Wednesday 3 August 2011

With Love From the Sketchbook of Lucy

Lucy Helene Caine nee Firmin





Lucy Helene Firmin is my great grandmother. My hero and one brave lady! She comes from Greater London but lived in France and travelled back and forth from Southampton to the coast of South Africa. Along her travels she sketched and painted in true Victorian style and I am lucky enough to have in my possession one of her sketchbooks which dates from 1901 to 1935...perhaps there is an Artistic gene?

Painted in July 1886
















2 comments:

John Salmon said...

Are these from the sketchbook Samantha? If so, what a treasure to have. They are beautiful. It's funny that you also paint botanicals and have a passion for tiny living things too. I am particularly impressed by the lady with the parasol, it is so 1930's in the fashion sense and they are all so delicately painted.

I've a theory that memories can be carried down the line genetically. That may explain deja vu. Compound that with your great grandmother's artistic gene and that may explain why you paint what you do too.

I don't think I have any such genetic history that I know of. My grandmother was a street singer and my grandfather was a cabinet maker and had a metal plate in his head after being shot in the first world war. They all lived in Ponders End. It may explain why I am like I am :o)

I have a small mountain of sketchbooks. It would be great to think someone could be discussing those in the distant future. They are pretty bizarre though.

Samantha Anne Hutchinson said...

Yes I do have the sketchbook, its my treasure! Some of the brush strokes are so tiny and delicate and I need a magnifying glass to read her minute print.
I am also now working on sketchbooks of my own, also quite bizarre at times but to think that maybe someday my great grandchildren will get a kick out of them is a good, happy thought.
A street singer! That is just awesome, wow!...well there is the musical gene then? I think that is so cool! :)