Art as Transformation

Art has always been more than expression for me—it has been restoration, resilience, and survival. Transformation through art became my companion, and my guide through some of the most turbulent chapters of my life.

Living in the shadow of both parents’ alcohol addictions meant living with years of emotional instability and what I later learned to call anticipatory grief—the sorrow that comes from waiting for an inevitable loss. It carries the same weight as post-loss grief—sadness, anger, anxiety, even guilt—yet it unfolds while the person is still alive.

At school, I was labelled “stupid” by educators and by my parents, misunderstood at the very time I needed to be seen most clearly. In those silences and misjudgements, art became my language. I thrived in art, needlework, and photography, and though I left school without maths, sciences, or languages, creative resilience became my strongest thread of continuity.

My foundation in art— in a transformative course in Banbury, Oxford—was not just educational, but reparative. Each sketch, stitch, or photograph became a way to process all that had happened. As I moved through adolescence and into young adulthood, surrounded by the conflicting dualities of care and harm, art helped me make sense of experience. Silversmithing gave form to intangible emotions; knitting for my children brought grounding in repetition and care. Creativity became a continuing thread of grounding and support.

Motherhood and loss brought new complexities. The deaths of both parents, close together, unearthed years of buried emotion. In the process of clearing their belongings, I discovered my mother’s Open College of the Arts course materials—an almost symbolic passing of the baton. I enrolled in OCA’s textiles programme, and with each module I wove healing into form. I graduated with a first-class honours degree—the first ever awarded on that programme. That achievement was not only academic; it was a triumph over the long-held narrative of inadequacy that had shadowed my life.

Life’s transitions have continued to reshape me. Divorce, brought with it both rupture and release. The experience of my children growing up and leaving home for university opened new space in my life, but also a profound shift in identity. More recently, redundancy from my role at Crisis marked the end of a chapter after working within community care, volunteering, and social change. Each of these moments—painful, disorientating, sometimes liberating—has reaffirmed what I know deeply: that healing through making is a lifeline for all in times of change.

Today, my art practice is not about erasing the past but about reclaiming agency within it. Through sculpture, textiles, and socially engaged work, I transform pain into something tangible, valuable, and resonant. When I share this practice—whether in exhibitions, workshops, or one-to-one coaching—I do so with the knowledge that art can redraw the fractured self into something whole, resilient, and powerful.

Shifting States grew out of this journey. It is the embodiment of what I have lived: that through creative engagement, we can craft objects of meaning that support us through change, honour memory, and open new pathways to becoming.