Welcome!
Hello and welcome to my website.
Despite my teenage son telling me that websites are outdated, I am glad to bring the various strands of my work together in one place.
Please find the relevant work you are looking for and if you can’t find something don’t hesitate to get in touch with me via the Contact Page.
Thanks to my various photographer friends who have taken the beautiful photographs on the site – Raymond Evans, Peter Morgan, Jess Rose.
What I do…
I have various work strands, some of which you can find on this website and others which you can find elsewhere (follow links below):
Writing
I have been writing since I was very young – keeping a journal since I was 11 or 12; writing my first ‘novel’ when I was 13; writing poetry and performance material throughout my 30s, including a number of short pamphlets; completing my PhD in 2018; publishing a number of short pamphlets of work online linked to creative projects; and currently working on my first full-length non-fiction book all about Love.
Speaking
I love speaking with and to people, but it hasn’t always been that way!
As a child I used to love pretending I was running my own TV cookery programme. I baked often with my mother and I would narrate while I was mixing cakes to an invisible audience. Although I was very forthcoming at home and with friends, I found it painful to express verbally as a teenager in school and formal settings and suffered from regular tonsilitis. I found it very challenging to speak my feelings. I joined a youth theatre when I was 16 and persevered through the intense uncomfortableness to develop more confidence in speaking in front of others. It worked and I went on to study Drama at university. I almost became a children’s TV presenter in my early 20s but decided to train as a teacher instead.
Throughout my 30s I regularly shared my work at poetry and literature events. In recent years I have developed 2 podcasts and have been invited to speak at various conferences and events about arts, health and wellbeing. I presented a TedX talk in 2021 about my project Birth Cafe – a Transformational Approach to Birth-Storytelling, which was based on my PhD research. Even as I write my book now, I am excited to record is an audio book and to share it in live events.
Performing
I am a performance artist, working primarily in Live Art.
Originally trained in Drama (BA (Hons), 1997-2000), I went on to train as a Drama teacher in secondary schools (PGCE, 2002). I completed my MA Practising Theatre & Performance at Aberystwyth University in 2012, over 2 years, whilst working 4 days a week and mothering my son. I went on to receive my PhD there, completing in 2017/8, giving birth to my second son in 2015.
During my MA, I started to create solo performances and I loved it! I learned from a range of inspirational teachers including Prof Mike Pearson, Prof Heike Roms, Prof Richard Gough, Prof Carl Lavery, Dr Andrew Filmer, Simon Banham. I was very grateful to have 2 exceptional supervisors for my PhD, that made the whole experience joyous – Dr Karoline Gritzner and internally-renowned theatre director, and founder of the Magdalena Project, Jill Greenhalgh.
I have always worked from a body-based perspective. Along with writing, dancing was my primary mode of expression throughout my childhood. Since 2018, I have focused more on somatic practice and specifically training in the Discipline of Authentic Movement with Joan Davis in Gorse Hill, Ireland (Original Nature: A Practice in Presence, 2018-2021).
It has been life-changing to work with Joan – it connects my passion for body, movement, consciousness, presence, spirituality all woven into the gorse cliffs of Ireland, which is the same landscape of my childood. My training with Joan continues in 2024-25 in a bespoke 1-year training programme for me and my training ‘buddy’, Irish choreogapher Siobhan Ni Dhuinnin, called ‘Movement of Essence’.
I offer regular somatic classes and in 2024 I have started to offer half-day and day-long Introductions to Authentic Movement.
Coaching
My interest in creativity lies less in the ‘formal’ side of art-making, and more in the human-expression of imagination. My work has always been less focused on abstract or conceptual art, and more focused on autobiographical storytelling and presence in the live event. To this end, I have worked with different communities of people since I trained in my first degree – working in prisons and probations centres, schools and other community settings. I have always been interested in the healing process and how creativity supports this. Over the years I have explored various therapeutic routes, but have always come down on the arts-side.
However in 2021, I trained as a NLP Practitioner (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and found that working as a transformational coach was incredibly satisfying. It is very dynamic as a form, it is present- and future-focused, it creates change and transformation, and often rapid growth for clients. Since then I have trained in a number of other NLP-related modalities including Old Pain2Go (by Steven Blake), Mental Space Psychology and Social Panorama with Lucas Derks, Integral Eye Movement Therapy, developed by Andrew T. Austin. I am now a trainer of IEMT.
As space, body, movement and language have been integral to my creative expression and practices throughout my life, I have loved finding these change processes that use the same ingredients, but in a more structured, process-led way. Although creativity can provide a powerful canvas for change and healing, it can be slow, so I enjoy being able to choose from different approaches depending on my cleints.
I work 1 to 1 with clients, often with artists and creatives, and I have gone on to set up a company with Dave Weller, called Break Free & Thrive, where we offer a range of courses and online membership group.
Consultancy
The final thread of what I now offer is consultancy in culture, health and wellbeing. This sector has been growing rapidly in Wales since 2021. I have worked with Wales Arts Health & Wellbeing Network since then, as a freelance/part-time Programme Manager. As well as managing the core programme, I have also developed How Ya Doing? an artist wellbeing programme; led our first national Arts & Health conference, Weave 2023; and managed various creative wellbeing projects supporting healthcare staff in Wales.
I am developing a new website for this work specifically – click here to find out more.
Where I have come from…
I have worked in the arts, education, community and wellbeing sectors since I graduated from Manchester University in 2000 with a BA (Hons) Drama.
Originally from a small fishing village on the south coast of Ireland, I grew up pre-Celtic Tiger, when Catholicism still had its hooks in the nation’s psyche. This had produced a culture that repressed emotions, the body and sexuality, that induced shame and guilt as part of the course of being a human, especially being a woman.
The eldest of five children, my family was extremely poor most of the time. My father was a fisherman, which meant that when the fishing was good there were occasional flurries of cash. But generally we survived on the dole. Along with the life of fishing, came alcoholism, and a world in which women had to carry far more than their share.
This childhood shaped me and the work I have gone on to create in two main ways:
- As the eldest child, capable and clever, I took on a lot of responsibility within our family. By the time I left home at 17 to go to university, I was ultra-self-sufficient, being fiercely able to look after myself, but really this was a trauma-response, and has led to an over-developed masculine energy. This capacity has enabled me to DO a lot over the years, juggling work and creativity and research and mothering. As I move through my 40s now, I have begun to focus more – less of trying to do everything to support others, and choosing how I want to FEEL and BE and allowing the impulse to do to come from that.
- As the eldest of 5 and with over 50 first cousins, we grew up surrounded by other children. My sisters and I often shared beds when we were young to stay warm in a house that had no central heating. When we watched TV (only 2 channels), there were always at least 3 of us tucked under a blanket together, along with my father when he was at home. We rubbed feet and tickled arms and brushed each others hair. I loved the closeness and connection of being with others. Intimacy and connection are major themes of all my work.
Over the years my work has drifted between employed jobs and freelance projects – juggling demands of supporting my young family and also trying to maintain my own creative practice. This has included: running projects and programming in arts venues across south and west Wales; managing an arts and mental health charity; working as a college and university lecturer; working as a project manager on a wide variety of arts and heritage projects; working as a research officer in Swansea University for 4 years; working as a freelance consultant in arts & health across Wales and beyond.
At the heart of all this work is: