The crazy summer season is now rapidly coming to a close here on the island and therefore we thought it might be a good idea at Ibiza History Culture if we were to freshen up a little and start a new project that will run throughout the tranquil winter period of Ibiza.

What we are going to do is present a new weekly column "Artists on Ibiza" which will feature the life, and work with personal interviews of local artists who spend time here to create their wonderful illusions on the island.

Louise Wright and Emily Kaufman will take it in turn to join and assist José P Ribas to put the words together on each individual artist and I will combine with them to provide the pictures of the lives and works of these talented individuals of Ibiza.

Whoever is going to do the interview that particular week will not have to provide a weekly column of his or her specialist subject. Therefore, if Louise and José are together on an "Artist of Ibiza" story then neither of them will have to submit a personal column of "Local News" or "Island Ecology" for that specific week.

Kirk W Huffman will continue with the excellent writing of his stimulating "An Anthropological View" column and Sinclair Newton will carry on keeping us all amused with his entertaining "Sober Life" weekly yarns.

However, there could be the odd week here and there when Sinclair is here on the island to visit us and he decides to take off alone and do his own personal interviews with certain interesting characters of his choice who choose to be here on Ibiza.

We will also welcome any comments, questions or interesting stories that our readers and subscribers wish to write to us about. There are still one or two e-mails that still have to be answered from recent weeks but we do promise to answer everybody who feels the need to write and enquire about anything whatsoever to do with our unique island of Ibiza.

I sincerely hope that we do not upset too many squeamish people out there with the showing of the "matançes" black and white pictures that are featured this week in Kirk W Huffman's "An Anthropological View" column on the ancient pig killing ritual of Ibiza.

If you were to take the time and read the full series of these interesting articles by Kirk, who describes in such fine detail what this ceremonial activity means to the local people of the island. Perhaps you will then understand that we published these pictures purely for those folk out there who would otherwise be left only with their imagination of this very old custom.

Another new feature to be shown shortly on these weekly pages will be a current photograph of each member of IBIZA HISTORY CULTURE team which consists of Gary Hardy, Emily Kaufman, Sinclair Newton, José P Ribas, Louise Wright, Kirk W Huffman and not forgetting to introduce our genius web master, Antonio Ribas Bamberger.

Inferring: Maybe the "mug shot" of our staff when they are published will frighten some of our readers more then the traditional pictures of the pigs?

Gary Hardy

garyhardy@ibizahistoryculture.com