I have been inspired by the wonderful colours and textures of the landscape and built environment all my life. Growing up in a rural village outside Salisbury, my childhood was embedded in being in nature: walks, growing vegetables, being surrounded by fields and part of a long established family in the village that stretches back several hundred years with a heritage of cobblers, sawyers and men and women who worked the land. I always feel that chalk is in my DNA. School in Salisbury meant I was immersed in fabulous Medieval architecture and street scenes. So it has felt very natural for me to capture these places in my cut paper collages, drawings and varied projects over the years.

After graduating from a unique carpet design degree course in the West Midlands, I went off on several tangents into ecclesiastical embroidery, surface pattern designing and banner making but I soon found my path when I started papercutting around 2003. I was living in Letchworth Garden City in Hertfordshire and all around me were these wonderful Arts & Crafts buildings set in a very green and luscious landscape. It made me put pencil and scalpel to paper and I made hand cut, many layered collages of the iconic buildings there and the places I loved being in. Each piece had a story to tell of all my memories living in there and bring up my children. Buildings were not just bricks and mortar but objects that gave me such a strong sense of place and belonging. They have powerful presences. I realised that buildings were witnesses to all the lives that pass by them and through them, our silent company. These pieces were exhibited in several solo shows in Letchworth Garden City itself and at North Hertfordshire Museum in Hitchin. I soon turned my head to nearby Cambridge, making many collages of the iconic buildings, punts and bicycles there and these pieces were sold over many years through Byard Art in Cambridge. A major solo show at Salisbury and Wiltshire Museum was such an emotional return to my roots. Making collages of the city and the countryside around it made real many of my memories and was such a public way to declare a deep love of a place.

 BEING PRESENT: DRAWING EN PLEIN AIR

At the core of my work is being totally present in a place and drawing en plein air. My landscape collages draw directly from these sketches and I only use photographs to check minor details. Sketching outside is intoxicating. It is utterly absorbing as I get to hear everything around me from the wind in the trees to the birds singing and chirping and it is the same with café drawing. I love hearing that wonderful chatter and hum of people connecting! My landscapes are not imagined places but real places where I have sat and drawn and then I have been able to pour those emotions into an original collage by using gorgeously rich and colour and subtle texture to convey space and light.

 POETRY AND WORDS

I have always written little mini poems, annotated sketches and included text and words into my work. The English language is wonderful and using text can help me really draw viewers in to my thinking and feelings. Sometimes I like to simply annotate the date I made a sketch. I love to anchor that drawing to a very distinct time and a place so that I have a wonderful visual diary to return to places in a way that a photograph will never make me feel.

 WORKSHOPS AND EVENTS

Paper is the most incredible material. Cool to the touch, it is thrilling to cut into with a scalpel blade or sharp scissors and be able to draw onto with fast marks and a swish of bright paint! I have used my enthusiasm and passion for paper by running workshops and being part of residencies across the UK for adults and children of all ages to experience ways to be creative with paper. These events have been in a wide range of venues from art centres to shopping centres, libraries and in community settings. Places like Cambridge Botanic Garden, Kettles Yard, Pitt Rivers Museum, Hub Sleaford, Letchworth Settlement and many more. It is wonderful to pass on these skills to teach simple techniques that can release someone’s creativity. I am very much focusing on Still Life Drawing events and workshops now in Newark on Trent, Sleaford, Letchworth Garden City and beyond, as it is so important for everyone to experience that feeling of drawing something real in front of you especially in these times of living so much through our screens.

 THANK YOU FOR VISITING

I really hope you like delving into my work here. Many of my well-known pieces are at the core of my greetings card collection. I love to think of these little objects heading off on their own journeys across the Uk and beyond! Inside there will be all sorts of messages of love, news, birthday wishes and loss too and for I feel immensely grateful. If you have any questions you would like to ask me then simply contact me HERE.

