The nicest memory I have at any time in my school history is the pottery classroom at my old comprehensive. I made a lot of work, all hand built and all figurative. I would say even then the figures were really very introspective, quite vulnerable, displaced representations of people. I still have a seated male figure, destitute, lonely, leaning on his bar table with a small pool of his spilled drink next to him (enabled with melted green glass). I hadn't realised then who I really was, at this point there had been a quiet assumption that art was the option for someone who hadn't achieved academically. I managed to go onto a foundation course at Maidenhead College of Art & Design with the help of an Art A Level. After which I went onto Staffordshire Polytechnic to undertake a BA (Hons) in Design. This was really the end of my beginning until 2018, nearly 30 years later, when I secured through work an MSc in Sustainable & Environmental Management. I was keen to undertake this and worked hard but it would be true to say I didn’t really like it much, it did however demonstrate I could sustain academic work and importantly not fail. Dust was kicked up, realisations were made, inevitable conclusions were drawn. I handled clay again in January 2019 and within two weeks I was home and sixteen all over again. Initially work in the studio was very intuitive, very much about the joy of reaquainting oneself with the material. In time questions began to take shape and persist and become increasingly difficult to answer . What are you doing and why? It’s hard to be concise, provide a context and an intelligible explanation. There’s a physical and emotional charge working with your hands and a material like clay. It can be intense and invigorating, sometimes insightful. With it there's an empathy and rhythms. It’s these rhythms that find their way into the clay, they lead to the faces, the bodies, the introspection, the groupings. They're rhythms that help place me and my work within our timelines, the past and the future as important as the present. A few years in and I am really feeling the present. Currently I'm part of a co-curated exhibition at the Brampton Museum and Art Gallery in Newcastle-under-Lyme, with two fellow local artists. I’m hosting clay workshops with children and adults, able to watch and guide first hand a wide spectrum of generations wrestling with the joys of clay. I have included interactive art installations inviting gallery visitors to become part of the exhibition. It’s a magic time. Exhibitions before this include ING Discerning Eye at the Mall Galleries in 2021. The three pieces submitted were selected by the judge, actor and art collector, Russell Tovey and contemporary artist, Adelaide Damoah. At the same gallery in 2022, I exhibited in the annual exhibitions for The Royal Society of British Artists and The Society of Women Artists. Each was a wonderful opportunity which I hope to repeat. The Three Counties Open Art in 2022 invited submissions for sculpture and I was delighted to exhibit on home ground. This is when I became an award winner for the first time, took part in the subsidiary awards exhibition, and secured my first residency where I went on to host my first clay workshops. At the close of the year I also exhibited two pieces at the Leamington Open 22, Leamington Spa, receiving a judges commendation for one and at which a collector purchased the other. I try to ensure I record all the creative practices along the way through my monthly storyboard, all art enthusiasts very welcome to subscribe, in addition to plenty of permanent information and images here on my website. ​