My Creative Process
A lifelong engagement with the written word and an MA in Literature and Digital Cultures deepened my focus on storytelling, particularly in fairy tales and game narratives, helping me to critically examine how chronicled meaning is layered and reworked over time in my pieces.
Chronic illness shifted my process even further, away from linear production towards collecting, revisiting, and reworking fragmented ideas within an evolving archive. Working with recycled and found materials helps me to embrace unpredictability. Moving from a photographed moment into layered works using print, collage, paint, papercutting, and stitch, allows me to form small narrative worlds rooted in everyday life.
Influenced by a family of strong women, I was raised in a world of making, where creativity was part of daily life: growing food, sewing fabrics, repairing, and building. It was practical, necessary, and constant long before it had a name.
That empirical foundation still shapes my practice, ensuring I create things with a purpose, that are to be used, shared, and returned to. During my BSc in Natural and Human Environments, this instinct led me to build a publicly accessible database of Iron Age artefacts designed to be shared and accessed beyond the classroom. This is still available in my free digital gallery.
My work and education as a teacher and librarian has firmly grounded my practice between research and making. This approach has been further shaped by immersion in natural and human environments, and by experience in education, librarianism, and socio-political work in communities encountering poverty. Hiking, gardening, journaling and travel have kept me firmly rooted in the physical world, encouraging me to gather and collect as much as I create.
Showcase of “The Dancers” for International Women’s Day.
“Excellence has no sex” (Eva Hesse).
The Dancers began with a papercut inspired by a Matisse sculpture highlighting the beauty of the female form. Matisse lost dexterity and was supported by female artists who also inspired his work. The Dancers shows a mother and daughter, one based on a female sculpture and the other a young ballet dancer. Story of this piece shared in support of International Women’s Day 2021. “You can’t sit around and wait for somebody to say who you are. You need to write it and paint it and do it.” (Faith Ringgold).
Moss Pole Toppers and Plant Accessories
As well as actual plants and cuttings, I aim to make fun, affordable, practical accessories that add to the design and functionality of your tropical indoor garden. These 3D printed Moss Pole Toppers/Waterers for example are designed to feed and water the moss in the moss poles supporting aerial roots, allowing sizing up of leaves for plants that prefer terrestrial growth sites such as vines and tree climbers.
Sam’s Plants
Part of my creative process where I lovingly grow and cultivate a range of happy and often rare baby aroid plants in the North of England. Located in the scenic Yorkshire countryside, I draw nature into my artwork by creating one-of-a-kind ink and paint pieces balanced between nature and art. My tropical Araceae plants and cuttings transform my creative space. I also 3D print cute, fun plant accessories that are sometimes available at my craft stalls, such as glow in the dark ghost pots!
The soothing sense of greenery and growth encompassed in the peaceful machinations of an indoor garden cannot be underestimated. Try creating your own personalised oasis by adding a young philodendron or monstera, or even a glow in the dark ghost pot with a marble epipremnum. Your whole creative space will suddenly feel very different.
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