UPCOMING AND PREVIOUS EXHIBITIONS:

2026

Jan/ Feb - Cath Ray Gallery, Retford / Solo Show

May/June - Southwell Workhouse/ Solo show

2025

April - Sanctuary: mixed show The Old Lock Up Gallery, Cromford

May - OSNOTTS/ Nottinghamshire Open Studios

Oct - The Carre Gallery, Sleaford / Solo Exhibition

 2024

Sept/ Nov - Broadway Gallery Open (mixed show) - Letchworth Garden City

July - Southwell Workhouse Bicentenary Banner, Nottinghamshire

Jan/ Mar- Artist in Residence at National Civil War Museum, Newark on Trent

 2023

Oct/Dec - Artist in Residence at National Civil War Museum, Newark on Trent

June - Artist & Makers Fair, Letchworth Garden City

April/ May - Osnotts (Beeston Library for Inspire Libraries)

 2022

Letchworth Near & Far (solo show) - Garden City One Museum, Letchworth

Hub Sleaford Summer Contemporary Fair

Cath Ray Gallery and Studio (solo show), Retford

Upper Broughton Art Show (mixed show)

June - Bargain Hunt TV feature series filming day

 2021

July - Sky Landscape of the Year Wildcard Competition

Sept - Easton Walled Garden Autumn Fair

Sept - Rutland Open Studios (mixed show) - Old Sorting House, Bottesford

Dec - HUB Sleaford Contemporary Market

 2019

Christmas Cracker (mixed show) - Byard Art, Cambridge

Upper Broughton Art Show (mixed show) - Leicestershire

Belvoir Angels (mixed show) - The Old Sorting House, Bottesford

Slice of North Hertfordshire (solo show) - North Herts Museum, Hitchin

Along Your Street (mixed show) - Byard Art, Cambridge

Still Life (mixed show) - Byard Art, Cambridge

Winter Exhibition (mixed show) - The Art Nest, Hitchin

 2018

Cambridge Art Fair (mixed show) - Quy Mill, Cambridge

Along Your Street (mixed show) - Byard Art

Christmas Cracker (mixed show) - Byard Art

 2017

Letters to Letchworth (solo show) – Broadway Gallery, Letchworth

Cambridge Art Book (solo show) – Cambridge Art Fair

 2016

Cutting the Curve (solo show) - Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge

Down Your Street (mixed show) - Byard Art, Cambridge

Bedfordshire & Beyond (solo show) - Xhibit @ Priory House, Central Bedfordshire Council

 2015

Slice of Life (solo show) - Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum

Views and Shoes (solo show) - Alfred East Art Gallery, Kettering

 2014

Eastern Approaches (mixed show) - Museum of St. Albans, Hertfordshire

Art for Lovers (solo show) - A&K Wilson Gallery, Harpenden, Hertfordshire

Summer Show (mixed show)- Byard Art, Cambridge

Dot To Dot Gallery (solo show) - Letchworth, Hertfordshire

Christmas Cracker (mixed show) - Byard Art, Cambridge

 2013

Writing on the Wall (mixed show) - Byard Art, Cambridge

Summer Stories (solo show) - Letchworth Art Centre, Hertfordshire

 2012

Artisan (mixed show) - Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery

Christmas Cracker (mixed show) - Byard Art, Cambridge

A Paper Garden City (solo show) - Letchworth Art Centre, Hertfordshire

Affordable Art Fair (mixed show) - Hampstead, London

Affordable Art Fair (mixed show) - Battersea, London

Alphabet (mixed show) - Byard Art, Cambridge

Jubilee (mixed show)- Byard Art, Cambridge

East Anglia Revealed (mixed show) - Byard Art, Cambridg

2011

Affordable Art Fair (mixed show) - Battersea, London

Capturing Cambridge (mixed show) - Byard Art, Cambridge

Christmas Cracker (mixed show) - Byard Art, Cambridge

 2010

Of my Head and my Heart (solo show) - Letchworth Art Centre

Christmas Cracker (mixed show) - Byard Art, Cambridge

 2009

Affordable Art Fair (mixed show) - Battersea Park, London

Lannock Art Festival (mixed show) - Weston, Hertfordshire

People, Paper, Prayers (solo show) -Central Methodist Church, Letchworth

Creatures of the Soul and of the Earth (solo show) - Letchworth Art Centre

Summer Show (mixed show) - Byard Art, Cambridge

 2008

Spring Affordable Art Fair (mixed show) - Battersea Park, London

Drawing with a Scalpel (solo show) - Hitchin Museum and Art Gallery

Paper, Scissors, Stone (solo show) - Garden City Heritage Museum, Letchworth, Hertfordshire

Paper Trail (mixed show) - Byard Art, Cambridge

 2007

Angels, Saints and Dancers (solo show) - Letchworth Art Centre, Hertfordshire

Knowing Bodies (solo show) - Letchworth Art Centre

Being alive (solo show) - Letchworth Art Centre, Hertfordshire

St Alban’s Cathedral Refectory (solo show) - Hertfordshire