Connie Lindqvist's Work Connie has left behind a wealth of wonderful water colours and pen and ink drawings. Most of Rye's Own 2002 covers were extracts from water colours prepared for Connie's forthcoming book Rye's Maritime Heritage which Academic Inn Books will be publishing in 'coffee table' format for Christmas 2004. Connie worked steadily on the illustrations between 1998 and 2002 basing her work on the pen and ink drawings she prepared as illustrations for John Seymour's Rye from the Water's Edge. Copies of Rye from the Water's Edge can be ordered from Martello Bookshop, 26 High Street, Rye TN31 7JJ (Tel: 01797 222242).
Many of the Rye's Maritime Heritage paintings went on display at Connie's exhibition in the Rye Treasury during Rye Festival 2000. Signed limited edition fine art quality reproductions of the 32 water colour illustrations from Rye's Maritime Heritage are available from David Sharp Ceramics, 55 The Mint, Rye TN31 7EN. (Tel: 01797 226220).
Connie was also continuing her collaboration with John Seymour, author of The Complete Book of Self Sufficiency. Seymours Seamarks was published in 1997 and is available (while stocks last) from the publisher, Academic Inn Books, P.O.Box 36, Rye, TN31 7ZE (Tel/Fax: 01797 226397). The next book of John Seymour's verse illustrated by Connie, Animals Talk Back, is scheduled for publication in 2004. The first six of the 24 poems...earthworms, hens, sheep, cows, geese and fly...were set on the mythical Animals Farm and were finished just shortly before Connie died. The Animals Farm illustrations have been attracting a lot of interest on the web over the past year.
Ten years ago Connie produced a series of twelve pen and ink drawings to illustrate a Christmas play 'for children of all ages' written by John Papworth for his children one Christmas during his time in Zambia as Personal Assistant to President Kenneth Kaunda. The Quest For Father Christmas was discovered many years later when John was turning out his attic in St. John's Wood. It was scheduled to come off the backburner for Christmas 2003.
Connie was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London in 1997. She was also the owner and skipper of a 70-year old classic gaff cutter. The Linnaeus Gotland Journey project was designed to combine her nautical experience with her unique talents as both a botanical artist and a maritime artist. Early project feasibility studies took place in the Baltic in the summer of 1998. During 2003 moves were to be made to secure the support of both the Swedish and British Linnaeus societies for our approach to Svenska Litteratursällskapet for project funding. Connie was looking to collaborate on the project with the writer William Shepherd but was being encouraged to follow in the footsteps of the Swedish painter Carl Larsson and write her own manuscripts.
In 1993 Connie worked closely with William Shepherd to produce 256 pen and ink illustrations for The Private Papers of Crocodile Uppsala. In 2003 work was to start on the creation of the Crocodile Uppsala World as a web-based internet project that would include several series of CrocUpp Tales, the Voyages of Crocodile Uppsala and quite a bit else besides.