Profile
There's a line in Henry James' Portrait of a Lady which sums me up pretty well. He writes,
'Her imagination was so ridiculously active,
if the door was not opened to it, it jumped out the window.'
I was raised in Kent, and though I have had no formal training in illustration, was raised by a photographer and a product designer. They taught me to look, and look twice. Place has always been important to me, and it's present in my writing and my art. I think it's about that tug toward home. Drawing places and maps of places that are meaningful to people makes me glad.
It says in the Bible, 'If we did not sing- the rocks would cry out.' And that's really the heart of why I create anything at all, ever. Because we're all saying something- with our words yes, but with our lives and choices and with whatever our hands find to make.
For me, there are a good deal of things on this earth that fill me with wonder. It comes out as a gasping 'oh!' as I learn things, travel, talk, listen, read, sing, write, adore, ache. That 'oh!' is behind everything I make. That is what I am saying.
And like the rocks, let my 'Oh!' be to glory of God.
