I was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, but grew up in Vancouver. At the age of 17, I moved to London, and did my foundation course at Ravensbourne College of Art and Design (now called Ravensbourne University London). From there I went to Canterbury College of Art (now part of the Kent Institute of Art & Design) to do a degree in fashion, clothing and textiles. My specialist subject was printed fabrics, but I also studied knitted and woven textile design.
After graduating I moved back to London, where I worked in a very fast-paced, high-pressure design studio, creating designs for the women’s fashion industry, including dresses, tops and bathing suits. This job required me to paint each design by hand, using gouache on Color-aid paper. Each of us had to produce a minimum of one design a day, and sell a minimum of 10 a month. After two years of grafting in the studio, I moved on to work as a freelance designer.
In 1983, I returned to Vancouver and continued to freelance, expanding my design to include menswear and furnishing.
Around the late 80s, the industry changed drastically. It became digitalized, and whilst that opened up endless variations, it diminished the craft I loved and attempted to steer me away from the beauty of hand-painted designing. So, rather than sit in front of a computer, I turned my focus to other arenas, namely fine art. And it wasn’t too long before I found a comfort zone … combining mixed media collage and paint.
Like most creators who change course and go into a new field, I started to look seriously at the artists who’ve inspired me, including:
Andy Goldsworthy
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Paul Klee
Joan Miró
Robert Rauschenberg
Pierre-Joseph Redouté
Joseph Cornell
William Morris
There are also a number of current artists working in similar fields that I admire. And, in fairness, I should acknowledge the influence of my author-artist husband, Nick Bantock.
I find myself particularly drawn to ephemera — old handmade papers, maps, the spines and headers of old and broken books — weathered and worn antique boxes, and vintage fabrics and threads. I’m fascinated by patina. I love rust and foxing, melted beeswax dripped onto velum, and wet rusted wire on vintage papers that leaves its residue of exquisite marking.
Working with old fibers and slow stitching provides another rabbit hole of allure. There’s something deeply satisfying about creating small, stitched patterns and sewing fibers into aged rag papers.
In many ways, the act of choosing to work slowly becomes meditative, and an antidote to the overstimulated world around us. The techniques I choose, the art that evolves and the feedback I receive from the pieces, have time and again encouraged me to stay present, and calmed a desire to rush to outcome. My hope is that they also pass forward some sense of serenity to the viewer.
When I begin a piece, rarely do I have any idea where it may lead. I try not to envisage an end result. I simply go into my studio and begin to play with the materials; each day is different and my curiosity becomes my guide.
Some days, I will simply make small 3D objects out of paper to set aside, knowing that later they’ll find their place within a larger piece. I keep these little fabrications and objects on an ideas tray, so that I can group and line them up and see how they react to one another. Where they land isn’t something that I can foretell, and often it’s the most unexpected items that turn out to be the most intriguing.
The little cardboard box was given to me by a friend in England. It had a small amount of wood within the cardboard but needed a bit more strength, so I built a wooden frame to give it more substance. The wood was painted with acrylic paint and, once dry, I rubbed it with stained wax to give it more of an aged look.
I created the little seed-like pods from washi paper, then cut, folded and aged with walnut ink. Once dry, I glued about eight of these paper pieces around a rusted wire, so they took on the shape of a seed pod. I liked the way the walnut ink gave each piece depth and variety. The pods fit nicely within the grids.
Sometimes a piece calls out for just a little something else and, in this case, I used some antique French laundry labels I had just acquired at a Paris flea market. They had an interesting aged quality about them and gave the piece a bit more interest. This will eventually be framed to protect and enhance the finished piece.
I save even the smallest scraps of paper and sort them by colour, just in case they turn into the missing link. In that sense, I suppose you could say my art is a form of upcycling.
Threads, wires, and string are all salvaged and housed in flat file drawers, tins, etc.
Small cardboard and wooden boxes are given compartments and filled with assorted finds.
Of course, there’s a fine line between gathering and hoarding, so once in a while I have to clear out the unloved.
My studio is in our back garden, just far enough away from the house to avoid day-to-day distractions, but close enough to be visited by our two cats, Finn and Mika, who love nothing better than sleeping curled up behind me or on my lap.
The studio is also my gallery, and visitors are welcome by appointment. Over the years I’ve met so many interesting people, including serious art collectors, who’ve been kind enough to add my pieces to their collection.
My sketchbooks are the place I experiment with different techniques, like printing onto silk paper or thin tissue, or jotting down ideas. These sketchbooks sometimes become so packed full of bits and pieces they no longer close. They are, however, great reference tools. My sketchbooks are full of experimental techniques — glued in sections of papers I have printed using linocuts, gelli prints, or old wooden block prints, and little knitted swatches that I have produced using the finest of knitting needles.
They are filled with little templates, which I have built small pockets to house, and notation of measurements/gages I might have used. A variety of paper samples with notes alongside them serve as reminders of how I created them. And I have colour swatches with a guide of what paints and inks were used, should I want to replicate. There are also examples of different papers and how they react when certain paints or inks are applied or when burned with a soldering iron.
I’m always on the hunt for additional source material, which means frequenting garage sales, second-hand shops, junk stores and flea markets.
In addition to the French laundry labels I found at the Paris flea market recently, I bought some haberdashery tapes, which were perfect for wrapping around the edges of the box I was working on.
On another occasion, I found an old necklace with cone-shaped beads made from paper. Beads like these are perfect for absorbing watercolour paint or inks.
What I tend to look for is not only something I can use directly, but also artifacts that stimulate the making of new objects from scratch.
I’ve found that good frames make a big difference when it comes to presenting my work. I usually get high-quality, shadow-box frames custom built for my larger finished works. These allow just enough room for the dimensional pieces to breathe and stay well protected.
Presently, I’m more than happy to have my art collected and hung in homes and workplaces.
As for sharing the things that I’ve learned over the years with other artists, I think I’m finally at a point where I’d contemplate offering workshops to small groups.
I have no wish to explain my work, which hopefully stands in its own right, but I do believe it important to pass on the things we learn as artists.
