Knock Out Blow Photograph - Limited Edition of 1

Born at home in East Finchley, London where my brother spent hours trying to teach me to ride a bike, drive a go-cart, or even catch a ball. Whilst I have none of the coordination skills that these activities required I am pleased to say that I preferred to develop my passion to visualise. At eight years old my family up-rooted to the riverside village of Wraysbury, Berkshire. My parents had taken on a new project to design and build their ideal luxury home, which my father continues to rebuild and then deconstruct to this day. This forever changing construction experience allowed me to view all aspects of design. I got to study shape, colour and proportion on every dimension. My mother, the ultimate fashionista, exercised with a passion her mercurial interior design concepts, whatever was the trend of the moment we had to have. Returning home after school from the ghastly Windsor Convent I would be confronted by the next design idea, “tear sheets” from magazines taped to the wall, along with bits of fabric, wall paper and usually some Objet D’art from John Lewis homeware, which we were not allowed to remove the sale tag, as she would no doubt be returning the item back to John Lewis, once this particular design phase was over! Nothing was ever really finished. I secured a place at the Royal Berkshire Institute of Art & Design, to study interior design. However after a year, I found the design restrictions dull and the environment claustrophobic. So my next move was to a construction company where I gained the essential real time experience in design and development. Once suitably “baptised” I decided to branch out in the design industry in partnership with my now husband. We have had the opportunity to undertake very varied work in both the domestic and commercial spheres. Working on projects from landmark factory premises to a Bretagne farmhouse and wonderful land and waterscapes in the UK and Europe. My husband always had his camera to record our projects, which I formatively used to develop my passion for capturing detail, form and structure. The photographic overview is an intrinsic requirement of our works, but being me I just wanted to create drama! Life was not all work - we were blessed with three beautiful children, another wonderful avenue for us to pursue. The family home was a Temple in Henley-on-Thames, which we designed and converted into a fantastic Gothic style house with the most enormous subterranean garden.