I spent my twenties honing the art of oil portraiture painting, and even did a Masters of Fine Art at RMIT in Melbourne to this end. However, once my son, Griffin was born during the chaos that was 2020, my relationship to art making changed; I wanted to make things for him; to make his world beautiful and special, but also that we could pass down the generations. Arguably, a portrait fits this description, but they’re much harder to complete during nap times and stolen evening hours and are all a bit serious.

Initially I took influence from the copious picture books I read Griff each day and started illustrating an animal alphabet. My! Did I underestimate what a undertaking that was? It remains unfinished 5 years on - there’s a reason people usually only include one animal per letter.

I puttered away with the alphabet and a few other illustrated things for a while and then in Autumn 2022 the idea for The Painted Wreath took seed when I started considering prospect of dusting off our disintegrating plastic berry wreath for Christmas. We are a disorganised family, so I knew we needed another long-lived solution, but the idea of buying something plastic did not appeal. Shortly, I had the idea of marrying sign writing with decorative painting to create something we’d enjoy year after year. My father hand cut the first seven wreaths, I painted a couple, popped them up on Instagram and within a month I had sold the remaining five, including one to a lady in Texas and another to a woman in Switzerland. Instagram is a weird and wonderful place.

Four years on and I’m still painting wreaths, but also beds, walls, baubles, puppet theatres…anything to make the world a little more special, a little more beautiful.