John was selected Rhodes Scholar for British Columbia in 1967 and chose Hertford College because John Donne had once been a student there in the 1580s.
Subsequently he enrolled at the Victoria College of Art. John is the Poet Laureate of Lady Smith on Vancouver Island where he farms 100 acres for hay and quince. John's publications include translations from Latin and Greek of Sappho, Juvenal, Horatius, and the bestselling De Re Coquinaria of Apicius. Recent books of poetry and art are featured in the Scholars' Library. They reflect the beauty of the pastoral landscape he shares with wife Gillian, and all the plants and animals of the country year.
The seven sketches which accompany "Spring Abstract" were inspired by the style of "Gerard's Herbal" , a book to which Shakespeare appears often to allude.
“I am a landscape artist and my paintings always begin with line drawings. The subjects are chosen from our farm which contains upland forest, hay fields, quince orchards, and streams which descend into lowland ponds. It is an ever-changing landscape depending upon the season. The plants in these sketches represent rebirth after winter snows have fled, metaphors for the transcendence of nature in contrast to the perils faced by humanity. To me the transcendental beauty expressed by a simple flower, a daffodil or a rose, can only be attempted, never equalled, by a human hand."