A new piece of work always begins for me with walking, looking and drawing.  The inspiration for my art has always come from my immediate environment, both when I was abroad and from where I live now in a small village in rural Buckinghamshire. My work, whether it is drawing, painting or sculpting, is strongly influenced by the time I spend out of doors.

My glass pieces are always very much a product and a reflection of the physical environment in which I find myself. When I lived in the Seychelles, I swam and dived every day, and the colours and themes I experienced there are still evident in much of my work.  Now I see new colours and textures all the time – the bare earth is cracked, then slippery after a storm, the hillside a cool green or a deep purple brown, and the sky is one day wide and open, another day dark and lowering, and always mirrored in the water. I have a deep need to be out in the elements, and this is where I feel at home. 

I also get a great deal of inspiration and joy from the actual process of making things, and of experimenting with all sorts of different materials.  I originally began to work in glass so that I could include refractive pieces in my hanging sculptures and mobiles, which were made mostly out of wood and metal.

I then found myself increasingly drawn to the contradictions of glass: it is solid, and yet it captures the changes of the light, and with it I like to achieve subtle internal effects similar to those in watercolour. In my sculptural pieces I also love to explore the contrast between materials: the clarity and ethereal qualities of glass against the earthiness of wood is so like nature.