Two miles from our home, nestled amongst the contemporary design of The Village, a mixed-use community in Dallas — alongside cafes, boutique shops, restaurants and showrooms — you can find my studio. This loft-style, 800-square-foot studio opens its overhead garage doors every Saturday to welcome the community inside. During the week, I’m busy creating custom mixed-media pieces or helping inspire others in their own creative practice.
Before I moved into the studio, I had been working out of our home, in various small corners of the house and on the kitchen table. As a preschool teacher and artist with three rambunctious boys of my own, there was a lot of broken glass and materials scattered about. It became clear that “Mummy needs a studio!”
Finding the space at The Village was very serendipitous, but not having planned or budgeted for a studio, I had to be resourceful in developing different spaces within the large open studio that could accommodate my own messy creativity: space for my youngest son, Toby, to come play; space to sit and visit with friends, designers and clients over tea; and a storefront to draw people into the studio.
As a mixed-media artist, I work with a variety of materials — including acrylic and watercolor paints, fabric, thread and found materials — and so I need all of my various materials to be easily accessible throughout the studio. Creative ideas surge through me like a bolt of lightning and I’m always bouncing between mediums to pull my ideas together in a flash, so I needed help to organize the studio and all my materials.
I worked with an interior stylist named Crystal Knox, who is brilliant at visual merchandising and is the creative mind behind much of the interior design for The Village. She worked for Anthropologie a number of years ago and has a talent for capturing my vision of the various moments and experiences I wanted to see in the space.
When we moved from England to Dallas a decade ago, we brought with us random treasures I had collected from various antiques shops and family hand-me-downs. Crystal went “shopping” through all of these materials at our home and the fun began. We incorporated some unique pieces made by a friend into the design, including a huge semicircle corkboard to display unfinished work, inspirations and ideas. It sits in full view and works well as a huge portfolio to show clients and designers as well as a reminder to me of the many ideas going on in my head.
Inside the studio, I wanted to have a space that could be messy, where I could work on many things at once and leave works in progress so I could easily jump back into them as I felt inspired. We designed a folding screen to give the workspace some privacy. On one side I have various clipboards facing my worktable, where I post all my current ideas and inspiration. Nearby, we created a beautiful, cozy seating area layered in pastel pinks and soft textures, with a marble table that doubles as an office desktop and service table perfect for wine and cheese or tea service when I’m entertaining clients. This is my true haven.
A collection of branches I’ve assembled hangs from the ceiling like a giant natural chandelier above the big worktable. I’m constantly changing the decorative pieces tangled in the branches to reflect the holidays and seasons and catch people’s eyes as they walk into the studio.
When I was in my 20s, I had a dream of a large kitchen table where people came and drank tea and talked, laughed and cried together. As a pastor’s wife, I became accustomed to always having a lot of people in and out of our home and gathered around this large wood table, built for our house by a dear old friend of mine, a talented carpenter in his 80s.
Almost a year into being in the studio, I realized the table belonged here instead, where larger groups can gather around for workshops and discussion. My biggest joy now is setting the table for people to explore their innate creativity and have moments of heart and mind connection.
Over the past two years, I have crafted many workshops that introduce people to new techniques and outlets of creativity. My aim is to create a space that encourages everyone to “Come escape, come pause, come breathe and come create.”
One of the most popular classes has been my Stitches and Scones workshop. I come from Devonshire, a county in England, which is the home of the “cream tea” — pots of steaming tea served with freshly baked scones topped with clotted cream and homemade jam. My mum is a wonderful baker and I grew up with cakes and scones and feel a cultural connection, much like Texans and tacos!
The idea for the workshop was birthed out of a fun discussion with my friend Emily Cassady, a tea sommelier and co-owner of Society Bakery and Tea Room in Dallas, a collaboration with baker Roshi Muns.
Emily (who had originally attended one of my modern embroidery classes with some of her friends) and I were so surprised by the popularity of the Stitches and Scones workshop that we have made it a regular event. The smell of fresh-baked scones and the gentle chat over the calming practice of embroidery feels like something out of a Jane Austen book!
One of the hardest workshops that I had the privilege to conduct was for a woman whose daughter had cancer. She invited all of her daughter’s friends to gather and create beautiful garlands with an encouraging word stitched in the middle. We used the idea of emotional landscapes to help us think of what we all needed in the season ahead and then they used watercolor and stitching to create a special piece for their friend, who sadly died a few months later, and a piece for her mum. I am now working with one of the friends on a specially commissioned piece that incorporates mementos from her friend to help process her grief in a creative way.
