I volunteer as a Workshop Leader at Centrepieces and use my sports coaching to develop confidence to produce art in fellow members. As many members will tell you, if you sit at my art table, be ready to score a goal!

Back to the competition; this year’s Art Prize has the theme of Joy and they introduce the writings of C S Lewis to develop this theme. Got me hooked and I started researching Joy as although it’s something I know of, I didn’t fully understand and couldn’t articulate what I understand as Joy. Scoring a goal is excitement, not Joy. I now understand Joy is innate, it’s calm and we just need simple everyday prompts to make it flow. 

Coincidently, at the time of the competition launch, I was running workshops on Portraits using the method I had witnessed at a Frank Auerbach exhibition ‘Charcoal Heads’. I was at the Lodge with Paul helping him finish off his Dame Kelly Homes Portrait and, as he didn’t need my help, I decided to do a quick portrait and pulled a  Mother Teresa image out of the folder and thought “yes, she has a very interesting face”. Then I had one of those sessions all artists will recognize where the image just flows out of you and your sub-conscious seems to take over and there it is, and you’re left thinking “who did that? It can’t have been me”!