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. Thank you for reading this and my very best to you and yours XXX