Category Archives: Cyprus holidays

Let me introduce you to Miriam McConnon, Visual Artist, Paphos, Cyprus

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Let me introduce you to Miriam McConnon, an Irish visual artist based in Paphos, Cyprus.

Miriam McConnon in her studio in Paphos, Cyprus

 

Inspired and Inspiring is how I would describe the narrative art that Miriam produces:  narrative in the sense that each painting tells a particular story in a unique way.

Earlier this year, I went with a friend who is also familiar with Miriam’s work, to meet Miriam in person in her studio in the old town of Paphos.   As chatty and charming in person as she is on Zoom, we enjoy a coffee with her and talk about her art.   I take the photos shown here  during our visit and they are reproduced with Miriam’s permission.

Miriam McConnon in her studio in Paphos

Miriam tells us about her most recent exhibition called: “ Refugee Armour “, in which she paints the stories of individual young male refugees by incorporating images of items they brought with them to Cyprus from their home country, transformed into a painted coat, like a protective coat of armour.  The pattern of each ‘coat of armour’ is specific to each young man’s journey to safety following war.    The notion of Armour is a powerful metaphor.

Not only is Miriam an imaginative artist but she’s also a knowledgeable art history educator.   I benefit from the weekly on-line art history talks that she conducted for two years through the worst of the COVID seclusion.  It was a delight to meet up on line each week with a group of people from different countries who were interested in art history and have the opportunity, with Miriam’s guidance, to explore different artists and art periods.  So I feel I got to know something of Miriam through the medium of Zoom.

Miriam continues to teach but now teaches painting in person in her studio in Paphos.   She balances her lessons with dedicated time to produce her own work as she has an active exhibition program.

An earlier theme that Miriam pursued was painting domestic landscapes.   In the photograph of Miriam above, two paintings of a domestic nature are visible.   One, the series of coats, and the other, a favourite of mine, is her tea-cup painting.   She also rendered this image of multiple tea cups in a large scale drawing.   Tea cups foster such an image of home and comfort.  Each cup is decorated differently to represent a different person and that person’s life.   It’s brilliant!

I have one of her paintings that we bought many years ago of Irish postage stamps.  We bought this before we knew anything about Miriam’s work but the stamp painting resonated with our Irish connections.   The painting is based on a stamp collection of her Mother’s.   It seems so natural of Miriam to bring family history into her paintings in such a reflective way.

Talking about family, Miriam is strongly connected to her family and roots in Ireland where she visits regularly.   She is represented in Dublin by the Olivier Cornet Gallery,  where her work is exhibited.  

In 2022,  in conjunction with the Olivier Corning Gallery, she created a particularly imaginative and compassionate installation called ‘Lost Lace’  in Iveagh Gardens, Dublin.   This installation consisted of 10,000 white roses made by Miriam from white handkerchiefs and arranged by her in the gardens in beautiful lace patterns to symbolize individually a life lost in Ireland and Northern Ireland due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.  This was a collaborative project between Miriam and the poet Jessica Traynor with the participation of the families who lost loved ones to Covid 19.  This unique and imaginative installation demonstrates Miriam’s artistic practice and her creative thought process leading up to the finished installation.    

In Cyprus, Miriam is represented by the Diatopos Gallery in Nicosia.

Her works are in numerous public and private collections internationally.   Her painting, Aaron’s Armour,  is in the collection of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs at the Irish Embassy in Cyprus.   

It’s only in researching Miriam’s extensive artistic background that I fully appreciate the great depth and breadth of the skills and expertise that she brings to communicating to the public social issues and social change through her talented drawing and painting.   I recommend reviewing Miriam’s website to know more about her extensive background.  Isn’t this often the case, that we rarely fully appreciate someone’s skills, knowledge and experience even if we think we know something about them!

Given that I typically write about wine and food,  I ask Miriam which are her favourite Cypriot wineries!   Back comes the quick answer:  Zambartas,  Tsangarides, and Makkas.   She prefers white wine.  I’ve visited and written about Zambartas and Tsangarides wineries and their wines and those earlier posts are added at the end.  However, I am unfamiliar with Makkas;  so a new winery to explore!

