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Member Profile:
I love to create. To draw, paint, work with my hands. I am a doer. I was born in London, England and ran away to art college in 1983, receiving a BA Fine Arts Degree in Painting from St Martin's School of Art, London in 1987. I was studying traditional mosaic techniques, having won a "Livewire" award from the British Government for my mosaic business, when I ran away again. This time to Phoenix, Arizona. What was this land? I was enthralled by the harsh beauty of the desert landscape. The beauty of decay. It was during this time I produced large scaled composite paintings. I was also producing mixed media sculptural pieces as well. Personally, I was discovering the landscape through hiking, backpacking and mountain biking and an appreciation for the uniqueness of this area was formed. With my husband I was introduced to sustainable living systems and so in 1997 we started construction of our straw bale home. Being in this realm of home building I was inspired to turn my skills towards finishing techniques and from 1995 to 2000 I had a very successful faux finishing business. I was able to indulge in some elaborate projects, including byzantine mosaic murals, large scale commissioned oils and sophisticated wall finishes. Good times. So once you build a home you tend to fill it. In 1998 my first son was born and I scaled back my business. I have three children now and over these years I have been chief artist-in-residence at their schools, hopefully passing on some of my passion. So here we are now. Since 2011 I have been working on small plein air pieces. The discipline suited my time constraints. I love the immediacy of the format and over this time period I homed my skills. In 2015 I really rediscovered life drawing and have upped my game by moving from charcoal to coloured conte and pastels. It's hard to believe I really haven't worked with the soft pastels before as they are very painterly and layer like oils! I also moved indoors to my studio , producing larger pieces and returning to some old themes: playing with "abstract realism", for want of a better term, in my giant agave series. I have always been interested in trying different media and so in 2019 I took to printmaking, having indulged in this medium since 2008. I always call myself a painter but in reality I love to move around and go where my fancy takes me. Thank you for being a part of my audience! |
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