In the studio at Edinburgh Printmakers where I make and print my work.

(Photo credit: Tessa Asquith-Lamb)

WHO I AM

 

I was born in Nairobi, Kenya, a country my great-grandfather moved to from Australia at the turn of the 20th C. My family relocated to the UK and settled in Edinburgh when I was seven. My sense of myself is informed by this background. I adore Scotland but will always be something of an outsider. I did my degree in Drawing & Painting at the Edinburgh College of Art, joining the Edinburgh Print Workshop (as it was called then) the  summer I graduated, to keep up with orders for prints from my Degree Show.

After working for a decade, first at Thins Bookshop and then, for the newly re-established Fruitmarket Gallery I was made redundant just before it went bankrupt in the early 1990’s. My eldest son was 18 months old. Luckily I qualified for the Enterprise Allowance Scheme which I did as a printmaker, becoming officially professional a year later.

My working life as an artist was managed around my sons, their school timetable. Being an etcher meant I could make multiple copies of an image – so that after the work of making the plate, printing copies was relatively quick and easy. I did craft-fairs and showed regularly at Charity fundraisers for many years.

I now display in the browsers of small gallery/giftshops in Edinburgh and other venues in Scotland; do the odd exhibition with friends; put something into the annual Members-Winter-Show at Edinburgh Printmakers and occasionally try to get a picture into one of the annual Open Shows held in the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh.

Recently I have been commissioned to do work that ranges from illustrations to book-covers to portraits. I have been honing my skills as a sketcher-watercolourist and have re-discovered the joys and frustrations of drawing out-of-doors. All is always a work in progress.