I was privledged  to study  Botanical drawing with the late Mike Hickey, who taught me  about the character of growing plants.  I learnt that the tradition of botanical drawing dates back more than three thousand years. The earliest Plant illustrations were often produced to enable the identification of medicinal plants. Eventually, renaissance artists, such as Bellini and Durer painted natural beautiful plants, often as embellishments in large compositions.

As I set out for Lyonnesse

My book is an ongoing visual journal containing the experience and memories of an annual pilgrimage to the Scillies – the islands separated from Cornwall by the drowned landscape of Lyonnesse.

The journey into the book starts by entering and viewing the stained glass panel from inside the blue box.

A companion box containing a seabird skeleton carried from the seashore, is an indicator of life cycles and the frailties of life.

Some pages were prepared with colour before leaving home, remembering past visits, whilst a few pages await a future journey.

Images and words on the pages record the patterns, colours and observations experienced when walking on the islands and the attachments are treasures found along the way.

Book Arts  -Looking Back

Looking Back

This altered book now has a concertina format containing an echo from the past, a repeated haunting image of a young girl who worked in the noxious environment of a factory in the early 20^th century.

The original book, discarded by Hereford City library was deconstructed as I had planned to select and re-introduce fragments of the images back onto the individual pages, using a copying machine.

Unintentionally, the memory of the copying machine, by chance, produced the constant image of the factory girl staring out at us.

My paintings, collages and prints are visual memories, relating to the shifting moods and atmosphere felt when visiting places in the landscape that are somehow set apart.

I regularly make journeys to sacred buildings responding to the often fragmented images that I find.

I am interested in the way that fragments from the past alter and change over time, sometimes changing meaning to the viewer and I hope that the viewer will engage with the finished images by bringing another layer of meaning to the narrative.

I know that all things are transitory and in a state of change but believe that by bringing together fragments from history, fragments of thought and ideas, we can make more sense of the world and become aware of our interdependence.  And more aware of the fragile nature of our existence.

My book about May Hill was published in 2007 and is available from: local galleries,  and directly by contacting me via this website. The book contains my artwork relating to the Hill, complimented by memories from May Hill People.

I am researching and making work about the Romanesque carving on our Herefordshire Churches, with the intention of producing my next book about the life and legacy of the medieval sculptors who made those powerful images.

I have seen an amazing range of colours through the progression of the seasons, especially in the early mornings when the mists that drape the Hill bring a sense opf mystery. As the mists lift, a collection of abstract shapes is revealed often  in shades of green yellow and brown – sometimes striped by the plough.

When making a monoprint, I work in my studio from memory in an intuitive fashion, painting onto the plate, making the print, and then working back into the image when with watercolour