Born Eleanor Jane Campion, I'm mostly known as Jane, but some people know me as Elle in New Zealand (I had to move over for the international film director Jane Campion). I answer to both readily now so don't be confused.
I follow the sun, crossing the equator around October and April each year, from Wiltshire in the UK, to the Abel Tasman in New Zealand. Shout out here to Climate Stewards
I'm an artist and completing study with the Ignatian Spirituality Course in London, entirely on Zoom. I hold a Masters in Adult Learning (Professional Coaching) and now I am learning to offer the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius. These are an ancient method of spiritual formation which offer an astonishingly contemporary and personal transformation through a sort of pilgrimage or school of prayer and spiritual living.
I'm working on tailoring the Exercises into shorter retreats and pilgrimages in everyday life.
I'm about to submit work for the new international Laudamus Award 2024: A Celebration of Sacred Art. Other highlights recently have included:
Finalist in the Tasman National Art Award, New Zealand (2021)
I have shown work at Purpose Gallery, Mapua, Tasman
I am a professional member of the Nelson Suter Art Society
In England, I have set up my own studio after studying at:
Dulwich Art Group & School
Heatherley School of Fine Art
Royal Drawing School, Shoreditch, London
I grew up in Whanganui, New Zealand, and left for the lights of London 30-plus years ago. I enjoyed a certain success in corporate life as a public relations consultant before launching a second career coaching leaders of transformational change.
In 2020, I returned to New Zealand for a long-planned sabbatical, covering 17,500km.
Newly enchanted by the quality of New Zealand's light and scenery - and encountering something of a spiritual revival there - I was fortunate to be able to choose to make Tasman my home for half of each year.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple tree
Not known because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between the two waves of the sea.
TS Elliot, Four Quartets