INSPIRATION

I am sometimes asked if I have a favourite print, and my mind often returns to this particular work that I made during the very unusual year of 2020.   Restricted in how far we could travel, I began to truly notice the landscape around me. My attention shifted to the smaller details; I became acutely aware of every tree and plant along my morning walk. One in particular captivated me - a solitary tree growing in the field just beyond my home. This tree was remarkable in the f

I have decided to experiment with making my own ink, with a view to create an ink that is ‘fugitive’, meaning quick to fade. You could think of it as a kind of 'disappearing' ink, although the intention is for the change to occur gradually over months or years, not instantly. This is, of course, the opposite of what most people seek in an ink, where maximum lightfastness is usually the goal. For me, though, the fading nature of the ink is synonymous with the concepts of ephe

If you drive along the coastal road from Llanon to Aberarth at low tide, you may glimpse several large mysterious stone shapes along the shoreline. Having lived in the area all my life, I have always been aware of these structures, and, at some point, I learnt they were medieval fish traps, once owned by the monks of Strata Florida Abbey. The traps worked by channelling fish into stone pools; as the tide receded, the water was released through sluice gates and the fish were t

More often than not, the inspiration for my work doesn’t come as a sudden bolt of realisation but rather as a small glimmer of an idea, caught on a walk or glimpsed from the window of a car or train or experienced during a swim or surf in the sea.   The word ‘inspiration’ comes from the Latin ‘ inspirare’ meaning to ‘breathe into’ and historically held divine connotations by its connection with the word ‘ spiritus’, meaning ‘breath’ but also ‘spirit’. In modern language, we m