I grew up on, in and next to the sea on the Welsh Coast near Aberystwyth and my work is inspired by the beautiful imagery of this part of the world and by the language and culture in which I have been raised.
“Things men have made with wakened hands,
and put soft life into are awake through years with transferred
touch, and go on glowing for long years.
And for this reason, some old things are lovely
warm still with the life of forgotten men who made them.”
D.H. Lawrence
I particularly like to work with the pieces of flotsam and jetsam driftwood that I collect in armfuls from the pebbly beaches that I walk. I like the signs of previous use in the old discarded timber – the rusty hinges, the flakey paint, the old handles and the once carefully carved pieces which give clues to their previous purpose and echoes of the people who made and used them. I want to give the driftwood new life and purpose as a part of my artwork and I spend happy hours in my workshop turning sea worn planks and pieces into canvasses for bright harbour scenes, shoals of mackerel, favourite words and quotations. So it is that some of the driftwood that washes up on my stretch of the Welsh coast finds new homes on walls across the world.
