About Me

I live in rural east Herefordshire with my husband, Mike.

I completed a degree in English literature at Stirling University (1985 -1989) where I specialised in medieval literature. I was drawn to Stirling by the landscape and the wildness of the mountains and hills. I was not disappointed and was surrounded by a suitable back-drop for the subject I was studying. My love of the language and stories of medieval literature was enhanced by the fact that much of the research material I was reading was illustrated with paintings and simple woodcuts of the period. I became immersed in a magical world of romance, strange words and naïve but arresting images, and it was not long before I began to paint and write for pleasure as well as working for the degree.

After leaving university (with a first class honours degree), I worked in several different jobs and lived in Cumbria for a while before moving to Herefordshire where Mike and I had bought a woodland together with a small group of people. I then returned to college to complete a foundation year in art at Gloucester College of Art and Technology where I was expertly tutored in life drawing and discovered the highly influential work of the Brotherhood of Ruralists. A few months later I got a job working in The Collection Gallery in Ledbury which was a useful insight into the world of selling craft. It was at this time that I married Mike and soon after became a full-time mother of two.

In 1999 I began an evening class in stained glass at Hereford College of Art and Design. I soon gained an OCN in the craft but continued the course for a total of four years until our second child started school. At this point I decided to take things more seriously and invested some money in a kiln and built a studio in which to work.