Welcome

 

Thanks to the two white-clad, Salvationist sisters who ran the post-war Kindergarten I attended, I was reading and writing before I began school. I read everything, wrote on anything. I treasured the books my parents gave me. Special memories from my early years were art lessons, puppet shows, visits to museums and classical concerts.

I remember when I was about sixteen someone asked me what I was going to do with my life. The answer I gave surprised even me. I replied I was going to write and illustrate children’s books. However I was diverted; with the encouragement of the careers advisor and parents I went to Teachers’ College. But the arts still beckoned. I haunted Rowe Street, a lane-way in Sydney, and in the Notanda Gallery bought art books and prints.

 

I painted at the John Ogburn studio on Saturdays and daringly spent one summer holiday attending the Mary White School of Art in Edgecliff. This experience was worlds apart from my everyday existence: discussing and reading about the philosophy of art, tutored by practicing modern artists, leading a stimulating life. It comes as no surprise that as soon as I was able, in 1968, I went overseas, worked, travelled, and immersed myself in the arts: wandering through Florentine churches, ancient buildings, Dutch, French and British galleries and museums.

I spent a year at the Byam-Shaw School of Art in London. Back home in Sydney I was accepted into the art school at East Sydney Technical College in Darlinghurst. With marriage there was change. I returned to teaching. For a while I continued to paint and exhibit. Then I began to write and illustrate books to entertain and delight our two children. My husband, artist Ken Cowell and I collaborated in the making of a couple of those special books.