Hello, I’m John Dimech

The Early Years

I was born on the fourteenth of May 1950, the firstborn son of Rose and Vincent Dimech. Later I had a brother Joe, and three sisters, Miriam, Margaret and Louise. Primary school was just a stone’s throw away form home, literally across the street. I always loved school, especially the art lessons, and P.E.,  and  have very fond memories of a lot of my friends there. My brother and I still talk about the times my mother used to send us to our local stationers to buy all our school materials before the start of term. We used to get so excited.

From there I went to secondary school, The Technical School at Pawla. I recall the building wasn’t yet completed so five classes, including mine,  had to be transferred somewhere else, and we got put into an old huge Villa-like building that served as a turkish prison four hundred years earlier. It’s a good job we weren’t paranoid!

My Inspiration

When I left school I started working alongside my father, who together with my cousins worked as a jeweller. We made some fine things in that workshop and not just ladies’ and gent’s jewellery but very ornate  iconic sacred ornaments for the various churches in Malta. I’m still filled with pride when Saint Helena is brought out of the church on Festa day in our town of Birkirkara and point to her golden crown and belt and say “my father made that!”

Two of my cousins with whom I worked used to paint large canvases in oils that adorned my uncle’s  grand house and I remember, even as a child being mesmerized by what they could produce when they put brush to canvas. And the smell of turpentine back then does something to inspire me even today when I’m painting. I suppose that’s a major reason why I prefer oils to any other medium. I believe art touches all your senses.

Of course I remember with great fondness my other cousin, their  younger brother Victor, because although he didn’t paint, we shared some lovely times going out with his labrador Ricky, early in the morning before work, ‘hunting’, though we hardly ever caught anything…not with a hundred other ‘hunters’ after  the same few feathers that flew over the Maltese archipelago.

In nineteen seventy I changed my work slightly when I went to work at the ‘Consul for Gold and Silversmiths’ in Valletta which I suppose is the equivalent of the Goldsmith’s  Hall in London and Birmingham. I spent seven years there, and though it was reasonably easy work, I always felt that I have to be creating something to be truly happy with my occupation. So I decided to start working again as a jeweller, this time on my own. I developed my own designs and sold my work to different jewellery shops throughout Malta and Gozo.

Film and Theatre

In the meantime I wanted to do something that was fun and creative and when one Saturday evening I met up with  a few of my friends for a drink I remember evoking  memories of our younger days at the Catholic Action Youth Centre where we formed a theatre group, and how much fun we used to have. Suddenly we were all saying “why don’t we do that again” this time professionally? So we did and we came up with ‘The Entertainers’.

I started writing sketches for the  variety show, and after a sell-out ‘Premiere’ at the Prince theatre in our town we travelled the length and breath of Malta with our company. What beautiful memories we still have whenever I meet those friends now in Malta! On one occasion we entered a competition and I was ‘spotted’ by the founder of the Malta Talent Artists and was asked if I was interested to take part in films. I jumped at the invitation and eventually took part in quite a few films that came to be filmed on the island. My first part was as an extra in thefilm Eyewittness starring Susan george and the boy form Oliver! Mark Lester. (wonder whatever happened to him?) I even had an all action speaking part in a film called ‘Children of rage’ though the film itself is nothing to write home about…but what an experience…I even had my own caravan during filming!

During this period I always found time to pick up a pencil or a brush and , I suppose you would say ‘dabbled’ in art, occasionally selling some paintings through galleries and gift shops in Malta, though I never thought that what was just a hobby back then would take over my life.

My Family

In 1972 I got married and had two children, Debbie and Luke.  In 1983 we came to live in England with the purpose to further my career  which is where my third child, Katy was born.  They are my pride and joy. Debbie always wanted to be a hairdresser, and still is (an excellent one) today. She has three boys now, Jacob, Oliver and Leo. So, yes I’m a grandad…and proud of the fact! Luke was always very physical and although he’s worked  with different banks and insurance firms, loves  Martial Arts. Recently he got his dream fulfilled when he went to live back in Malta and opened up his own gym “Little Dragon”. Katy with  her college years just finished is very interested in drama and acting. She wants to follow in her auntie Louise’s (my sister) footsteps.

