When Cornwall Meets Brittany: An Unexpectedly Personal Exhibition

There are moments in life when different parts of your story unexpectedly come together.

This summer is one of those moments for me.

There’s something about an English heatwave that feels almost magical. Maybe it’s because we know it won’t last forever.

Maybe it’s because, for most of the year, we stand on windy shorelines wrapped in coats, longing for the kind of days where the sea turns glassy and turquoise. The kind of days where your skin stays salty until bedtime and time seems to slow down entirely.

Over the last week, three paintings from one collection have found new homes. What struck me most wasn’t the colours people chose, or the size of the pieces. It was the stories behind them.

If you’ve ever looked at a painting and had the urge to reach out and touch it — you’ve already experienced the power of textured art.

But what actually is textured art?

There are some emails you open and immediately hold your breath.

This was one of them.

Finding out that two of my pieces had been selected for the Spring Open Exhibition at the St Ives Society of Artists is something I don’t think I’ll ever become used to.

Six years ago today, I registered my website.

At the time, it felt like a small step.
Just a quiet decision to take something I loved - something I had rediscovered during a strange and uncertain time - and see where it might lead.

Why Being an Artist Isn’t About Luck (And What Really Got Me Here)

Surfboards were never meant to hang on walls.

They were designed to cut through waves, to be carried across sand, to be waxed before sunrise and rinsed in saltwater at the end of the day.

But over time, they began finding their way into my studio.

For twenty years, I worked in the fashion industry as a retail buyer. My world was fabric. Production. Texture. Surface. Construction. I understood how cloth moved, how it behaved under pressure, how it stretched, frayed, softened and held memory.

I also saw, firsthand, the scale of overproduction. The excess. The waste. The pace at which materials were created and discarded.