1. What do you do at WWAS?
I teach Monday night sculpture and Tuesday afternoon pottery for kids.
2. Tell us about your artistic/career journey to this point.
I have always been really creative. I went to the National Art School straight after High School, and did a Bachelor of Fine Art majoring in Photography. I then did a Masters of Fine Art at Sydney College of the Arts. I found the transition from art school into the outside world quite challenging -The commercial photography world is great, but it just wasn’t for me. I was gifted a short floristry course a few years later, and fell instantly in love. I went on to complete a cert IV in floristry and worked in the flower industry until Covid hit. At the same time as I was a florist I was attending regular sculpture and pottery classes at several studios, and sculpture slowly but surely became the central component to my creative practice. it felt like a natural progression when I began to teach sculpture at the beginning of 2019.
3. What is your favourite thing about WWAS?
My favourite thing thing about WWAS is the wonderful community. I love working collaboratively, and in a fun environment where everyone shares advice and help.
4. If you could share a meal with three artists living or dead, who would they be?
Three artists that I would love to share a meal with would be
1) Henry Moore, because he is such a master of simple sculptural forms. My work is very figurative too, but while I struggle with leaving out detail, he was truely great at stylising a form without loosing its integrity.
2) Bernini. He is one of my all time favourites. I would ask him how he can make hard marble look so much like soft flesh. I would also really want to know if he makes his religious sculptures look so sensual on purpose, or if that’s just us modern viewers, imposing contemporary thinking onto his baroque expressions.
3) Ron Mueck. I’d probably faint, and then beg for a job as a studio assistant.
(its a shame that none of these are women… sculpture can be a real boys club, especially historically)
5. What do you do when not creating or teaching?
When not teaching I am also interested in Surface design. I design wallpaper, homewares and apparel. I paint designs with gouache paint, scan and digitally alter them, and sell on a few different websites.
I also spend a lot of time walking my dog (a beautiful O’Connell retriever called Nimbus)
6. What inspires or motivates you?
I am inspired by the natural world. I paint lots of birds and flowers, and sculpt the human form a lot.
7. Where is your favourite holiday destination?
Picking just one holiday destination is impossible, but the most recent trip I went on was to the Galapagos Islands. I had dreamed of this trip since I was a little kid, and swimming with about 200 wild dolphins in the middle of the ocean was probably the coolest thing to ever happen to me. I was very inspired by the untouched natural beauty of those rather alien landscapes too.
8. What are you listening to?
My friends tease me for ‘only listening to music made before 1979’ (I was born in ’87) they are dead wrong of course – it’s 1989 and later that I don’t have a clue about. I absolutely love reading. I have re discovered my old love for Fantasy and Sci Fi during covid, when I returned to the genre seeking nostalgic comfort. favourite furthers include Brandon Sanderson, Laini Taylor and V.E. Schwab.