1 When did you start to make art?
I find it hard to accurately answer as I have made pictures for as long as I could hold a pencil, it just depends on when they can be defined as art.
2 How did you evolve into a professional artist?
College helped but a determination to succeed, the support of others and the likes of Degreeart!
3 What drove you to make art as a professional vocation?
A need to produce images and a hatred the 9-5 ethos.
4 Explain your inspiration?
Very wide ranging, from novels or texts on historical ideas and images to really trashy magazines and porn, I especially like google image search. My work till now has most often been inspired by current and historical notions of the image of the sexy female.
5 In what way does your inspiration transform into ideas?
Trawling the internet using google image search can throw up some new directions, often I just start to paint one thing and then continue developing the idea through a series of pieces, sometimes the style I use or the painting can suggest other ways of thinking about a theme.
6 From Ideas to production of art – how? And why?
This can be a tricky jump, for several years on my degree I had piles of notes and source material but could not find a way to transform them into images. Just starting somewhere can really help, even if that 1st piece doesn’t work out.
7 Could your ideas be portrayed in any other medium? If so which?
To an extent, but I think that my engagement with the mediums I use are carefully thought out, the image and means of production have a conceptual relationship.
8 Which artists would you most like to blatantly rip off?
Money? I prefer to reference, ripping off straight is boring to do, I like playing with other artists images, at the moment I am doing a handmade artist’s book inspired by Vasari’s ‘Lives of the great artists’, I make my own printed interpretations of 6 contemporary artists with dramatic biographies.
9 Why is your art made?
I love to paint and draw and print and at the moment I am lucky enough to have people buy it.
10 What does being an artists mean to you?
Fulfilling my life-long dream. Getting to play and create and think.
11 Are you happy with your reasons for making art? i.e Are there any trade offs that make life hard?
I am very happy, I try and strike a balance between commercial success and personal creative fulfilment. Money can be a dirty word, it shouldn’t need to be, we all need to eat. I try and do some work that I know will not sell, some work for charity events and some work that is on walls and ceilings and can not be sold.
12 When does your art become successful?
When I can’t stop looking at it like I have just fallen in love.
13 What is art?
A 3 letter word.
14 How do you start the process of making work?
Going for a long walk.
15 Who prices your work? And how is the price decided upon?
I take advice from my galleries.
16 What is your next; move,project,show etc?
A handmade book.
17 What are the pros and cons of the art market?
It is so very fickle and has so many indistinct levels and circles.
18 Which pieces would you like to be remembered for?
Ask me when I am 99 and still painting.
19 Any routine in making your artwork? If so what?
No. Apart from a print class once a week.
20 What has been the biggest break in your career?
Being inspired by my husband and having the support of Degreeart.
21 Who has been the biggest influence on you?
Probably my 1st art teacher in terms of art. The list could get very long.
22 How many artworks have you given away and to whom?
To very close friends and I have just done a series of prints I have given to some of the foreign workers in the hospitality industry in my home town.
More Info:HERE
