MARK MY WORDS - 25 x 25in - Painted digitally by hand

The Gap

The gap
between where
we want to be
and
where we are.

That distant, flickering light.
A destination
across a misty vale.
A path we compare
to peaks not yet climbed—
envy
that deceives us.

But this desire
can also be
our compass,
if we let it guide us
along the path.

Without the
undiscovered ground
beneath our feet,
there would be
no summit reached,
no moments of elation
defining who we become.

That distant place
we seek,
once reached,
is left behind
like a memory fading. 

Savor the path itself.
Stop chasing horizons, 
and let the rugged ground 
beneath our feet,
be enough—
already everything we need. 

INNER REVOLUTION - 20 x 20 in - Painted digitally by hand

A Mirror We Have Made

What it means to be human
has become fundamental
in the age of AI.

We fear that this technology
will replace us, 
if we’re too complacent.

But the irony is that fear
in itself 
is what drives our instinct 
to seek the comfort and joy
of a mother’s arms.

The very emotion 
we do everything in our power 
to refrigerate. 

Yet by spending every waking moment
dedicated to controlling
the world around us,
we risk becoming like the code 
behind the silent screens. 

Eroding the very essence
of what makes us vulnerable.

We all take our first breath—
then suffer,
then age,
then die. 

Love rises
because we are mortal. 

The ephemeral pulse 
that no algorithm can replace—
those are the things that separate us 
from the most advanced computers.

Technology, knowledge—
neutral tools,
powerless without imagination,
and the weight of feeling.

The heartbeat—that’s it.
That’s the difference—
that living organ 
we leave behind 
even as we try to recreate it. 

Not something to meet with unease,
but something to understand—
a mirror we have made,
searching for the warmth of our hand.

SURRENDER - Painting created digitally by hand

It may seem odd at first

But what depth rises
on deeper reflection.

What a privilege it is
to suffer what there is to suffer
and enjoy what there is to enjoy.

For is it not our one
ultimate purpose on earth
to fully experience?

If we are an expression of creation,
then we are blessed with these
momentarily limited senses.

Then is not living,
with its wear and tear,
with its worries and what-ifs,
with its creature comforts
and with its matters of the heart,
our birthright…
our reason for being…
the perfect balance of what is?

HOLDING ITS BREATH

medium: Ink, Watercolour, and pencil on paper

If We Let It

Often,
the mind 
weaves tales spun from doubt, 
fragile cobwebs
taken to heart,
crafted to deceive.

Yet, if we let it,
hidden from sight,
the forgotten window
of presence that never left
opens.

An opportunity 
for deeper breath
now 
soaked in quietness.
A timeless breeze, 
an empty space,
the silent voice of knowing.

No purpose,
no beginning or end,
no reason,
just peace.

EXPOSURE

Medium: Painted intuitively by hand using the iPad Pro

Soulform

Just then, that exotic bird alighted briefly at the window,
then vanished,
and darted back again.

A pause 

then fluttered once more. 
Each time tapping gently 
until I took notice.

What brought it so close?

An urge to connect
from another plane,
a sacred glitch,
a silent messenger 
unaware of its true purpose.

This beloved presence
in feathered form,
a thin veil of wings and glass
between the seen 
and what watches,
between
this world
and beyond.

I felt it.
I wasn’t daydreaming.

What brought it so near?
Why so persistent?

My grandfather’s quiet 
brushstrokes 
on old canvas.
My father’s invisible strings,
still resonant.

How could I know?

Perhaps not just one spirit,
but many familiar souls
taking their turn,
stirring up distant memories
which made me want to reach back too.

Then as I leaned forward,
it slipped away into silence…
the kind that doesn’t look back.

Reminding me of 
that forbidden touch,
of the moments 
that shimmer and vanish,
before the mind can catch them.

Still, I felt it.

The heart remembers…
and that is enough.

NOT KNOWING

Medium: Painted intuitively by hand using the iPad Pro

If the universe had been trying to send me a clear message, this was it. Louder than usual. Practically handwritten in bold.

