After an enjoyable four years at art college I left with qualifications as a Chartered Graphic Designer. A busy career followed in the print industry and led to a role as Studio Manager within a prestigious company producing packaging and printed literature for high street retailers. A senior designer role at an international manufacturing company followed whilst enjoying a hectic time with a young family.
During this time I studied and gained a Further Education Teaching Certificate and taught Graphic Design at evening classes. I have a long standing interest in photography and have achieved five City & Guilds distinction awards, also working in a college studio and darkroom for a brief period. I then went on to part-time study with the Open University and achieved a BA Hons, followed by a Post Graduate Certificate.
In recent years my work has diversified and now includes a wide range of on-line and off-line graphics, marketing and promotional projects as well as partnership work and organisation of community events.
As my family grew I found a little more time to re-discover art, experimenting with different media. I was shown wet felt making as a technique for producing art and was hooked! Since then I have tried many other techniques and enjoy working with fabric and paper as well as painting with ink and creating designs with batik. I am a member of Ribble Creative Stitchers and enjoy picking up new skills during workshops and from other members.
I exhibited five pieces of textile work with Ribble Creative Stitchers in Spring 2017 in an exhibition at Haworth Art Gallery in Accrington called 'Kaleidoscope'. Later in 2017 I entered the Annual Open Exhibition at the same gallery submitting two stitched paper collage birds. These were exhibited from September to November and as a result of this I was selected to hold a solo Bell Corridor exhibition at the Haworth Art Gallery in 2018. I enjoy working with different media but find there is one element that is a common link throughout my work - stitch. This is why I decided to name my solo exhibition of work 'The Common Thread' as it is the one element that unifies the different techniques. The exhibition was on from the end of August until the end of October 2018.
In September 2018 'Crazy Hare' was selected to be included in the Haworth Art Gallery Open Exhibition. This was exhibited for 2 months until the end of November.
I was very pleased to have 'Eye of the Tiger', a stitched ink piece printed in the gallery pages of the January 2019 edition of 'Be Creative' magazine, a monthly textile art magazine.
Current work is based on the theme of memories for an exhibition in April/May 2019. This is a group exhibition with Ribble Creative Stitchers at Haworth Art Gallery, Accrington called 'Threads of Memory'. I am also preparing work for another group exhibition with the theme of 'Renewal' for August 2019.