Fiona Smith

It is never too late to start again. Life sends you in one direction and you sometimes forget who you were at the start. It is not that I wasn't myself when I packed away the paintbrushes to concentrate on making a living as a journalist and at home as a mother, it is just that I was missing something. Over the years, the creativity seeped out in projects that I could fit around work and children - I made jewellery, cut up old paintings and turned them into beaded gift cards and I doodled a hell of a lot. I decorated rocks. I couldn't remember anything unless I had a pencil or pen in my hand. I can't think how many eyes I drew, hundreds of thousands of them, butting into my shorthand in spiral notebooks. Then finally, my employer cut me loose and I was given an opportunity to reimagine myself, finding that piece of painting to fit back into the jigsaw puzzle of my life. And here I am ... painting what I love, loving what I paint. Thank you for looking in.

BA Comm (journalism). I attended classes at Julian Ashton art school in the 1980s in Sydney and, more recently have studied with Kerrie Lester and Gria Shead at the Workshop Arts Centre, also undertaking workshops with established prize-winning artists such as Lucy Culliton, Robert Malherbe, John Bokor, Amanda Penrose-Hart, David Fairbairn, Juliette Holmes a'Court and Tim Allen.

Once By Happenstance - October 9-20, Gauge Gallery, Glebe
Art for Hamlin - Celebrating Women, 4 Oct–7 Oct · Farr Side Gallery · Marrickville.
Fair Isle Country - May 2018, Design & Detail, Jindabyne.
Petrichor - March 20 - April 7, 2018, Ewart Gallery, Willoughby.
Brushstrokes at the Bay, October 29, 2016, Primrose Park, Cammeray (group show).
Tea With Kerrie, July 6- July 29, 2016, Ewart Gallery, Willoughby (group show).