I like to make paintings which try to capture my love of the natural world, places and things of beauty that I love and sing to my soul. When I am painting I feel I am pouring my heart into my work and a deep gratefulness for our beautiful mother earth. The essence of life. I hope that is reflected in my work and it connects to others too.
I was born in1979 in Dorset and spent the first 16 years of my life on an isolated trout and watercress farm, for many years just with my mum. I have always felt my best being out of doors, and this began in my childhood where I loved the countryside, observing wild flowers and nature, the weather, seasons and day dreaming. I loved Thomas Hardy's poetry and novels as a teenager, they seemed to chime with my way of life. When we moved from here to a town I quickly found the great outdoors, walking and camping on Dartmoor with friends and this was the start of many adventurous travels.
Drawing and painting have always been part of my life. I always liked pictures, on cigarette cards and greeting cards, postcards and stamps and I first recall actual art connecting with me and having an effect when I saw Picasso's The Weeping Woman at Tate Britain aged ten.
I read History of Art and English Literature at Edinburgh University. Being in Scotland I spent a lot of time camping, walking and climbing in the mountains and sketched and wrote for my pleasure. I experienced the loss of my Dad, my cousin Lucie, and a dear friend in close succession in my late teens, early twenties and this had a profound effect on me. I found being out of doors in the natural world, feeling free and connected to our earth my solace.
Sailing is part of my family. My experiences of sailing, seamanship and appreciating wooden boats came from the wonderful times I spent with my grandparents sailing on their wooden boat as a girl and a teenager around the Solent, West Country, Scotland and France. My grandfather, a passionate wooden boat enthusiast, used to paint his favourite boats in oils when he wasn't sailing and this influenced me too. Boats continued into my adult hood, racing dinghies and classics, crewing on yacht deliveries and sailing with my own family with my children. We built our own wooden boat, a 50 ft gaff yawl on which we lived and sailed, chasing a dream. Then a further six years living on and off a lugger in Gweek Cornwall. They have been an enormous part of my life one way or another.
As a single mother of 4 daughters, Lily, Skye, Frances and Heather life is busy. Since sailing into Cornwall in 2012 I have found my home here. Arriving by the water and sailing up the Helford River on an October evening was unforgettable; the quiet, the stillness ,the curlews. I find the magical places and energy of Cornwall enchanting, lost in another time, particularly in autumn and winter and I try to capture this in my paintings. I have spent the last ten years living aboard wooden boats and bringing up my children, putting my creative and adventurous self into them. Its been a real challenge and like the ocean with all its moods, stormy at times. Having such an outdoor unconventional life, living by the basics and tides suited me.
Although I only have one small dinghy now, I still like to sail at the classic boat and traditional festivals with friends if I can. I love seeing all the traditional sails and boats gathered together, their history and stories. I like to paint them, it is a challenge to capture their exact lines, the set of the sails.
The process of painting is like sailing somehow, the freedom, the constant movement, the meditative concentration, trying to capture the passing of time and ever receding horizon. In the moment of painting I am myself where I have no self-doubt, anxiety or judgement. In my painting I try to capture things and places I find beautiful and I love, capturing feelings of love and loss and gratefulness.
I live now on the Lizard Peninsula, not far from the river and sea. With my children growing up and more physical time and space and calmer waters I am dedicating my energy into my painting. I started painting with oils in 2004 when I had a studio and gallery in Whitstable Kent. I had a solo exhibition in 2014 Falmouth and am looking forward to exhibiting my art once again. If I am not painting I am working as a gardener, or walking the lanes and footpaths, swimming in the sea. Everyday, even if its just the school run, my day is marked by the weather and light, the changing seasons, the tide and the moon, and nature never fails to amaze and over whelm me.
