JANICE writes and paints
  • INTRO to Janice Dempsey's Personal Site
  • Jan Windle's journal 2005-2007
  • Jan's Journal Italy 2008
  • THEATRE REVIEWS
  • Book Reviews
  • Abstract Paintings
  • Italy
  • Paintings in Progress 2007
  • Various subjects
  • FIGURE STUDIES
  • VERY SMALL PAINTINGS
  • Poems
  • Contact
  • Everything Else
  • INTRO to Janice Dempsey's Personal Site
  • Jan Windle's journal 2005-2007
  • Jan's Journal Italy 2008
  • THEATRE REVIEWS
  • Book Reviews
  • Abstract Paintings
  • Italy
  • Paintings in Progress 2007
  • Various subjects
  • FIGURE STUDIES
  • VERY SMALL PAINTINGS
  • Poems
  • Contact
  • Everything Else
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Loving the life I live.... a personal record​


PAINTINGS & POEMS
ABSTRACTS & SEMI ABSTRACTS
SOME PAINTINGS OF ITALY
VERY SMALL PAINTINGS
FIGURE STUDIES
VARIOUS SUBJECTS
Recent poetry on video
Picture
Photo by Eddie Chauncey 
BLASTS FROM THE PAST
JAN'S JOURNAL, ITALY 2005 – 2007
JAN'S JOURNAL, ITALY 2008
TWO POSITANO PAINTINGS FROM START TO FINISH (2007)
A FEW REVIEWS of books & theatre
THEATRE REVIEWS
BOOK REVIEWS
EVERYTHING ELSE
EVERYTHING ELSE
I trained as a fine artist at the Central School of Art in London (UK) and earned a living for over thirty years as an art teacher in secondary schools, with a break of 9 years in the 1980's when I went abroad to Brunei and Bangladesh as an expat wife, then became a mother. 

When I retired from teaching, I continued to paint and also became interested in writing blogs and poetry.  As Jan Windle, for three years after separating from my then husband, I went to southern Italy as often as I could, drawing and painting in Sorrento and on the Amalfi Coast. 

In the summer of 2006 I painted and sold my pictures in Positano and in 2007 drove north to explore Tuscany, Umbria, Rimini and the area around Ravenna.  
As a memoir for myself of my visits to Italy, I've added pages from a now defunct blog to this site, part of a journal I wrote as Jan Windle in 2006–8. (Links in 'BLASTS FROM THE PAST' above)

In 2008, meeting Dónall Dempsey, the poet and spoken word performer, changed my life again.  We
married in 2016.  We are a strong, loving partnership, publishing poetry pamphlets and collections and hosting monthly spoken word events and book launches, mostly online since the pandemic in 2019.

​Our publishing website is dempseyandwindle.com. Between 2016 and 2023 we've published well over 100 books by more than 100 poets, and organised ten poetry competitions.  We're now publishing under a new imprint: VOLE Books.


Still publishing books of poetry by others, and running at least one poetry competition annually, we're reducing the number of publications we take on each year, so that I can enjoy the other things that I love to do: spending time with Dónall; drawing and painting; growing vegetables and flowers in our small garden; reading; writing my own poems and with Dónall publishing our weekly newsletter about poetry and poets, and writing reviews of local theatre in Guildford.  And, of course, updating our websites.
  • What is this site for?
This site is a personal indulgence, a record of what has occupied my time and energy since I retired from my career as a full-time art teacher in England. The material that I post on these pages is a record of some of the experiences that make me grateful I've lived through the second half of the twentieth century CE and am still alive a quarter of the way though the twenty-first, despite the global anxieties of climate change, humanitarian crises, global inequality , wars and atrocities of all kinds.  To put it simply, I feel lucky. 
  • There may occasionally be poems by me.
  • What will not appear on this site?
There will be no Paypal buttons or shopping carts. This is not a selling site. I have a commercial site called dempseyandwindle.com where books and publishing opportunities are available. The paintings on " janice-dempsey.com" are not offered for sale. I post them only so that I can remember making them and others can look and share them with me, if they choose. The reviews I publish here have been published elsewhere and have served to encourage audiences and readers to enjoy plays and books that I've enjoyed.
  • There will be no articles on politics.  Politics are important to me but this is not a place where I shall discuss them.
Janice Dempsey 
28th July 2023


Janice Windle's official website

Janice Dempsey
  • INTRO to Janice Dempsey's Personal Site
  • Jan Windle's journal 2005-2007
  • Jan's Journal Italy 2008
  • THEATRE REVIEWS
  • Book Reviews
  • Abstract Paintings
  • Italy
  • Paintings in Progress 2007
  • Various subjects
  • FIGURE STUDIES
  • VERY SMALL PAINTINGS
  • Poems
  • Contact
  • Everything Else