The art world is a tough and competitive environment.  I raise a glass of Tsangarides Xynisteri white wine to Miriam and wish her continued success as she digs deep with her inspired painted narratives.

Happy Easter!
Elizabethsvines

References:    Miriam McConnon  www.miriammcconnonart.com

Olivier Cornet Gallery, Dublin     Www.oliviercornetgallery.com

Diatopos Gallery, Nicosia.          Www.diatopos.com

Cyprus Wines: Zambartas Wineries, Agios Amvrosios, Limassol. The stars have aligned…!

Cyprus wines: Tsangarides Winery and a portrait of happiness

Kind gestures and heart warming pleasures: Paphos Fruit and Vegetable Market, Cyprus

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A gift of Cyclamen and Hyacinth

This morning I was given this beautiful bunch of wild flowers; pale pink cyclamen and blue hyacinth with their heady and complementary perfumes – for me an expression of pure  joy in anticipation of Spring.

One of the market stall ladies at the Saturday Paphos fruit and vegetable market presented them to me as I was buying fresh coriander and other greens from her.   She knows I love flowers and regularly buy from her when they are available.  I was very touched by this gesture.

Not surprisingly, my Saturday morning visits to the market are one of my favourite times of the week.   I spread my shopping out so I buy from six or seven different men and women vendors; all very friendly and welcoming as I have been buying from them over the many years of my visits.

The Paphos fruit and vegetable market has had different home spaces over the years and is now situated in a custom built structure in the parking area near the Unesco listed heritage site of the Hammam Baths in the old town.

Apart from the local producers of fruits and vegetables, a cheese maker brings his refrigerated van with goats’ milk Halloumi and Anari cheese from the Akamas area in the agricultural area north west of Paphos where many of the goat and sheep farms are maintained.   Goats’ milk and cheese are very much a local staple, which we enjoy.

The market is full of citrus fruit now as this is the season for oranges and clementines and lemons.  All are juicy and delicious and always a staple in our market shopping.  I can’t help but think of the old nursery rhyme: “Oranges and Lemons say the Bells of St Clemens…” ( words from an old English rhyme with origins in the 17th century or earlier).

Oranges and Lemons – Paphos Fruit and Vegetable market

The Paphos fruit and vegetable market is in many ways one of the vestiges of how life used to be.  It’s a bit like seeing the small herd of goats that is kept in a nearby roadside area and are driven by the goat herd up into the hills each morning and returned late afternoon.    We used to see many goat herds in the area in years gone by but rarely see them as house building is gradually overtaking the agricultural areas near the coast.   Even this small herd near us is carefully guarded by the goatherd and kept largely out of sight.   He would resent any attempt to photograph them.   I completely understand this.

My concern for the future of the market is that all the stall holders are middle aged and we’ve all been getting older together.  I rarely see the next generation there.   I don’t think the young people see this in their future.

The current market location is a perfect spot as apart from being on the edge of the immediate parking area, the elevator to the street level is there and one ascends to the plaza area of Cafe Nero, which has to have one of the best views out to sea in Paphos.

Looking down at the Fruit and Vegetable market at the edge of the parking area. The beautiful blue of the Mediterranean in the background
Cafe Nero in the old town Paphos
The Cafe Nero plaza
One of my favourite sculptures in Paphos

From my earliest travels as a child with my family, my parents always sought out the local markets and continuing this practice is an enduring habit.

This is how we spend the first couple of hours of a Saturday morning in Cyprus: market stall shopping for ‘garden/field/orchard to market fresh produce’ followed by a coffee overlooking the sea – one of life’s small but heart warming pleasures!

Elizabethsvines

Food and wine in Cyprus – getting creative with Halloumi and Tomato marmelade with Xynisteri

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A recent visit to Nicosia and dinner with friends at a favourite restaurant introduces us to a different way of serving halloumi cheese, which I really like and want to try making myself.      Attempting to replicate interesting dishes is a favourite kitchen pastime!!

