I  graduated in sculpture/performance art but that all changed when I went to Japan as a scholarship student in the late nineteen eighties and again in the early nineties.  It has had the most powerful influence on my life and remains so still.  I began to paint while there, paint on beautiful 'Washi', (hand-made paper), using pigments of fabulous hue.  Everything about the life and culture influenced my work - architecture, ceramics, textiles, food, nature, silk and colour.