I suppose I've been fairly creative and imaginative all my life. Back in the late 1970s, I was an early Dungeon & Dragon player. I loved it so much and, along with two great enthusiasts, formed Asgard Miniatures, creating and producing original metal figurines for D&D. A few years later, I worked in new product development in high technology telecommunications including Homestyle - using 1980s technology to control heating lighting and security remotely. I wonder what happened to that idea?
I evolved into a product marketeer, working in several industries, essentially looking at taking new products to market.
By my mid-forties, I had completed a degree in History and became a qualified maths teacher. I don't know how that happened. I loved making lessons that tapped into the Creative part of the children's brains - extremely rewarding, particularly in, let's admit it, a pretty unexciting subject!
Whilst qualifying as a teacher, for some unknown reason, I wrote a 100,000-word children's book based on a fantasy world - The Matherics. Creatures whose characteristics resembled their maths traits, e.g. Esti - a laid-back, gentle creature that loved guessing things like how many leaves were on a tree, or DeeVider, a hairy creature that produces poop when it divides two numbers. The bigger the remainder, the bigger the poop! I know it's madness! I visited schools running Creative Matherics workshops. At one school, we published short stories inspired by Matherics.
Through my creative journey, my next Spontaneous thing focused on pencil portraits of friends and work colleagues. I loved the monochromatic dramatic feel of the art. This led nicely to the exploration of black and white photography.
Pastels became my favourite choice of media. The vibrancy and blending allowed me to express a sort of abstract and impressionist feel.
My work began to sell in local galleries whilst I explored colours. I started to explore the potential of painting with Photoshop. This was probably my first exploration of fusion- traditional art enhanced through Photoshop.
I then spent two years becoming a better photographer, mainly landscapes and street photography. At the same time studied the advanced aspects of Photoshop - I was still a techie at heart
The three visual art forms merged - traditional art, photography and technology. Or what I refer to as:
Creative Fusion