I've been creating things for as long as I can remember. I think I first really got the art bug when my reception-class painting of a mermaid sunning herself on a rock in the ocean got put up in the school corridor for all to see. I just loved the feeling of creating and sharing and wanted to keep doing it.
I am pretty much completely self-taught. Nine rather less than useful months at art school as a teenager ensured I quit drawing and painting for a long time and only took it up again a few years ago. In the interim I became a potter, jewellery designer and maker, dressmaker and quilter. Just couldn't stop fiddling with things!
Getting into collage, painting and drawing again was a real turning point for me and has become a daily necessity. Which is where the dancing girl comes in. I don't have many pictures of myself but I found this one of me in the garden at my childhood home, dancing up a storm in my mum's high heels.
This made me think about all sorts of things, but mostly it struck me how utterly joyful I looked in that photograph. I'd lost that feeling for a long time, as probably a lot of us do. But then I went back to my childhood love of creating art because I wanted to and that joy started to creep back into my life.
So the dancing girl became a logo and a talisman, and a reminder to be true to myself. It reminds me that I can, in fact, still dance.
And so can we all.
So the dancing girl became a logo and a talisman, and a reminder to be true to myself. It reminds me that I can, in fact, still dance.
And so can we all.
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My work can be found in private collections in the UK, Ireland, Europe, USA and Canada. It has been exhibited in the UK and the US.
