About Pat

I cannot remember a time when I didn't draw or paint. When my father kept chickens and supplied the butcher, the butcher supplied my drawing paper, big sheets of newspaper without the printing . I loved the fact the picture was mine and no one could tell me how to do it - it was my own creation. I love to surprise myself with what I can do.

When I was at school my painting and drawings were marked for the first time and I used to get A's and lots of praise :))))))). And people would say that I took after my grandfather who was very artistic. So, it became part of my identity.

When I was 16 I applied to go to the local art college to do a foundation art course and when I took my bulging folder of work to the interview the principle laughed said "I don't think I even need to look at thi,s I think I can say you are in", he could see that my heart was in it and that I was very enthusiastic.

I went there for 2 years and then I applied to do my diploma at Loughborough College of Art and was accepted there. I completed 4 years at this college specialising in creative embroidery.

I loved embroidery because of the richness of surface, which I could build up but embroidery is very slow. So after leaving college I began to try to achieve a similar richness using painting and drawing media.

I come from an abundant place of colour, pattern and texture. In my childhood home all plants grew vigorously, honey suckle wrapped itself around telegraph wires and all the visiting birds and creatures got fed.

I feel this abundance and I need to express it, in my art. The media I choose is water colour, gouache, acrylic, inks, pastels and collage. Any multi layered combination of these plus anything else that comes to hand :).

My father used to embroider with his big farmer's hands. And my mother is endlessly creative with not enough hours in the day for knitting, patchwork and the gardening that she loves to do. She does not think of herself as an artist but I know differently I believe in the artist in all of us and this is what I bring when I teach art.

Pat Saxty Dip.A.D.