I feel I must say something about my family here. First of all my mother, who has always encouraged us so much with her attitude of ‘you can do it if you try hard enough’. and she’s ever so proud of all our achievements. My brother Joe is a very respected newscastor on Television Malta, Malta’s prime TV channel. My sister Miriam sadly died in a car accident in two thousand and four. And my eyes swell up as I write about her,

such a beautiful soul, always wanting to help everyone young and old, whether they were  family, friends or complete strangers! She was the apple of my father’s eye, being his first baby girl. Everyone loved Miriam. May you forever rest in peace my beautiful sister.

Margaret, my second sister has her own business selling lady’s gowns but her passion is singing. From her teenage years she loved performing and has entered (and a few times won)  song contests in Malta and other European  countries. Louise, the youngest, and I share the same birthday though she is fourteen years my junior. She’s married to Mark, a very talented man, and both are professional actors on television.

Becoming ‘The Artist’

It was in England though that I had my ‘big break’ so to speak in becoming a professional artist. I started painting again and one summer I took some of my work to the Bournemouth’s open air summer exhibition and lo and behold I managed to sell quite a few of them. This of course was all the encouragement I needed to really work hard at improving my art. I even ended up organizing and managing the exhition for Bournemouth county council for a few years. I went around exhibiting in various craft fairs all over the area and then one day while visiting Poole Pottery I approached Alan White, master potter and manager of the ‘crafts village’ therein, with some of my work and he gave me a space which I turned into my ‘studio gallery’. It was very successful there and though things changed I still sell quite a number of original work and lots of my limited edition prints and cards I now have in my collection.

 

I also sell original work and prints from many other outlets in and around Dorset where I live. It’s a very beautiful part of England and I love most of all the almost mediterranean feel of the sea around the purbecks. Just ‘up the road’ from us is The New Forest which is also a means of inspiration to me and I never tire of painting the changing seasons thereof. But my favourite has to be Old Harry Rocks. I have painted those rocks more than anything else and from so many different angles, and still I want to paint them again! They are truly inspirational, just like Jurassic monuments rising out of the turquoise water.

I happened to be there last year, one early afternoon on a most glorious day in May. I was once again taking yet more pictures of the rocks (I literally have hundreds) and this couple happened to walk by me and without  even bothering to stop,  he turned to her and said, “ain’t they nice dear?” and continued on their way. It really aggrivates me that some people don’t  appreciate  the world around us enough, how absolutely wonderful and breathtaking some things are…and the only adjective they can come up with when surrounded with such splendour is ‘nice’ as if it was a packet of biscuits they were describing!

I have also been actively doing  more paintings of Malta lately. It’s amazing how much my homeland has changed in so many ways… but stayed exactly the same in many others. A lot of old houses have been renovated and thousands of new ones built but the streets in Valletta have stayed the same on the whole. Those fascinating balconies, one above the other, awesome. Different ships now dock in the Grand Harbour, but it’s still a marvel to behold from Upper Barrakka Gardens. I love painting the harbours of Malta. The light on the Mediterranean water is so beautiful, especially at dawn and dusk, an artist’s dream.

….And Now

Recently I have been enjoying writing. As I mentioned before, I have written scripts when my friends and I had our theatre company. And  I just wanted to see if I could do it again if I tried. So I got in front of my PC and started typing this idea I

had for a play. Two hundred and seventy five pages later I finished it! I am now in the middle of writing various other projects, including an art show for television …so watch this space!

Many times people ask me what’s my biggest inspiration. Well, I could blurt out a number of names. Leonardo Da Vinci is to me one of  the greatest men that ever lived. How could he have done so much in one lifetime? He was truly the ultimate Renaissance man. Painter, designer, architect, inventor, scientist, the list goes on, I mean the Man knew stuff that took the rest of the world hundreds more years to comprehend! What an inspiration.

But, just as important to an artist’s motivation are the people around him. A word of encouragement from one of these can be just as powerful an incentive to an artist as a masterpiece hanging in the National Gallery. I’m lucky to have my partner Ruth, who does that every time I need it… which is every day I face a canvas! Thank you Ruth.

So that’s me, …up to now. I anticipate this page to continue  to grow with every new adventure in art or otherwise that I undertake. I just hope that somehow in some little way I can inspire others to see the world around them with more light, colour and bold brushstrokes and with wider perspective.

John