Soon I was hooked, committing to draw anything that would keep still long enough.

My love of all things creative didn’t stop at drawing, writing poetry became another regular pass time of mine and this is something else I can attribute to my Grandmother, who would read Shakespeare to me from a young age.. She would spend hours explaining the deeper meaning behind his words, that would otherwise have escaped my childish mind. By the age of 10 I had been published in a children’s poetry book, and again, at the age of 12.

When I was 13, my family uprooted and moved to Garnant (which is near Swansea), in South Wales. Here I attended Amman Valley Comprehensive School. It was at this time that I discovered another outlet for my creative expression… ‘theatre’.

I enjoyed Drama lessons, surprisingly, as I was a very shy teenager and so I joined a young persons theatre group outside of school. Over the next couple of years, I performed and participated in numerous musical productions and plays.. never quite getting the roles I wanted, I both acted and danced well but my singing voice let me down. If it weren’t for that, I may have chosen to pursue the stage as a career.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, I chose to take both Drama and Art in school at GCSE level. Though I loved Drama, and did well at it.. Art was to once again become the front runner in my life. I had always excelled at pencil and charcoal drawing but up until my GCSE years, I had been somewhat afraid of introducing colour into my work. I had no problem reproducing an object or person onto paper, with perfect accuracy but when it came to adding colour and real emotion into a piece.. I very much had a mental block.

It was then that our Art teacher, introduced the works of ‘Georgia O’Keeffe‘ to the class. I imagine that a study of her work was a standard part of the curriculum but it truly had a very profound effect upon me. I was and still am, in awe of the wondrous depth of colour O’Keeffe could create in her paintings and even her pastel drawings. She could take a simple object, look at it in a way that nobody had ever looked at it before, making it fascinating, emotive and beautiful. She was such an inspiration to me. I bridged the gap between precise drawing and true creative artwork.. and never looked back.

I left school having achieved an A* in Art at GCSE level. Later that year, I started at Gorseinon College, studying Fine Art and Contemporary Dance. There was still part of me reluctant to leave my performing days behind.

Then things took a turn for the worse and over the coming months I was to find myself, creatively stumped.. though I enjoyed my Art classes (a study of urban decay was of particular joy to me, I still find it a fascinating subject) I was at this point to fall into a somewhat inexplicable depression.

My family were having trouble making ends meet, so I left college half way through my first year and got a full time job in an office so that I could help with the finances.. and put my creative development on hold. At 17 I fell pregnant with my son, by 18 I had left work, to pursue a far more challenging career, that of a full-time mum!

My son gave me back all the joy that I had lost in life and much more on top! and so I turned my attentions back to my sketch pad, pastels and paint brushes. New waves of creativity flowed from my finger tips over the next couple of years, I feel as though I have crossed another artistic milestone.

Art I believe, is very much a state of mind.. more so even than a possession of skill.