When a blank wall becomes a new world

My wall of sketches is an ever-changing beast...it grows it morphs it becomes a world within a world. 

The problem with sketchbooks is that they hold secrets.

And that can be a beautiful thing. But being very dominant in external intuition, I need my whole creative universe in front of me so I can see the connections, and pull on threads to tell stories. I’m the type of person that goes to the big picture before the detail. So it was only natural that my practice has evolved into working on multiple things at once. Whether that’s gouache, oil, film, digital or embroidery, all parts of my practice weave and feed into each other without conscious instruction - and that is why the walls of my studio become so important. At my Assembly House studio the walls are kept fresh with an ever evolving mood board of work that directly feeds into where I am right now. Many people have commented that my gouache and watercolour sketches resemble tarot cards - and I suppose they are. I use them in a similar way. They are quick intuitive responses to a moment in time and take on a very symbolic message. I use them to channel my feelings and as they are created so quickly and intuitively it’s almost like connecting with the divine - time seems to disappear when I work on them. The act of putting them all together on the wall creates a universe of landscapes, portraits and abstract relationships that mean I can choose a selection that would tell it’s own unique story - much like a pull of tarot cards. Maybe one day I will turn some into my own deck of cards. But in the meantime I will continue to add to them, remove them and change their positions to fit my mood and the story of life.

Words also come out while I work intuitively with my sketches. And they become important in the process of developing the work.