12 months in the making; mineral pigments, home-made milk paint, upcycled wrapping paper, crushed egg-shell, re-purposed recycled cotton rag paper and milk glue. I didn’t know when I started this piece 12 months ago that it was going to be an underwater scene, let alone that it’d have pride of place in my toddler son…
I have always been a summer girl. I love that season the most. You see, for nigh on 10 months of the year, I’m chilly: layers of thermal vests and wool are my fondest friends. I wear a hat from November to February. The long, cold months seem to go on endlessly. Thankfully, just when…
In the mornings, I look after my 2-year-old son, Gabriel. Almost every day we go out. Mostly, we walk the 10 minutes it takes to get to the sea front in Newlyn; the play park is there. Last week, walking home, I saw the decaying flower head of a hydrangea on the floor. I am…
Treading lightly on the earth is very important to me. And that philosophy is at the centre of my creative practice. I have striven hard to find materials that have minimal impact on the environment. My paints are natural pigments, I use a milk-based binder and mix the paint myself. I use clay palettes, have…
I’ve never been good with disappointment. Like most of us, I’ve had both big and small disappointments in my life. The one where I spent months working on a coaching program and no-one signed up. The one where we bought a ridiculously expensive beef joint for Christmas and I burnt our special meal. The one…
If there’s one emotion that’s been coming out in my paintings recently, it’s joy. I’ve felt it as I dance in front of the easel, as I wiggle inside at the thought of a bit of pink next to that green, as I flick paint from brushes or wildly daub fingerprints of my natural paint…
The last 20 years of my life – from the moment I decided to step away from the mainstream and go my own way – have been a journey of finding and moving back towards who I really am. That process has been challenging: there’s been exploring, there’s been shedding, there’s been trying on, there’s…
Where is home? I’m on a journey to find out the answer to this question. I’m English, born in the home counties. Up until I was 30, I lived there. It blatantly was home – I had friends, a house, a job. But I didn’t feel at home. I was frustrated and longed for things;…
I am a woman. But I’ve not really felt like one most of my life. It’s not like I’ve felt like a man. I know I’m a woman. But I also know I’ve not felt like one of those women…You know, the all-voluptuous ones, the wild hair, the oozing kind. The sort of woman you…
Woman In The Flames is the first painting I finished as part of Flora Bowley’s Bloom True e-course and it represents how fire – the trauma and pain and crisis in our lives – shapes us; how, as women, we have the ability to be reborn when our life is burning around us. When I…