Art & Leisure

Rising young artist Andy Ballentine is marking his 10th year as a professional artist with what he said will be his "most varied and best ever" exhibition at the Red Bones Blues Café Gallery from September 23 to October 7.

GRIEF IS a natural response to loss. Sometimes it may feel as if the sadness will never let up. While these feelings can be frightening and overwhelming, they are normal reactions to loss. Grace Kelly, chair of the Department of Behavioural Sciences at Northern Caribbean University and president of the Jamaica Association of Guidance Counsellors in Education, has sought to assist persons experiencing grief with healthy ways to cope, with her book, Grieve If You Must.

Sandra Novack has focused all the stories in her first published collection on family members, couples, friends and acquaintances who are figuring out their relationships and reconsidering the emotional assumptions and in turn the human connections they have come to rely on.

HE WAS praised by 'Mr Nasty' himself for doing something positive with his life. But Simon Cowell's warm words are ringing a little hollow after 18-year-old Reece Davis-James was arrested for stealing a £150 stereo during the recent UK riots.

Last Monday afternoon Ambassador Evadney Coye, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, briefly mulled how to get 20 copies of So Much Things to Say: 100 Poets From the First 10 Years of the Calabash International Literary Festival out to Jamaica's diplomatic missions worldwide.

Five years after her death on July 26, 2006, in Toronto, Canada, there is no diminishing of respect for the Hon Louise Bennett-Coverley within literary and theatre circles. The late Miss Lou's birthday was on Wednesday, September 7.

Michael Dieffenbach returned to school recently to listen to teachers explain what would be expected during the term. It was his last first day of high school. Senior year. Top of the heap.

Louise Bennett-Coverly's former house in Gordon Town is a major attraction when celebrations of her life are held in Gordon Town, St Andrew. Two years ago, The Sunday Gleaner visited the residence still widely considered 'Miss Lou's house' and got the tour from owner Janet Mignott.

THE THREE artists vying for the 2011 Jury and Public prizes in the Super Plus Under-40 Artist of the Year Competition are: Cosmo Whyte (photography), O'Neil Lawrence (photography) and Duane Bennett (jewellery).

IN A painfully revealing narrative that could have otherwise been titled 'The Courage to Succeed', Dr Jennifer Keane Dawes narrates a sobering autobiographical story of her struggle as a new divorcee with a three-year-old son going to the United States to pursue graduate course work at Howard University.

Although only a second-form student at Glenmuir High School in Clarendon, Ebony Lewis already has four Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) passes.