2023

2023 is nearly over! There’s no excuse for the lack of blog posting, except it hasn’t been a priority.

My time in Lisbon came to an end in early April, I returned to Hastings where I now live in a gorgeous fisherman’s cottage in the Old Town, a short distance from the beach. With limited amount of space in the house, my studio for the summer and autumn has been in the back garden a challenge at times with all the rain. Despite this in November I pulled together an exhibition called ‘Secrets from the Greenhouse’ which was shown at The Crown in Hastings Old Town for the month of November. Much of the work created started from ideas and drawings I produced in Lisbon from the botanical gardens. Judy Parkinson from Hastings Online Times kindly wrote an informative piece about the exhibition which you can read here.

In Lisbon, I was lucky enough to immerse myself in all things art and loved the regular drawing classes at Lisbon drawing group and taking a Bargue course at LX Atelier. This time away was invaluable in terms of giving myself space to think about how I wanted my life to take shape. One of the changes was to look at a different way of working. Having a  graphic design degree behind me, I thought it was time I should use this skill, so I began the groundwork for a new digital business which I’ve called Three Round Boats. The work is quite different from my work here with bold, minimal design which will be printed onto sustainable prints and T shirts for children and adults. The store will go live in January 2024

For the time being Three round Boats is what l will be working on for most of my time and I will cross over to Obiko and take on the occasional art project. This works for me in a more harmonious way. In the medium term, I hope to reverse this.

My last words for 2023 is peace to all, it must be what most of us want. It’s been difficult to see the atrocities play out in war and many struggling to find a voice, explanation to how humanity can be so cruel. I’ll leave you with this beautiful quote by Marie Curie, one l always come back to

“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.”

Thank you for being here and Happy New Year x