I grew up in a home where arts and craft working were strongly encouraged - many birthday gifts were paper and paint! School life was always centred around the art lessons rather than the sports field, and I was very lucky to find supportive art teachers who were only too happy to pass on their experience.

A Foundation course in Art and Design in Stoke on Trent lead to working at the Gladstone Pottery Museum convincing me that I wanted to work with ceramics. Following 3 years study in London at the Central School of Art and Design I set up a studio making pottery and hand decorated ceramic tiles. Ever keen to work with new materials and techniques, I was selected to study glass engraving at the Orrefors Glass Company in Sweden in 1988,and shortly afterwards undertook commissions and started teaching in London.

Interested in drawing and graphic arts, I spent years building up a portfolio of drawings and photographs, which form the reference source for a range of greeting cards and prints. From this an interest in bookbinding was reawakened, and I now devote much time to bookbinding. From making simple sketch books and journals for my own use, to interest from friends and clients, I am now a regular exhibitor at several of this country's main book exhibitions, with everything from hand marbled notebooks, to hand carved oak books, to photographed flower books with raw silk covers.

Alongside the bookbinding, I make kilts to order in the traditional style containing about 8 yards of woollen fabric with knife pleats, and also contemporary kilts containing between 5 to 6 yards usually of denim or cotton. If you're nice, I might show you what's underneath my kilt one day.

A Collection of the poems of Samuel Coleridge Taylor. A non adhesive binding sewn on alum tawed thongs with unbleached linen thread. The glass boards are hand engraved with the first line of the poems, and then coloured to show the portrait and signature of the poet.

Drawing Dragons. A complete Artist's books, hand carved oak boards, of one of the many illustrations contained within the book drawn in Oak Gall ink by the binder directly into the completed book.

Very much a fun binding, the head and tail of the snake are hand carved wood. The spine of the snake is heavy cow hide with individual hand sewn paper sections. The snake is very flexible and can be arranged in almost any position.

A selection of kilts that I've created.