Years ago, a job interview pushed me to the edge of something I wasn’t ready for, and that’s where I began to ignore fear and trust life’s timing.

My line manager at the time was a big part of why I started looking at new opportunities. She’d supported me from the beginning and was more than happy to provide a glowing reference. And in the teaching world, where everyone in senior leadership seems to know everyone else, that kind of name-drop carries serious weight. A recommendation like that doesn’t just get your application read, it gets you plucked from the bin and placed delicately on the headteacher’s desk.

But after that, it was all down to me.

I was confidently nervous, if that’s possible. Like a firm, sweaty handshake before the interview.

I had to prepare. Rise to the challenge. Put on a blazer and tie that didn’t feel like a costume.

And walk into what turned out to be one of the most surreal interviews of my life.

At the time, it was a gritty inner-city school in Clapham, South London. Still raw around the edges. But it was already starting to have a reputation for positive change, thanks to its formidable headteacher, Dr Margot Everstone, or Mimi, as all those in her inner circle eventually called her. She had the kind of presence that made people straighten up when she entered a room. Not through fear exactly, but through something harder to describe. Command. Vision. A refusal to waste time on nonsense.

Years earlier, she’d helped the school gain one of the first “Visual Arts Specialist” statuses in the country. It came with serious funding. And she’d poured much of that directly into the art department.

I didn’t know any of that when I arrived for the interview.

What I did know was that I was about to be interviewed for the Head of Art role at a specialist arts school with a national reputation. That should’ve been enough to rattle me.

But what really shook me was the tour.

It began with a guided walkthrough of the department, led by Tess, the technician, who was clearly one of the last remaining torchbearers of a once-glorious department. Dyed red hair, black T-shirt and jeans, burgundy Dr Martin boots, Tess looked like she’d never left art school. She had clearly lived through the good years of the department. There was pride there. Quiet respect from the other staff annd students. And also… fatigue.

From what I gathered, the department had once been a real force within the school, even before the arts funding came in. But for reasons never quite explained, perhaps a government initiative to renew an ageing workforce, much of the original team had taken early retirement. Including, crucially, the former Head of Art. I always suspected this was partly Mimi’s doing. The old art team were successful, yes, but they weren’t exactly easy to influence.

Since their departure, the place had slowly come undone.

Despite all the funding, the facilities were chaotic. Student work was everywhere: unfinished, unsupervised. Materials were left out, wasted. I saw hundreds of neglected paintbrushes, left out to harden; stuck to palettes and beyond saving. That actually made me so angry; it was one of my pet peeves. When no one cared to rinse a brush, that spoke a thousand words.

There was no structure. No clear system. Just a slow erosion of purpose.

Just breathe, I told myself… Half of me wanted to walk away and the other half wanted to stay and fix it.

The rest of the school felt even more austere to me. Groups of students clustered in shadowed corners, hoodies up, eyes locked on visitors. There were areas I instinctively knew to avoid. The atmosphere was tense, like something waiting to go wrong.

And already, in my mind, I’d begun drafting my polite exit speech.

Something honest but self-effacing, because, truthfully, I felt out of my depth. I wasn’t sure I had the experience, the resilience, or the authority to step into something this complex.

The interview process began with six shortlisted candidates and a two-part timed assessment that felt more like a policy pitch to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. How would I raise the department to its full potential? How would I engage the community? Build links with primary schools, run artists-in-residence programs, lead local commissions, create international exchanges?

I had little idea.

I did my best. But I didn’t finish the second half in time, and I walked out of that session convinced I’d blown it.

Then came the panel interview, an actual panel, with governors, deputies, specialist teachers, and of course, Mimi. I sat there expecting to drown. But what came out of me was something simpler and more real: my love for the arts, and the small but real transformation I’d led at my last school. I told them about the trips: St Ives, Paris, New York. The impact on students. The impact on me. And they listened. They leaned in.

Still, over lunch, I knew. I knew I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to fake it or push myself through a door I wasn’t meant to open.

