I have always loved landscape, wild places, the sea, gardens. I was born in North Yorkshire, in a town along the coast, into a family that loved the natural world. Somerset and Dorset followed on from Yorkshire – all counties with wonderful landscapes.
I didn’t discover ‘art’ until into my ‘20s. Seeing some of David Hockney’s crayon drawings in a major exhibition of his in London was what got me started – if crayons were good enough for him, then they must not be just for children. After various jobs – secretarial, restaurants, a cookery course in London, running a tea shop in a big garden near Oxford – I went to Cheltenham Art College, 1985 – 1989.
In 1988 I won the David Murray student award for landscape painting, for a small painting of Portland in Dorset – my favourite place. I was also awarded a scholarship to spend some time at the British School in Rome. Italy was a revelation – the light, the landscape, the colours of the stuccoed buildings, the frescoes. I researched the illusionistic ceiling paintings in Rome for my thesis.
In 1989, while living in a studio on Chesil Beach in Dorset, I was caught up in one of the tremendous storms of the autumn of that year. I was washed out of the studio and stranded on the island for a short time till the causeway could open. My Portland project cut short before it had really got going, I returned in 1990 to Italy to the small picturesque medieval hill top town of Casole d’Elsa, half way between Florence and Siena, where I have been ever since. Here I became involved with the Verrocchio Art Centre, where I have taught painting, cooked, cleaned and been general manager for many years now.
Being close to Italian art – the frescoes of Giotto, Piero della Francesca, Gozzoli, Lorenzetti being just a small fraction of what is available to see in Tuscany – is wonderful. But I am British in my artistic soul and, after Bonnard, I have been most inspired by the British painters of the mid 20 th century: Eric Ravilious, John Nash, John Piper, Ivon Hitchens, Peter Lanyon, Joan Eardley, Joan Redpath, Winifred Nicholson, and Mr Hockney of course.
I find joy in small things – brief moments of awe when the light catches a corner of the garden or shines through some leaves or illuminates a plastic bucket.
My paintings have found their way into private collections in England, Scotland, California, Germany, Switzerland, Dubai, where I hope they continue to give pleasure.