At the beginning:
If you had asked me at 7yrs old ‘what things do you like doing? my answer would have been drawing and painting, craft, nature, reading, and music. All the things Mum had encouraged me to do as a pre-school toddler.
‘And Carol what would you like to be when you’re older?’ I remember my answer as a confident. “I’m going to be an artist.”
I knew even then that it is part of who I am and as I grew up that didn’t change. My desire to paint and draw has never stopped from that moment but as a teenager I dismissed what ability I had and without real guidance, left school looking for work. It was,’just art’ after all ...but I didn’t stop doing it.
Attending Adult Education Art classes eventually led me to a Pathway Course in Art and with it the opportunity to go to Kent Institute of Art and Design at Rochester as a mature student and train in Illustration and Graphics. Later having gained a B/ Tech and HND, still feeling unsure about what I wanted for an art career or if I wanted one at all, fate stepped in and I was offered some teaching at Gillingham Adult Ed. on a part time basis. Whilst teaching I completed a part time degree in Fine Art (Hons) at K.I.A.D. in Canterbury and continued to share all that I had learnt, before moving near to Rye, E. Sussex in 2001 where I still teach today.
Moving on....
Making that move to the countryside was crucial for me. My home had been the Medway Towns for fifty years but it was developing so fast. All the lovely green areas that had meant so much to me growing up were disappearing and I longed for that feeling of rural freedom again....how it had felt as a child........
........Searching for crabs and getting stuck in the mud at The Strand in Gillingham. Riding my bike into the countryside searching for wild flowers to to put in a school scrapbook ( it was ok then!) Watching the twinkling lights across the river in the dark as a teenager out on a date. Windy riverside walks past boat yards and clanging rigging. Hot afternoons out with students whilst sketching at Upnor. The tranquility of the North Downs at Boxley village whilst preparing a portfolio prior to going to collage and later for my degree work.......
Emotional response to the landscape around me....
Looking back I realise that memories like these hold a strong significance for me as an artist and affect how I approach my work today as a landscape painter. Painting a replica of what I see isn’t what I wish to achieve or convey. I want my work to be a sensual response to what I’m looking at. Of course, as regular practice, I still record exactly what I see by sketching and taking photographs but this is just a way of for me to store visual data, a way of recording memories. Memories which come flooding back whilst painting in my studio, when I’m asking myself ...so ‘what did this place feel like and what did you feel whilst there? ‘ It’s these feelings and emotions I’m responding to in paint...often with the materials I choose to use and with quick intuitive strokes that I hope speak of quietness, isolation and tranquil beauty........always searching for that magical ingredient, that illusive but recognisable ‘sense of place.’
CV:
1995-99. BA (Hons) Degree Fine Art - K.I.A.D. Canterbury, Kent.
1989-91 BTEC HND Design and Illustration, K.I.A.D. Rochester/ Maidstone, Kent.
1987-89 BTEC ND Design and Illustration K.I.A.D. Rochester, Kent.
1986-87 Pathway to Art and Design, Rochester, Kent.
Teaching:
2010-2022 Teaching - private art classes
1991- 2010 Teaching Painting and Drawing/ Life Drawing in
Adult Education for KCC and E.Sussex CC.
1997-1998 City and Guilds Cert D 32/33
GNVQ Assessors Award
1993-1994 Stage 1 City and Guilds 7307/01
F.A.E.T.Cert.
Other employment:
1976-87 Various part- time employment whilst raising a family
1973-76 KCC Springfield Library Assistant
1969-Dec 1972 Clerical Assistant M.O.D. H.M. Royal Dockyard Chatham, Kent.