So I did something that surprised even me. I wasn’t sure why, I just knew I had to.

I asked to speak to Mimi.

She invited me into her office, serene, commanding, and looked at me like someone about to receive news she already suspected. In the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a large tea mug with Mimi printed in bold, and a sweet picture of what must have been her two daughters.

With a hint of motherly disappointment, and looking at me straight in the eyes, she spoke softly, “Help me out, Adam. What can I do for you?”

I told her it wasn’t for me. That I wasn’t qualified. That I didn’t want to waste anyone’s time.

She asked if I was sure. I said I was. I thanked her. And I left.

As I stepped through those heavy security gates, topped with barbed wire, which I’d assumed were to keep students safely in, but later learned were there to keep local intruders out, I felt strangely at peace.

A few days later, back in my comfort zone, quietly wondering if the real purpose of that interview had been to show me what was possible. Maybe I could apply for arts status in my current school. Maybe I could raise my own funding. Maybe I didn’t need a new job, just a bigger vision.

The days passed. The silence suited me.

Then the phone rang. It was Mimi.

“Adam,” she said, “I want you to reconsider.”

She told me they hadn’t appointed anyone yet. That despite the other five candidates completing the process, they still were not sure and she thought I could be the right fit. That she wanted to talk through my doubts, face to face.

It wasn’t what she said that changed my mind. It was the timing. The strange synchronicity of it all.

By now, I’d learned to pay attention to moments like this. When something unlikely shows up twice, once as fear, then again as a kind of invitation, I’ve learned not to ignore it.

So I said yes. Yes to meeting with Mimi once again and yes to her renewed offer.

Not because I was ready.

But because I wasn’t.

I didn’t walk into it alone.

Virginie was with me every step. When my current line manager and her husband (who’d by now become a significant influence and support in our lives) heard I’d turned it down, they were stunned. Somewhere between disappointed mentors and parents watching their child run from a really good school. I think they reserved a kind of reluctant admiration for my honesty, or, depending how you look at it, a kind of naïve bravery that could easily be seen as stupidity.

But here’s the thing: had I not walked away, I don’t think I would’ve had the strength to walk back in. Saying no gave me the clarity to say yes on my own terms.

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THE FINE LINE

medium: Painted by hand, intuitively using the iPad Pro

“This post is a reflection from From London to Mexico, a book in progress about the quiet signs that guide us into unexpected change.”

My teaching career kicked off with an explosion of blue paint and the sudden realization that I was right in the middle of a broken department.

Barely out of teacher training, I walked into my very first real post: a state secondary school in Kingston-upon-Thames, South West London.

I remember my first day so clearly.

Picture a young, freshly trained teacher standing in front of his first official class. More than thirty students crammed into one room. Apparently, this was the “fast track” group; the most academically able kids in the school. Bright, sharp, quick to react. I introduced myself, doing my best to sound confident, and for a moment, things seemed… passable.

And then it happened.

A loud thud cracked across the room as a projectile slammed into the side wall. A full litre bottle of blue paint, brand new from the store cupboard, and which I now realise might as well have been a grenade, had been hurled with remarkable force.

Laughter exploded. Chaos unfolded. Brushes and palettes followed. It was like one of those distressing performance art pieces. The kind you walk into at the Tate Modern, pretend to understand, and then quietly edge away from while looking for the exit.

My teaching career was approximately seven minutes old, and it felt more like a fast track to early retirement from the battlefield, due to a serious injury to my ego.

It took months, long, humbling months, to build even a shred of respect, routine, or order in that department. I was quickly informed that the previous Head of Art, whose place I’d been asked to fill, had gone on leave due to stress. Serious stress. What I didn’t know, but would soon find out, was that the department had been in decline for some time.

One of the students, someone I eventually built a good relationship with, told me quietly one day that their old teacher had more or less given up.

It was tragic, and deeply unsettling. The department was broken. And nobody seemed to believe it could change.

The turning point came in the form of Liz, my line manager.