As an early childhood specialist, I learned early on that when working with children, it is the process of play rather than the product that facilitates learning. This is my approach to the workshops I create for adults. Picasso said that every child is an artist, the problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. As adults, we rarely give ourselves the chance to play, but it is in this play that the mind is released to find solutions to the problems at hand and reduce cortisol, release dopamine, and find relaxation and joy.
Life is hard and we are often hardest on ourselves. My role as I lead these workshops is to help people actively silence the inner critic that bombards our minds and fully embrace their own creativity, and the healing, therapeutic benefits of creating. Art has been such a place of escape and healing for me and I love being able to offer that to others.
In October 2022, I was asked to give a lecture at Wycliffe Hall, part of Oxford University, titled “Inside the Mind of a Creative,” where I shared that at the heart of creativity is the ability to join up dots. From a theological point of view, I believe we were made in the image of a creative God and therefore we are all born to be creative — and now we have the neuroscience to prove it. This world needs out-of-the-box thinkers, creative solutions and neurodiverse people who see more dots and can make more connections.
My hope is to encourage that innate creativity to have a voice to be heard, be given space to emerge, and to be nurtured. That is my hope (and my heart!) for my studio — that it becomes a safe place for people to come make a mess, immerse themselves in play and let their hearts catch up with their minds. Hopefully in these moments, as they daydream and pause from the business of life, they find solutions and enjoy the gentle rhythms of creative work in their own hands.
As is the case with many artists, my biggest fear is that I will spend time making art I know will sell and ignore the voices of pieces I feel called to create. It’s this longing to hold on to my roots that helped me shape one of my favorite corners in the studio, filled with my antique chairs. I’ve collected a number of different chairs over the years and many now hang on the walls as shelves for plants and art pieces.
One very special chair was made by my dad when he was in hospital recovering from a breakdown. When we moved across the pond, I was determined to bring the chair and restore it. However, as I researched the best way to repair the seat, I was struck by its beauty just as it was — unraveled with a gaping hole in the middle. And so, now it is nailed to the wall and the hole serves as a snug home for a potted plant. It’s a reminder to me of the beauty of our own unraveling, at times seen as a problem, something needing fixing, something that is ugly and needs to be hidden; but, actually, the unraveling, when given time, can change our usefulness and very purpose and be seen as something quite beautiful.
Dad was a talented woodworker and I take such warmth and comfort in knowing that the therapeutic benefits of his own carving and molding of wood were part of his healing journey, just as it has been for mine.
I come from a long line of creatives — my mum is a fantastic knitter, seamstress, cake decorator and baker. Pretty much anything she turned her hand to has always turned out wonderfully. I have several of her old sewing patterns, some of which I am stitching on top of and using the patterned paper in some of my pieces.
Her mum, my nan, was a Women’s Institute award-winning crocheter, lace-maker and embroiderer. I have incorporated her handmade lace in many of my art pieces. While raising her own family, my nan ran a farm during the war. She baked through rationing, looked after the evacuees living 153 with them, cared for prisoners of war, and stitched throughout it — an escape from the hardships of her life.
My mum’s dad, a man who I never met because he died before I was born (my middle name, Lesley, is in his honor), painted beautiful watercolors as a school- boy. These lovely, aged images of the flowers and plants he would have seen in hedgerows as he skipped to school, inspired a small collection of simple botanicals I have on clipboards in the studio. These reminders in the studio are like the voices of the past encouraging me to make the most of the opportunities before me. The baton has been passed, the needle has been threaded and the canvas is ready for me to add my own artistic voice to the lineage of creatives.
As I think of my relatives, I see the joy in these crafts of old and how they were a place of refuge during troubled times. When life seems busy and overwhelming, I think of my nan, a hard and practical woman who no doubt held so much worry and strain locked into her heart as she juggled an enormous number of pressures. I think of the release she would have experienced in the joy of her fingers, seeing something come alive in her hands.
This is truly the model for all that happens in my studio. In giving time to create with our hands, we give time for our hearts and minds to connect. Focusing on something as small as a stitch can bring calm to the world around us.
Our dog, Charlie, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, often accompanies me to the studio. He is a rescue dog who joined our family after his owner passed away. He brings calm to our house and to the studio. His presence in the studio reminds me to get up and go for a walk, as I can often get lost in the creative process and hours can quickly go by.
While there is a space for me to work and create, I intentionally crafted a studio that welcomes others to come create with me. My hope is that those who come to my classes and workshops or are just visiting the studio to have a look around are given permission to play without the pressure of producing and to see where their own creative journey takes them.
