Inspiring Women Winter 2017

Inspiration from Italy
ROSEMARY (PARRY) VINE
International Women’s Club of Torino (IWCT), Italy
From: Great Britain
Lives: between Torino, Monaco, London & Madrid
With the premise that I don’t consider mine so
much an inspiring story as the partial fulfilment of
a long-held ambition ….
As a child and young woman I sketched
constantly … drew portraits of friends, annotated
books and illustrated letters with pictures, rather
than words. I’d always thought art would be part
of my life, as did my school, who made plans for
me to go first to Art School, then to university.
Life, however, often gets in the way of intentions
and I married young …. our plan was that I would
work while he went to university, then vice
versa. Instead he went on to do a Ph.D., I
found work at the Bodleian Library in Oxford,
we had children, then changed country and
language … and life in general got in the
way of personal ambition. Which didn’t
mean I ever stopped painting and sketching
and creating, but only when family and work
commitments allowed.
Then came the time when the children were
themselves in university. We changed
countries again, I left my job and started to
learn another language. But this time I sought
something more fulfilling than just another job
and decided on a voyage of discovery. I
enrolled on an Art Foundation course at one
of the London schools - and realized what I’d
been missing.
At the end of the course it was necessary to
choose a road to follow. I decided that,
much as I would have wished it, London was
too expensive and too far from home for me
to continue there, my grasp of the language
in my new home was still rudimentary and I
had a better chance of success if I returned
to where my children had grown up and
where I still had friends.
“Blossom”
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