Liz was one of those rare people you hope to meet once or twice in your life, though she’d absolutely hate being described like that, and probably raise one unimpressed eyebrow at the sentiment. She had a drier wit than me (which is saying something), a no-nonsense presence, and a talent for cutting through wildly complicated problems in one sentence flat, usually while stirring her tea like a surgeon preparing for a transplant.

She was a formidable presence in the school: revered, respected, and, between you and me, quietly feared by the headteacher himself. The senior leadership team often tiptoed around her, even as they prepared to invite her into their fold. It was only a matter of time.

But she wasn’t just sharp. Liz was also an inspirational English teacher, beloved by her students, fiercely loyal to them, and quietly dedicated in ways that most people never saw. I later found out she had a passion for amateur musicals and had lovingly stitched and kept hundreds of costumes from years of performances. That was her world. Her magic. And maybe that’s why she understood mine. She could feel the pull of the arts. The mess, the meaning, the making. It’s what connected us.

It was Liz who said yes when I suggested the unthinkable: a week-long residential art trip to St Ives, the very place my grandfather had taken me all those years ago. The spiritual heart of my own journey into art. The colony that shaped my earliest creative memory.

It did feel a little unrealistic at the time, and I’m sure others thought I was a little naive to think I could pull off a trip like this, or to believe a bunch of inner-city teenagers would find meaning in a Cornish art colony. But deep inside, I had to believe that art mattered to them, and to me.

Liz didn’t hesitate. She insisted on coming with me, and that sealed the deal. I had the passion, expertise, and vision in my subject, and Janet had the experience to ensure the trip ran smoothly.

We brought twenty-five students of mixed ages to Cornwall. We stayed in a youth hostel. We sketched and painted en plein air, and back in the studio, we developed ideas inspired by the surrounding landscape, the hills, ancient buildings, harbour, and seascapes. We visited working artists in their studios, and the students were always shocked to discover that some people actually made a living from it.

For many of them, it was their first time leaving London. Something happened that week, something no Ofsted inspector’s framework could measure. We became a community. We created something real.

Those students came back different.

I came back different.

The ones who were with me on that trip stayed loyal. And suddenly, a shift: respect. Trust. Space.

Once I had that, the rest was just time and effort.

At the end of that year, Liz sat me down. She told me the old Head of Art wouldn’t be returning; he’d taken early retirement due to his health. The senior management team wanted me to stay. And not just stay, they wanted to offer me the official role.

I’d done it. Head of Department. After one year.

It usually took five, minimum. I had no idea how it had happened. But there it was.

And from that point on, something started to build. Over the next five years, the department went from chaos to clarity. From instability to strength. We earned an ‘Outstanding’ rating in our Ofsted inspection. Not because I was brilliant. But because I’d stayed. Because I’d listened.

Looking back, that residential wasn’t just a turning point; it was a quiet declaration of faith in the invisible threads between us. The ones that form when we show up fully, create something real, and trust what arises.

Thank you for reading Listening to the Light.

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DEVINE BREATH

Medium - Painted by hand intuitively using the iPad Pro

that buried fear

so heavy…

out of control.

flooding my mind,

my whole person.

drowning any truth,

or way of perceiving

that noisy illusion.

until I meet it

breath after breath…

as cold panic loosens.

drifting through like thunder

thick with quiet dread…

waiting for the space to widen,

between the strike and what follows.

then,

just as it had arrived, uninvited…

now, leaving only peace.

I remember the warmth of silence

that holds me.

UP THE GARDEN PATH (After Patrick Heron)

Medium: Sketched by hand, intuitively using the iPad Pro

I used to think that surrender was about relief, about finding a deeper peace. But now I know it can show up disguised as jumping headfirst into the deep end, hands and legs tied up.

But if you listen to that deeper voice, you’ll know the feeling: life handing you an impossible challenge you didn’t quite sign up for, yet something inside you whispers, this is mine to face.

There’s a parallel in my painting, too. Letting go often begins with a mess: marks that feel pointless, chaotic, or wrong. As the painter Patrick Heron once said, “The act of painting is not a process of building, but of discovery.”

