It all started when…

It all started when I took my mum to an arts and crafts fair, I think it was either Mother’s Day or her birthday. We used to always craft together, finding creative things to make and gift, constantly trying and learning new things. Well that’s where I found a stall offering short courses in glass bead making & fused glass. I went to several of these classes hosted by Finns Glass Art. This happened to be at the same time that I was studying a Diploma of Fine Arts at Nepean College of the Arts.

One thing lead to another and I found out Sydney University offered Glass Art as a major. It wasn’t long before a little hobby became something I truly felt at home in. Once I started exploring the different techniques in glass, I started also exploring concepts of home in my work. Rebuilding my childhood home in timber and glass with the sound of rain on a tin roof, my piece “Lullaby” was the first time I truly felt like I found myself in my art.

Lullaby - 2012

My pieces that followed in my honours year after that were inspired by my own experience in buying my first home, and the process I went through weighing up my options - working through my own internal dialogue of why I did or didn’t like one space or location over another. Realising this all came down to my lived experience and the memories and relationship I had with different spaces, I worked though the varying landscapes different people find themselves at home in. City, Country or Suburbia and the idealism we place on each depending on our own perception of these locations.

Ironically, or maybe more, intentionally, I then built a long career helping people build or buy their own homes. And while I took a break from exhibiting, I was always drawing little concepts, thinking of new ideas, and most importantly (as many artists will agree) I was constantly buying new tools, equipment and materials to play and experiment with. The years that followed my degree have helped me build by own studio, creating a space I can explore my ideas.

Now I find myself, able to refine some of the scribbles I’ve drawn, and in this process, I am finding myself truly at home.