I grew up in a highly creative household. My mum was always sketching, playing around with clay or working on some new art project. From a really young age, I was surrounded by artistic talent and influences. One of my earliest memories is of my mum using the bathroom wall as her personal canvas and painting a huge Winnie The Pooh mural. I’m sure there were more subtle ways of pleasing us kids, but I will always cherish that memory.
My dad was never really in the picture, so my mum played both parents. Raising three kids by herself must have been tough and we weren’t always the easiest to manage. But she always managed to find the time to fill our home with colour and excitement. Whether it was a bunch of coloured chalks to draw on the concrete slabs on our garden path, or a handful of pencils to draw on the walls with before a new layer of wallpaper was pasted, we had the freedom to express ourselves. And it goes without saying that I’ve been shaped into who I am today because of it.
I remember having a fascination with diaries and journals. Growing up with TV shows like Tracy Beaker made me feel like writing was one of the best things in the world. I needed to have a girly diary (usually with a lock) that I could write in every day. What secrets I was keeping at eight or nine years old is beyond me, but I found comfort in writing about what I had for my lunch, or what I did at school that day.
As I got older, I spent less time with crayons and more time with a camera in my hand, snapping photos of anything and everything. Eventually this took me on the path to studying Photography at University whilst shooting the odd wedding here and there. I adored using the camera to document the ‘unseen’ and found myself circling back around to that passion for story telling.
Our grown selves are reflections of our inner child.
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