If my teacher training had taught me anything, it was to be careful what you wish for. But as I soon learned, it’s just as important to be careful how far you let go, as the universe often provides what’s essential for our long-term growth, rather than our immediate desires.

It was the summer of 1996, and I’d just passed the PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education) with the rest of my cohort, twenty or so of us in all, we scattered like anxious bees, hunting for our first teaching jobs.

In the UK, you couldn’t gain QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) until you’d completed a full year of school-based teaching. So the pressure was on. Everyone was scrambling to find the easiest position, the nicest school, the one with the best mentoring, the gentlest students, the fewest reasons to cry in the supply cupboard.

I was no different.

I applied endlessly. That year, for reasons no one quite understood (possibly karmic payback for my earlier smugness), the job market was tighter than usual. It was a bit like submitting my portfolio of paintings to a gallery: a burst of hope, followed by a black hole of silence, and, if you were lucky, a rejection letter to cheer you up.

Looking back, those many rejections were what eventually shifted the way I approached the creative process, not as a means to gain approval or control outcomes, but as something else entirely. A practice of presence, risk, and surrender. And most importantly, learning not to take it personally.

Some of my peers didn’t find placements at all. I started to wonder if my applications were being used as scrap paper in the school office. Something I later realised, when I was on the other side of the table as Head of Art, wasn’t very far from the truth. The competition for art jobs was always through the roof. When you’re faced with fifty applications for a single teaching post, there’s no choice but to be brutal. At least two-thirds go straight to the scrap pile before you even begin narrowing down a viable shortlist.

Then came the phone call…

A warm voice on the other end explained that a position had suddenly opened up. It was late August, schools must have been desperate, and no one else was available. A Head of Department had taken medical leave, and they needed someone to cover immediately. A six-month temporary position. Full responsibility.

“Head of Department?” I asked, stunned.

I was barely out of training. I hadn’t even fully mastered writing a decent lesson plan, let alone taking on an entire department, its curriculum, and the hopes and dreams of the senior leadership team. There was absolutely no way I was qualified to lead anything. Unless leadership now included mild panic and a blank stare.

For a moment, I wondered if they’d confused me with someone else entirely. Or if this was some sort of administrative prank the agency staff played to keep themselves entertained in the slower months of August.

I genuinely didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In the end, I did a bit of both.

And then I said yes… not to the job, but to the universe. Who, by this point, I’d learned wasn’t to be messed with, bargained with, or casually advised about career planning. If anything, she seemed to enjoy watching me squirm just long enough before handing me exactly the thing I was trying to avoid.

Thank you for reading Listening to the Light.

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HEAD IN THE CLOUDS

Medium - Painted intuitively by hand using the iPad Pro

“This post is a reflection from From London to Mexico, a book in progress about the quiet signs that guide us into unexpected change.”

If Chapter One ended with a whispered beginning, the next stage of life came in loud and unrelenting.

Teacher training was the formal entry into this new world, and while I approached it with earnest intent, nothing could have prepared me for the reality.

On paper, I was doing well. I absorbed the theory of pedagogy with enthusiasm. I was, at least in observation mode, full of articulate commentary. Watching other teachers from the safe distance of the back of the room, I had no shortage of opinions: some thoughtful, some naive, most delivered with the confident detachment of someone who didn’t yet know what he didn’t know. I could speak about lesson structure, pacing, and classroom management. From the sidelines, I was a model trainee.

But standing at the front of the room? That was another matter entirely.

Let’s be clear, I wasn’t short of passion for my subject. I was determined to inspire, to share something real. But that ideal met hard reality with the subtlety of a slap. And my first placement pulled no punches.

The school was a small Christian state secondary in the heart of the Oval, South London. Inner city. Multicultural. High energy. I walked in on the first day and very nearly turned around and walked back out again. The corridors buzzed with a kind of sharpened edge; the students were streetwise, self-possessed, and, from the look in their eyes, clearly already clocking me as fresh meat. The staffroom wasn’t much safer. I’d never felt more like prey in my life.

