I am a textile artist who paints onto fabric before adding stitch. I mainly work wholecloth - on a single piece of white fabric - as this lets me focus on on colour, form and texture without being distracted by adding other materials. I am drawn to interesting surfaces and want to run my fingers over them to find out what the surface has to tell me. Painting on fabric lets me show the surface I find so intriguing and in doing so, get to know it better. Adding texture with stitch acts like an amplifier, bringing the surface to life physically as well as visually.

I come from a creative family going back at least 3 generations and grew up seeing making and creating around me as the norm. My maternal grandparents both knitted and did crochet, my mum took a sketchbook on every family outing and my sister was always painting, stitching and weaving. It was inevitable that I would take the same path.

I was a teacher for around 15 years before a spell in industry with a company making educational supplies. This gave me the confidence to start my own business training teachers and I trundled up and down the UK in my blue van ( nicknamed The Tardis ) taking my art studio to hotel conference rooms. I taught the teachers but learned so much from them at the same time. 

These days I am much more of a homebody, stitching and painting away in my tiny workroom on the Suffolk/Norfolk border. We live in a converted barn that dates from around the early 1600s and look out over farmland. It's quiet and tucked away - just how I like it.
I belong to 2 exhibiting groups: Textile Art Group Suffolk (TAGS) and Chain Reaction, different in size but with the same stimulation that comes from being with like-minded people. I also belong to Diss Embroidery Group.