Story:

Nina Jannesson found love in Spain, only it was not the love she expected.

The Camino de Santiago pilgrimage is a journey through north-western Spain finishing at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compestela.  It is walked by tens of thousands of people every year.  The reasons they make the pilgrimage are their own, be they spiritual or otherwise.  Every person's pilgrimage belongs to them, and what they receive from the experience is as individual as the person taking the journey.

Nina Jannesson ventured south on what was supposed to be different journey; a quest that has afflicted men and women for centuries - a quest for love. She left her native Malmö and headed for Spain in pursuit of a man who had captured her heart.  The love that men give can be fickle, however, and so it was for Nina. But where her heart should have been broken, it was not.  It was opened up to receive a much greater gift.

Where there should have been pain, instead there was the Camino de Santiago.

Nina took up her staff and walked and on that journey she found a love that many of us deny.  One of the rare gifts offered by the Camino de Santiago is that it makes you rely on the generosity of others.  It allows you to see the value that strangers can place on helping their fellow man.  

In seeing herself through these strangers' eyes, what Nina found on her Camino de Santiago was the acceptance of, a thankfulness for, and the ultimately the love for her own existence on this planet.

The inspiration Nina received on this pilgrimage now finds life in her works of art. She paints with a fierce self-belief, as if the brush is connected directly to her heart.  Her broad, colourful strokes reflect her transformation, bringing life, motion and energy to every canvas.

Her first painting was of a blue spoon, giving rise to the name Blue Spoon Art. The spoon blends the ingredients of our lives.  It feeds us.  It nourishes.  Blue is for the water that surrounds us and for the skies that unite us all.

Just as every pilgrimage is a story unto itself, so are Nina's paintings.  Each painting is a reflection on an event, a thought, an inspiration.  From the fires of Galacia at the end of the Camino, to the Serendipity found in the arrival of a friend.  

In Nina's art, Life's occasions are interpreted and given wings to brighten the world of another.  From her heart to yours, Nina's paintings are a gift of life.  

Author Steven Wade