About
I grew up in Canberra, fell in love with flowers and became a horticulturist and landscape designer in the 1990s while taking drawing classes at the School Of Art. My two young children and I moved to a bush block with a mud brick house in Bemboka in 1996, where I wrote short stories and raised my children while creating a garden and supplying salad leaves to restaurants.
Zaresky Press published a collection of my short stories, Soul Dark Soil, in 2000, the same year my partner and I purchased 1200 acres of forest, creek and mountain in Rocky Hall NSW with the aim of conserving and maintaining it as a wildlife corridor to nearby forest and National Parks. With the children’s education in mind, we moved to a community farm in Tantawangalo soon after our son was born in 2003, dividing our time between our land at Rocky Hall and our newly established cut flower farm in Tantawangalo. Years of joy growing flowers ended with the diagnosis of an auto-immune system disorder which flared up in sunshine. Being ill and not being able to be in the sun led to radical changes and we moved to a house with a wild garden in Bega, near a park where large, spreading trees offered plenty of shade. I began painting full-time, initially as a way of immersing myself in nature without the health issues. My art practice enhanced my sense of connection with the bright, beautiful world outside and the still life form became a favourite, providing scope for exploring the meeting point between (my) humanity and the natural world. Botanical or still life commissions welcomed. |