“I start with experiential drawing – directly from life. This discipline stimulates my brain, and I think about the world while I work, and money comes in everywhere.

My students and I often remarked that our palettes were lovelier and more exciting visually than our “contrived”, more self-conscious works. We worked on ways of lifting wet and dry paint off our palettes, and onto discarded work because there is no such thing as “waste” paper in an art studio.

After 2015 I worked at home alone, consulting occasionally on request.

I am kept – my husband not only pays for, but he also goes and buys all our groceries every Sunday morning.

I started collecting the grocery till slips to use as paint rags for cleaning up left over paint. This activity went through various emotional stages over time – defacing and vandalizing morphed into gratitude and appreciation, the smearing and transferring became more intensely absorbing and ritualistic, characters emerged, and time stood still.

One day I was standing next to my table, watching and listening to a visitor talking about the difficulties of achieving free expression, and sorting piles of till slips of various lengths behind my back, when there was a pause, and suddenly I had a crazy feeling of warmth and excitement coming from my right hand. I looked down to see that I was clutching what looked and felt exactly like a fat wad of banknotes.”

 “I decided immediately that it was time to explore all thoughts and feelings about money that came to me while I was working, instead of trying to keep them at bay.

And so, the concept was created in my mind. I started to make studies of these tiny “original paintings”, and then I wanted to make bigger and bigger things.

The method contained no preconceptions about predictable outcomes – but the task is not as simple as the idea.

I don’t think I’ll ever be “finished” – but I am always ready!

Simple things are tricky to achieve.”