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Artist's Statement
Hello everyone. I live in Tredegar, South Wales, I’m 56 years old and since 1987 I’ve been seeking answers to the big questions, you know the ones; who am I etc? This has been and continues to be an extraordinary journey and I feel increasingly blessed to be alive on this planet at this time and opening day by day to my own spirituality and witnessing this in many others as I go along.
People ask what my art means to me. Increasingly the answer is everything, not just painting but living my life as an art, finding a creative way to do things.
I’ve always been aware of beauty and been moved by it, for a long time without any understanding of the energy that moved me. This Planet is staggeringly creative and beautiful and we are fools to try to bring all the richness and variety down to a few strangled manmade ideals of expression that we are comfortable with.
Specifically my art is my soul song, my expression of my love of the Earth and the Great Mother Goddess who gave me life and sustains and lovingly nurtures me and always will do. It is a vehicle to share these things with others but if no one sees another thing I paint or reads another thing I write I will still paint and still write. Now I’ve found my tools I know I won’t stop until I can no longer do it.
Another question I’m asked is how do you decide what to paint? I don’t consciously do that. Whenever I’ve tried to work something out, to do sketches of an idea it is always a mess. The image just “arrives” spontaneously on the surface, sometimes after an agonising gestation period. Let’s backtrack here.
I started painting as a project given as part of a healing course. We were asked to “express in some creative way your Sacral Chakra.” Eight words that threw me into complete chaos. This was the start of an even bigger challenge to unblock my shut down desire to be an artist and heal my relationship with my father.
I became a Healer in order to heal myself but didn’t think so at the time. I got into journeying to find my spirituality, which I didn’t know I’d lost, and to make sense of all the crazy psychic phenomena that were making me come unglued. My teachers (in the Spiritualist Church, in the NFSH and a Native American Shaman) gave me a framework and protocols to deal with this and to understand the wakeup call my Soul was issuing. It all sounds so simple when I say it like this, it wasn’t and I don’t think it ever is. As I was reared in the school of anything worthwhile requires some sacrifice I think it could be we aren’t geared up to allowing it to be easy or to appreciating anything unless there is some personal cost. That really needs some attention. Receive the Blessings as they arrive from your Soul for they have already been earned..
A lot of my work is in pastel and I adore it for its vibrancy of colour and the hands on technique. I have tried all media except oils, as I’m not comfortable with turps etc. Working on a trial and error basis with all of these I’ve learnt how to get what I wanted and develop a style of my own. All the work has a spiritual bias with some of it arising from my Dreaming (a Shamanic practice) and some images coming from meditations for Peace.
The Earth Mother has asked me to bring forth images that speak of Beauty, to live in a Beauty way. I try to give hope and inspiration to those whose eyes have shut because of pain and suffering and to provide words and images that can hopefully reach in another way to their Soul It’s OK to have doubts and be human, above all be human but try to embrace the best aspects you possibly can.
Bears Came Dancing
- 2004
These pieces of work/play are my soul communicating with me. It is trying to show me what goes on in my other worlds, within the landscapes that I journey through. To help me learn from the part of my consciousness that wears other masks but most importantly from the part that stands clear and shining and unmasked, with an open heart and without fear in a world that’s full of fear. Hopefully just being and doing my art is enough. I recently held an Open Studio exhibition at home and used the ground floor as a Gallery. If your home is the only place you can do a show then do it there
As I enter the Grandmother stage of my life it is more and more important for me to have my work seen. Each piece will mean something to someone. The paintings carry energy that is alive, they speak, some people find this very disturbing and back away while some burst into tears. At first I found this hard to take but I realise we all go at our own pace and the triggers that affect us are all over the place and not choreographed by anyone but ourselves.
This is an ongoing process for all of us, we are work in progress and whilst we have breath thus it will be.
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Angel Feeding the Doves
- 2004
Dreamers Friend
- 2004
Ixel and the Jaguars
- 2004
Second Mayan Journey
- 2004
Invitation from the Jaguar
- 2004
Golden Bowl Transformation
- 2004
Hawk Comes Calling
- 2004
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