Two miles from our home, nestled amongst the contemporary design of The Village, a mixed-use community in Dallas — alongside cafes, boutique shops, restaurants and showrooms — you can find my studio. This loft-style, 800-square-foot studio opens its overhead garage doors every Saturday to welcome the community inside. During the week, I’m busy creating custom mixed-media pieces or helping inspire others in their own creative practice.
Before I moved into the studio, I had been working out of our home, in various small corners of the house and on the kitchen table. As a preschool teacher and artist with three rambunctious boys of my own, there was a lot of broken glass and materials scattered about. It became clear that “Mummy needs a studio!”
Finding the space at The Village was very serendipitous, but not having planned or budgeted for a studio, I had to be resourceful in developing different spaces within the large open studio that could accommodate my own messy creativity: space for my youngest son, Toby, to come play; space to sit and visit with friends, designers and clients over tea; and a storefront to draw people into the studio.
As a mixed-media artist, I work with a variety of materials — including acrylic and watercolor paints, fabric, thread and found materials — and so I need all of my various materials to be easily accessible throughout the studio. Creative ideas surge through me like a bolt of lightning and I’m always bouncing between mediums to pull my ideas together in a flash, so I needed help to organize the studio and all my materials.
I worked with an interior stylist named Crystal Knox, who is brilliant at visual merchandising and is the creative mind behind much of the interior design for The Village. She worked for Anthropologie a number of years ago and has a talent for capturing my vision of the various moments and experiences I wanted to see in the space.
When we moved from England to Dallas a decade ago, we brought with us random treasures I had collected from various antiques shops and family hand-me-downs. Crystal went “shopping” through all of these materials at our home and the fun began. We incorporated some unique pieces made by a friend into the design, including a huge semicircle corkboard to display unfinished work, inspirations and ideas. It sits in full view and works well as a huge portfolio to show clients and designers as well as a reminder to me of the many ideas going on in my head.
Inside the studio, I wanted to have a space that could be messy, where I could work on many things at once and leave works in progress so I could easily jump back into them as I felt inspired. We designed a folding screen to give the workspace some privacy. On one side I have various clipboards facing my worktable, where I post all my current ideas and inspiration. Nearby, we created a beautiful, cozy seating area layered in pastel pinks and soft textures, with a marble table that doubles as an office desktop and service table perfect for wine and cheese or tea service when I’m entertaining clients. This is my true haven.
A collection of branches I’ve assembled hangs from the ceiling like a giant natural chandelier above the big worktable. I’m constantly changing the decorative pieces tangled in the branches to reflect the holidays and seasons and catch people’s eyes as they walk into the studio.
When I was in my 20s, I had a dream of a large kitchen table where people came and drank tea and talked, laughed and cried together. As a pastor’s wife, I became accustomed to always having a lot of people in and out of our home and gathered around this large wood table, built for our house by a dear old friend of mine, a talented carpenter in his 80s.
Almost a year into being in the studio, I realized the table belonged here instead, where larger groups can gather around for workshops and discussion. My biggest joy now is setting the table for people to explore their innate creativity and have moments of heart and mind connection.
Over the past two years, I have crafted many workshops that introduce people to new techniques and outlets of creativity. My aim is to create a space that encourages everyone to “Come escape, come pause, come breathe and come create.”
One of the most popular classes has been my Stitches and Scones workshop. I come from Devonshire, a county in England, which is the home of the “cream tea” — pots of steaming tea served with freshly baked scones topped with clotted cream and homemade jam. My mum is a wonderful baker and I grew up with cakes and scones and feel a cultural connection, much like Texans and tacos!
The idea for the workshop was birthed out of a fun discussion with my friend Emily Cassady, a tea sommelier and co-owner of Society Bakery and Tea Room in Dallas, a collaboration with baker Roshi Muns.
Emily (who had originally attended one of my modern embroidery classes with some of her friends) and I were so surprised by the popularity of the Stitches and Scones workshop that we have made it a regular event. The smell of fresh-baked scones and the gentle chat over the calming practice of embroidery feels like something out of a Jane Austen book!
One of the hardest workshops that I had the privilege to conduct was for a woman whose daughter had cancer. She invited all of her daughter’s friends to gather and create beautiful garlands with an encouraging word stitched in the middle. We used the idea of emotional landscapes to help us think of what we all needed in the season ahead and then they used watercolor and stitching to create a special piece for their friend, who sadly died a few months later, and a piece for her mum. I am now working with one of the friends on a specially commissioned piece that incorporates mementos from her friend to help process her grief in a creative way.