Halloumi is a particular Cypriot cheese made from sheep and goat milk.  It has been produced by Cypriots for many centuries and is an important part of Cypriot culture and diet.   It is semi-hard with a rubbery texture and a distinct salty flavour.  It is a popular choice  for many dishes as an alternative to traditional cheese due to its high melting point.   As mentioned, it’s quite salty and usually served fried with slices of lemon.  Delicious in its own way, I am ready to try a different style of serving halloumi.

I buy fresh halloumi from a farmer in the Paphos fruit and vegetable market and am always happy with her cheese.

The Nicosian restaurant, Beba, serves halloumi in a different way:  halloumi baked on a tomate base.   The server told me the base was tomato marmelade;  tomatoes with various ingredients reduced to a marmelade consistency.

Part of the fun of my kitchen pastime is searching the internet for suitable, approximate recipes that I play with a bit, depending on the situation.   In this way,  I found a tomato marmelade recipe that I modified, particularly by reducing the sugar and replacing that ingredient with stevia.

Together with the tomatoes, the following ingredients of olive oil, onion, garlic, sweet red peppers, ground cloves, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, balsamic vinegar all find their way into the pot.   During the one hour simmering phase, I add some water so it doesn’t get too think.   After cooling, this is puréed into a smooth marmelade consistency rather than a ‘chunky’ marmelade.

Sliced halloumi on tomato marmelade ready to go in the oven
Baked halloumi with Tomato marmelade

To replicate the baked halloumi dish we had enjoyed, I spread tomato marmelade onto a glass cooking plate and add the halloumi on top, sliced horizontally rather than the typical vertical slices.

 

This goes into a hot oven for 20 minutes and is served with a salad of lettuce and cucumbers.  Because of the high melting point of halloumi, it retains its shape and softens rather than melting.

Choosing an appropriate wine is part of the pleasure and definitely choosing a Cypriot wine is important to me for this quintessentially Cypriot dish.   Given the saltiness of the halloumi cheese, and following typical wine pairing convention,  a wine with some acidity seems right and so we open a chilled bottle of Xynisteri, a white wine from Andreas Tsalapatis, a wine maker in Polemi, a village in the hills about 30 minutes from Paphos.  It is a successful match with enough acidity to balance the saltiness in the halloumi but soft at the same time with flavours of citrus and stone fruit and a whisper  of nuttiness at the end.

Tsalapatis Winery, 100% Xynisteri 12.5% VOL

Xynisteri is the main indigenous white-wine variety of Cyprus.  It is used to make light, refreshing white wines.   Xynisteri wine is typically produced as a single varietal wine and for sake of comparison is similar to  Sauvignon Blanc.

Applause at the dinner table is music to my ears as we enjoy the results of this kitchen experiment, inspired by the restaurant Beba in Nicosia.

References:    Tomato Marmelade  – myrecipes.com as inspiration
Wine:  Tsalapatis Winery, Rigena 100% 12.5 VOL Xynisteri

Inspired by Restaurant:                       Beba Restaurant,   ΜΠΕΜΠΑ, Nicosia

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrations of Easter and mosaic artisan skills!

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In a brief digression from my usual wine related writing, I would like to wish my readers a Happy Easter, a time to celebrate renewal, wherever you may live.

In line with celebrations, this is a good time to celebrate the wonderful mosaic art of our friend Sharen Taylor, whose studio is in Paphos, Cyprus, where I visited Sharen.  Apart from her professional background as a conservationist and the work she has done with respect to archeological projects in the area, Sharen is a talented mosaic artist who is passionate about introducing others, including children,  to this form of art and culture through her customized workshops and her commissioned work.

Sharen Taylor, Mosaic Artist.
Childrens’ Community Project : Architectural Mosaic Map; Sharen Taylor Mosaics.

By participating in Sharen’s workshops, Its possible to can get a personal appreciation of the skills used by the Greek and Roman artisans who, over a thousand years ago, created the exquisite mosaics in the buildings and excavations at the Paphos Archeological Park.   I found my amateur mosaic making experience a walk in history, with admiration for the incredibly subtle work of those past artisans.

Wishing you a happy and peaceful Easter time,

My hand painted Easter hat!

elizabethsvines

References

Sharen Taylor:  sharentaylormosaics on Facebook.