Backstory...
My creative journey so far
Back in the 1980s, I could be found designing bits of production line at Austin Rover, Longbridge. From engineering, I made the unusual transition to advertising agencies Saatchi & Saatchi and CDP, where I learnt to distil complex narratives into simple, snappy stories.
Later, I studied sculpture from life at Harrow College and then expanded my creative exploration on a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at West Dean College of Arts & Conservation. At the same time, I worked regularly from Nina Cairns' Mapstone Studio in Devon and practiced under guidance from Luke Shepherd, Lucianne Lassalle and Eudald de Juana Gorriz.
For several years, I dabbled with printmaking at Double Elephant in Exeter, preferring screenprinting to convey a social narrative.
I love bringing creative interventions into people’s lives and so I have run many workshops for groups including the Southbank Centre Being A Man Festival, in schools in the USA and Spain for Apps For Good, with the board of Unilever and the global team of the Dove Self-Esteem Project and with clients of charities SAFE (against domestic violence), Headway Devon (brain injury), United Response (learning difficulties) and Hikmat (refugees).
At the end of 2017, I co-founded Creative Beings CIC, a social enterprise that helps to “cultivate creative practices for wellbeing”. We run courses and events that help people to find the time and space to notice the process rather than get fixated by pressure to produce a 'final' output.
In the same year, I devised and led the integrated ‘Hope & Renewal’ arts project, including sculpture installation, community workshops and a national photographic competition. The 4-metre high sculpture was awarded the top prize at the TRAIL outdoor exhibition.
In 2019, I was elected chair of the South West Sculptors. And in the lockdown year of 2020, I attracted funding from both the Network For Social Change and the Arts Council England for a multi-media arts project, Resurgo / Scension, in 2021.