After leaving comprehensive school in 1998 with seven GCSE’s, I worked at Bedford Archaeological Centre where I studied the structures and designs of historical urban and rural landscapes. In addition, I completed a ten-week course in stained glass at the Bedford Arts and Craft Centre in 2015; and graduated with a BA in History from the Open University in 2017.
Although I have worked with oil, clay, and other artistic materials, I believe that it is in glass that I have a special spiritual connection to the world about me. I love how the glass refracts the sun in heat, energy, and sparkle. I also delight in how glass captures the contours and cadences from the clouds in the sky, waves on a sea, ripples on a pond, and windows in a church. Another source of inspiration for me is the countryside around Bedfordshire; Autumn, with its fiery oranges and reds, is for me a second sun to capture in glass.
Customers and patrons are an additional support of inspiration. They remind me how blessed I am to be an artist, to work from early morning to late night. They encourage me to take risks, expand horizons, to be a better person and professional.
A second source of stimulus is historical buildings and monuments, particularly world heritage sites protected by UNESCO. I am particularly attracted to edifices of stone, brick and rock. Stonehedge is, in my view, a mystical entity in its interaction with sunrises and sunsets, summer and winter solstices. I am also a fan of art of all places and times.
I particularly love the Impressionists art movement, in particular – Monet, Degas, Manet, Cezanne, and Renoir are favorites – for their use of color and contrast, light and hue, emotion and atmosphere in their paintings. I am also taken with modern artists and sculptors, e.g., Picasso, Dali, and Hockney for their fanciful and dream-like images; and Rodin through to Barbara Hepworth for their supple, if pulsating castings in stone, wood, plaster and bronze.
I have exhibited my work in stained glass at Bedford, as well as at various fairs in arts and crafts thought the UK, selling pieces primarily as private commissions.
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