As an early childhood specialist, I learned early on that when working with children, it is the process of play rather than the product that facilitates learning. This is my approach to the workshops I create for adults. Picasso said that every child is an artist, the problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. As adults, we rarely give ourselves the chance to play, but it is in this play that the mind is released to find solutions to the problems at hand and reduce cortisol, release dopamine, and find relaxation and joy.
Life is hard and we are often hardest on ourselves. My role as I lead these workshops is to help people actively silence the inner critic that bombards our minds and fully embrace their own creativity, and the healing, therapeutic benefits of creating. Art has been such a place of escape and healing for me and I love being able to offer that to others.
In October 2022, I was asked to give a lecture at Wycliffe Hall, part of Oxford University, titled “Inside the Mind of a Creative,” where I shared that at the heart of creativity is the ability to join up dots. From a theological point of view, I believe we were made in the image of a creative God and therefore we are all born to be creative — and now we have the neuroscience to prove it. This world needs out-of-the-box thinkers, creative solutions and neurodiverse people who see more dots and can make more connections.
My hope is to encourage that innate creativity to have a voice to be heard, be given space to emerge, and to be nurtured. That is my hope (and my heart!) for my studio — that it becomes a safe place for people to come make a mess, immerse themselves in play and let their hearts catch up with their minds. Hopefully in these moments, as they daydream and pause from the business of life, they find solutions and enjoy the gentle rhythms of creative work in their own hands.
As is the case with many artists, my biggest fear is that I will spend time making art I know will sell and ignore the voices of pieces I feel called to create. It’s this longing to hold on to my roots that helped me shape one of my favorite corners in the studio, filled with my antique chairs. I’ve collected a number of different chairs over the years and many now hang on the walls as shelves for plants and art pieces.
One very special chair was made by my dad when he was in hospital recovering from a breakdown. When we moved across the pond, I was determined to bring the chair and restore it. However, as I researched the best way to repair the seat, I was struck by its beauty just as it was — unraveled with a gaping hole in the middle. And so, now it is nailed to the wall and the hole serves as a snug home for a potted plant. It’s a reminder to me of the beauty of our own unraveling, at times seen as a problem, something needing fixing, something that is ugly and needs to be hidden; but, actually, the unraveling, when given time, can change our usefulness and very purpose and be seen as something quite beautiful.
Dad was a talented woodworker and I take such warmth and comfort in knowing that the therapeutic benefits of his own carving and molding of wood were part of his healing journey, just as it has been for mine.
I come from a long line of creatives — my mum is a fantastic knitter, seamstress, cake decorator and baker. Pretty much anything she turned her hand to has always turned out wonderfully. I have several of her old sewing patterns, some of which I am stitching on top of and using the patterned paper in some of my pieces.
Her mum, my nan, was a Women’s Institute award-winning crocheter, lace-maker and embroiderer. I have incorporated her handmade lace in many of my art pieces. While raising her own family, my nan ran a farm during the war. She baked through rationing, looked after the evacuees living 153 with them, cared for prisoners of war, and stitched throughout it — an escape from the hardships of her life.
My mum’s dad, a man who I never met because he died before I was born (my middle name, Lesley, is in his honor), painted beautiful watercolors as a school- boy. These lovely, aged images of the flowers and plants he would have seen in hedgerows as he skipped to school, inspired a small collection of simple botanicals I have on clipboards in the studio. These reminders in the studio are like the voices of the past encouraging me to make the most of the opportunities before me. The baton has been passed, the needle has been threaded and the canvas is ready for me to add my own artistic voice to the lineage of creatives.
As I think of my relatives, I see the joy in these crafts of old and how they were a place of refuge during troubled times. When life seems busy and overwhelming, I think of my nan, a hard and practical woman who no doubt held so much worry and strain locked into her heart as she juggled an enormous number of pressures. I think of the release she would have experienced in the joy of her fingers, seeing something come alive in her hands.
This is truly the model for all that happens in my studio. In giving time to create with our hands, we give time for our hearts and minds to connect. Focusing on something as small as a stitch can bring calm to the world around us.
Our dog, Charlie, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, often accompanies me to the studio. He is a rescue dog who joined our family after his owner passed away. He brings calm to our house and to the studio. His presence in the studio reminds me to get up and go for a walk, as I can often get lost in the creative process and hours can quickly go by.
While there is a space for me to work and create, I intentionally crafted a studio that welcomes others to come create with me. My hope is that those who come to my classes and workshops or are just visiting the studio to have a look around are given permission to play without the pressure of producing and to see where their own creative journey takes them.
