about me
I am a snail. I jokingly said to someone once that I was slow, they thought I was speaking badly about myself and jumped in to tell me I wasn’t. Like I was saying I was stupid. That’s not what I meant, I have come to realise that I literally do things very slowly. I do not think slow means stupid, just as the fable about the slow tortoise winning the race against the speedy hare shows.
Like a garden, planted and seeded, and now waiting. Preparing the land, planting the seeds, and then waiting - waiting with expectancy. Time passes, cold, warm, rain and sunshine. After the slowness, things can look like they are happening in lightening speed, such a juxtaposition.
Understanding that slowness is important was a nice revelation, like a gentle nudge from my unconscious, to be kind and not beat myself up that things seemed to take forever.
Recently I’ve revisited this little nugget and found myself saying, “I am a snail”. In the kindest way. I’ve been noticing the trails where a snail has roamed. Silver threads meandering across a path or a carpet, a sign that they were there.
And then, as I’d been contemplating and sitting with where I was being led, I felt prompted to find a book I bought years ago of the artist Paul Thek. And there on the back of the book was a drawing of a snail with wings. A gentle reminder; “breathe, don’t stress, you’ll get where you need to be, slowly does it, you’re on the right path.” I am a snail. My home is with me as I weave the threads of my journey, pulling together my silver cords.
Before gaining a Fine Art degree from Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge in 2011, I spent 16 years in the US - living in many different areas of California - San Francisco, Los Angeles, Marin County (in the Redwoods) & Oakland. I had many art exhibitions, painted murals, and other various work such as bringing art into elementary schools, and art summer programmes.
I completed a degree after returning to the UK from California, receiving a BA (Hon) Fine Art degree in 2011. I then carried on at Chelsea College of Art in 2011/12, where I received a Post Graduate qualification.
Continuing with studies I qualified as an Art Psychotherapist in 2015, receiving an MA from the University of Hertfordshire.
From then until 2022 I worked as an Art Psychotherapist using art & creativity as a way to engage and build trust with young people. Using Art Psychotherapy mainly in schools and in therapeutic settings with ages 9 to 20, but also some work with adults , and adult group work focused around trauma.
Due to unforeseen circumstances I stopped this in September 2022, and then in 2023 I began to think about taking a new path. The constant itch of the artist rose up, always an artist first, and within that itch, the idea of the Labyrinth that had laid dormant for 18 or so years woke up, and tapped me on the shoulder.