But then I reached the art department, and everything changed. Or so I thought.

I stood in the doorway, amazed. A full class of GCSE students, quietly working behind easels, stood like painters in a 19th-century atelier. A still life was arranged at the front, a vase, some cloth, and they were all painting it in silence. It was eerie. Beautiful, but eerie. The Head of Art was a cheerful man with a bohemian air, dressed in a blue blazer and jeans, with long silver hair immaculately groomed and a stripy, double-length, multicoloured scarf.

He wandered the room like a benevolent ghost, occasionally stepping up to a student’s work, taking their brush, and casually painting on their canvas. Not a single protest. They just nodded and carried on.

“This,” I thought, “is going to be a breeze.”

Right up my street.

But it turns out, not all classes are arranged like 19th-century ateliers.

My first class wasn’t even officially mine. I was more of an assistant, floating in the background while the real teacher held the reins. And yet, those early tastings of what teaching actually required were enough to shake me. I began to see just how little I understood. How could I, or anyone really, have been so shortsighted as to judge a teacher? We’ve all been students. We’ve all known the impact of a great teacher, and the damage of a bad one. You’d think that would give us more empathy. Instead, I had walked in with theory, idealism, and about five minutes of experience. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, everything.

Ever walked into a room and instantly known you were out of your depth?

My first real attempts to engage a class were, frankly, pathetic. I had no authority. No connection. In their eyes, I was just another trainee, one of many who would come and go. They weren’t cruel, exactly, just quietly strategic. They ignored me at first. Then, slowly, they began to test me.

And they were cunning about it.

The bolder students didn’t hesitate to go personal. They’d lob inappropriate questions, prying into my background, my life, even my relationship status. Anything to rattle me. They wanted to see what I was made of. Was I just another adult talking about rules, or would I actually hold my ground? Did I know my subject? Did I walk my talk? Or was I full of the kind of empty phrases they’d heard a thousand times before?

I fell right into the trap.

I assumed, rather sweetly, as only someone with no practical experience could, that if I just made friends with them, they’d naturally respect me. I soon learned otherwise. Students don’t want friends. They want boundaries. Clarity. Someone who can hold the space so they don’t have to.

It took me a long time to see that.

It’s interesting, now, looking back on those early days, how easy it is to misread what makes a great teacher. From the outside, it can all look very simple. You see someone standing at the front of a classroom, delivering knowledge with quiet authority while a room full of students listens in obedient silence. You assume they’ve got it sorted. That this, somehow, is what good teaching looks like: command, control, compliance.

At first glance, that’s exactly what I thought I saw in that art department. The one with the GCSE students painting still lifes like they were in a Parisian studio. The Head of Department seemed to move through the classroom with such ease, brushing over student canvases without protest, directing the space without tension. It looked like complete mastery.

And in a way, it was. But not the kind I first imagined.

That environment wasn’t a product of strict control or fear-based discipline. It wasn’t about asserting dominance or demanding silence. It was something else entirely. A more complex, nuanced web of trust, expectation, consistency, and respect. It had been built. Not imposed.

At the time, I didn’t yet understand how much more was going on. I thought the atmosphere was effortless. I hadn’t yet learned that effortlessness is almost always the result of invisible effort; of long hours spent building rapport, shaping boundaries, and establishing trust. It wasn’t about power. It was about presence.

My understanding of teaching began to shift, not through theory, but through raw, lived experience. Slowly, painfully, and then all at once.

I started to see that true authority wasn’t about volume or control, but about something far quieter: consistency. Presence. Integrity. I had to build trust, not demand it. I had to form relationships, genuine ones, and pair them with boundaries I could stand by, no matter what. That wasn’t something you could fake. Students could sniff out inauthenticity faster than a Buddhist can sense ego in a retreat centre.

Even though I didn’t realise it at the time, what I was learning would eventually come to fruition when I founded my own learning centre. But back then, I was just trying to stay afloat. Bit by bit, I knuckled down. I began to lead a few small projects on my own. By the end of my training year, I was managing select classes by myself. Just a few. But enough to taste what real teaching demanded.

