hide and Seek and La de da Shangrila, both acrylic on board.

Artists must be invited to submit works and it has become the most important rendez-vous of all Niave artists in the world.

In all 2000sqm of space will be available in the SZYB Wilson Gallery and each artist has 2.5 metres of space. The exhibition will open on Friday, June 17 until Sunday August 14, 2011 and is organised by FIVAN, a French non-profit association and the SZYB Wilson Gallery. It is designed to promote naïve art and to sell paintings in a festive atmosphere.

Marie is an award-winning naïve artist, whose works feature regularly in Russell Starke’s Greenhill Galleries as well as selected regional galleries- and continuing to supply Japan and America. Her former home-town of Balaklava is decorated with her artworks at the entry to the town, outside the library and on park benches.

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Take a pew at popular Lucia’s Pizza and Restaurant in the western mall of the Adelaide Centre Market and Adelaide’s beautiful people are bound to pass or call in.

And on Tuesday, ever-gracious Lady Hardy, (once top model Joan McInnes) took a seat, ordered spaghetti (as one does) and sipped red wine while reading The Advertiser.

The stylish wife of Sir James, wine icon and former Olympian returns from Sydney to live in Adelaide for some months each year and says she remains a South Australian soul.

I have interviewed Lady Hardy through the years – when she turned 50 when we talked about the pros and cons of HRT and again when she turned 60, she and Sir James were the cover story for the Looking Forward supplement.

This week at Lucia’s, she happily confides that she is now 65 (and looks 15 years younger) and in a catch-up conversation she says she does not bother with Facebook.

“I have many friends that I care about and I spend my energies on them. I don’t need Facebook to clutter my life,’’ she says.

Lady Hardy, who likes people she knows to call her Joan, should bottle her secret for how to age successfully. Not only has she remained glamorous, but she looks the picture of health and contentment, bubbling about her artistic project, which remains under wraps for the moment. (Journalists must keep confidentialities.)

Another high profile South Australian, viticulturist Prue Henschke from the famous Barossa Valley Henschke’s wine label, has won the environment category at the InStyle and Audi Women of Style presentations in Sydney this week (May 11).

She has restored the landscape at her property and is working towards organic certification.

“Prue’s methods and dedication to creating a better environment make her a true ambassador of style,’’ said InStyle editor Kerrie McCallum.

It seems only yesterday that Prue invited me to be her guest at the 25^th anniversary of Women in Wine. Along with other women winemakers, she hosted a table of 9 women and we shared a Henschke’s Hill of Grace red wine from the family’s museum collection. I cannot remember the grape variety, but I remember thinking at the time it was the smoothest, most delightful red I had tasted.

On quite another bent, it’s hard to feel sympathy for former Royal Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson who says she was hurt when she was snubbed for the recent Royal Wedding of Catherine Middleton and Prince William.

Of her list of misdemeanors over the years, the most embarrassing for the Royal Family happened only last year when she offered an undercover reporter access to her ex-husband Andrew, Duke of York, for a $750,000 fee.

She told Oprah Winfrey on her US television chat show that “It was difficult’’ to cope with not being invited. But she added that Prince Andrew, who accompanied their daughters, Beatrice, 22, and Eugenie, 21 to the wedding, kept her linked by talking to her on the telephone that day.

“I wanted to be there with my girls and to be getting them dressed and to go as a family,’’ said the 51-year-old.

“And it was also hard because the last bride up that aisle was me.’’ (She married at the Abbey in 1986 and was in Thailand when the wedding took place.)

However, she also was philosophical and took responsibility when she said: “I felt that I ostracised myself by my behaviour, by the past, by living with all the regrets of my mistakes.’’

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