As a teenager finishing high school, my ambition was to paint. I painted. I loved the smell of fine oil paints, had read some of the classics on the techniques of oil and acrylic painting (such as Dormer) and spent hours labouring over canvasses, with some good and other average results. I loved (and still do) the German Expressionists, Dada, Surrealism, Photo-realism, Pop and other modernist and post-modernist styles.

But it was not to be. I was not a particularly good drawer and because of this my art teacher at the time discouraged me from such a career path. How short sighted! How narrow minded! How unpost-modern! I subsequently went on to express my creative drive in other areas and became politically involved, then later practised yoga and meditation.

I have now come to realise that I was always destined to express myself through the visual arts and while I may have lost two decades thanks to the ravings of a mad art teacher, I came full circle when I decided to study fine art/ ceramics.