Art has always been a huge part of my life, it is as essential as the air I that breathe. However, having my children at a young age I never had any formal training until 6 years ago. I enrolled on a part time 2-year art and design Foundation diploma at Andover college. Here I gained an award for most up and coming textile surface designer. I have a lot to be grateful to the college for, as it was here that I was diagnosed with dyslexia. I never really thought I would do much with the subject, I simply wanted to learn new ideas.
However, I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to keep going, so it was just a natural progression to go on to do a two year creative arts foundation degree at Salisbury college, followed by a BA honours top up degree at Bath Spa university, printmaking being my main interest at this time. Though I must admit I did have a little anxiety about being an older student who would shhhh don’t tell anyone, I would be 50 when I graduated.
I now have my own studio called Out of the Box, based in Andover inside Saint Pauls church and community centre.
From here I run classes for all ages from babies who can sit unaided, preschool, after school art classes, including children with Asperger’s and Autism, and during the holidays I run workshops for children and adults.
As a freelance artist I travel around to schools in Oxfordshire, I work for the charity ADT Forth World and with adult’s special needs / learning difficulties at Frimhurst Enterprises in Surrey.
With so many different groups, I seem to spend most of days researching for new ideas or cutting things out and prepping for my younger artists. This is where a dozen pairs of hand would be very useful!
I like to make sure I set aside time to do commissioned paintings and if I’m lucky, even my own work.