Growing up amongst the terraced houses of North London, the 'outdoors' was a walk to school or Sunday school, and the back yard. Smog was a thing, fresh air wasn't. Visiting Grandparents in Lancashire was the opposite, a big garden, with a vegetable patch, a lawn and a compost heap, and best of all, over the back fence, farmland. Climbing onto the compost heap, dropping down into the field, and scrambling over straw bales on a summers' day, is one of the most exciting memories that I have of primary school years. Topped only by our parents taking us to Paris, to Sacré-Cœur and Montmartre at night, where we watched artists painting peoples' portraits, and then out to a guest house in Brittany, where nobody spoke English, and our parents no French.

Chester City High School for Girls, is best skated over with the exception of the art department and Mrs Davies, a sanctuary amongst stifling conformity. Mrs Davies gave us the opportunity to enter competitions, and I had a drawing exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool after winning a prize in the Brooke Bond Art Competition for Schools. 

So, art was the inevitable path, with two older sisters forging the way ahead. Leaving school at 16, completing a two year art foundation course and straight to my first choice, Bower Ashton, Bristol Polytechnic, where William Scott was a visiting tutor, was an achievement. However, I wasn't the best student, I lacked focus, and though I completed the BAHons Fine Art course, I left feeling deflated.

Forty-plus years on, twenty of them as a gallerist, and I have just completed my first year as a full-time artist, not curating or exhibiting work by other artists, but just getting to grips with the process of painting. I have attended workshops and have some wonderful artists friends who are generous with their time and advice, and I still keep in touch with some lovely customers.

Jack and Laura Willgoss are two, young customers, who have created Wildegoose Nursery in the Walled Garden at Lower Millichope, Munslow in Shropshire. It is a wonderful nursery, inspired by the new perennial movement of Northern Europe. They plant and grow sustainably, not watering the mature plants and adjusting to climate change. It is here that I hold Sketch with Mary days, and at the end of last year, Jack and Laura offered me the opportunity to exhibit in the tearoom and plant sales shed. 

I had been drawing and painting the landscape around my home and studio in Cantlop, and I have loved sitting in a field, but this year it has been great to have a goal. My visits to Wildegoose have surprisingly not resulted in lots of paintings and drawings of plants, but of the gardeners at work. Perhaps it is the influence of my early art education; starting with the Renaissance and religious figures; the significance of Millet's, The Gleaners; Bonnard's paintings of his wife Marthe de Méligny, and Van Gogh's peasant studies and later portraits. At Wildegoose Nursery, Jack and Laura and their gardeners, are the creators of a very special place and I wanted them to be the focus.

The exhibition is as follows:

'Drawn from the Earth' 4th to 6th September 2025, 10.30am to 4pm. Wildegoose Nursery. £6 entry to Wildegoose. Fellow exhibitors: Sharon Griffin MRSS, Glen Farrelly, Isatu Hyde, Laura Rosenzweig.

Directions to Wildegoose Nursery  https://www.wildegoosenursery.co.uk/about-visit/

I do hope you can come!