In early 2023 I received an email advising that one of my little landscapes had won a prize - a two-year membership and solo show at the Scottish Arts Club in Edinburgh. This exhibition came to be ‘Walk, Pause, Paint.’, the most recent development of my work that is still clearly established on my long-held creative principles.

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The poet Baudelaire coined the term ‘Flaneur’ to describe those who "walk, trespass, observe, consider and record."
If I claim the title ‘flaneuse’ (sic) I acknowledge that the foundations were established by my upbringing in a remote area of the Scottish Highlands. An environment in which the light, the atmosphere, was subject to daily, if not hourly, mood changes. It was the Covid period, however, that reignited my need to be alone in the mountains and my medium of recording those experiences would be oil paints! Plein-air was a new venture that has since embedded itself as my preferred means of creativity.

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Carrying all the necessary equipment I Walk to locate the backdrop of a new work. An area that evokes the hinted promise of something special. The Pause is to substantiate that promise. A moment or few to consider and select my specific subject. By the time I get to Paint, I am totally absorbed in the process of committing my understanding of that promise to the canvas. The work then presented is the sum of a physical adventure, a visual reward, and an emotional investment.