If you’ve ever worked with teenagers, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

It was the toughest personal challenge I’d ever faced. Because here’s the truth: your class, their energy, their behaviour, their flow, is a direct reflection of your inner state. You can’t hide behind clever ideas or theory. You’re the weather system in the room. And if you’re stormy inside, your students will bring umbrellas.

In that way, teaching became a kind of spiritual boot camp.

Forget the hours I’d spent chanting. Forget the retreats and the workshops and the lofty masterclasses in self-awareness. If you want to fast-track your personal growth, stand in front of thirty teenagers who don’t yet trust you. You’ll meet every part of yourself, fast. And the only way to earn their respect is to deserve it.

They were, without a doubt, the best spiritual teachers I’ve ever had.

Thank you for reading Listening to the Light.
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SURRENDER

Medium - Painted by hand, intuitively using the iPad Pro

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it means to feel rejection as a creative.

We pour ourselves into making something deeply personal and vulnerable, then take the risk of sharing it with the world.

Why does it so often lead to suffering?

What is it really about? Why do we feel rejected? And how can we face it, or even use it, as part of a spiritual process?

These are the questions I’ve been quietly turning over in my mind.

It’s difficult to pinpoint one clear experience from my early years, but like most of us growing up, I craved recognition to shape my sense of self.

As a boy, I experienced the opposite of rejection; there was constant encouragement from my parents and grandparents. My close family always made a big deal of my drawings and paintings.

Naturally, I loved the attention. It gave me a sense of creative identity and validation.

And as someone who was shy and didn’t socialise easily, that meant everything.

As we mature, we begin to understand that validation needs to come not from the external, but from an internal source, if we are to be truly at ease.

Carl Jung observed that, “Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.”

I can see now that my whole process as an artist, a mirror of my wider journey, has been, step by step, to let go of tying my happiness to the quiet approval of others. To push instead toward finding a deeper validation in the process itself.

Every day, I have to renew my path. To stop trying to control the external world so that it validates who I am.

And let’s be honest, it’s pretty exhausting, don’t you agree? I mean, why does the mind think it can control the whole universe? It’s been perfectly evolving without us for millions of years!

As Michael A. Singer reminds us, "Life rarely unfolds exactly as we want it to. And if we stop and think about it, that makes perfect sense. The scope of life is universal, and the fact that we are not actually in control of life's events should be self-evident."

And yet, no matter how exhausting or humbling it is, the pull to create remains. Even when recognition fades. Even when no one’s watching.

As Brené Brown puts it, “Unused creativity is not benign. It metastasizes. It turns into grief, rage, judgment, sorrow, shame.”

I’ve felt that. The restlessness. The low-level frustration when I haven’t made space for something to flow through. When I start to carry around emotions I can’t quite name, simply because I’ve shut the door on expression.

And so, I keep returning. Not to be seen. But to witness. Not to be approved of, but to participate in something deeper.

Letting go of observational work began when I started painting on my iPad. I used to experiment with different painting applications, and in those experiments, I’d be trying out new brushes and just playing with all the different types of marks, layers, and textures I could achieve.

These doodles were fun and particularly freeing for me at a time during a time of personal stress and anxiety. In any case, I kept these secret and carried on painting en plein air. But those private scribbles had already had a big impact on me, and I couldn’t stop connecting the process to those St Ives abstract painters I’d visited all those years ago.

At the time, I was also listening to teachers like Eckhart Tolle, and these were the beginnings of breathing into surrender. I found that, as a parallel, I could start painting intuitively, and the feeling was like nothing before.

To stop controlling felt liberating. Trusting the marks as they appeared on the canvas, and allowing the creative mess to unfold until something deeper started happening. Until the arrangements of elements started to resonate with an inner voice.

It wasn’t observational work anymore, but a response to feelings, memory, and experience. And of course, all those years of traditional training were absolutely necessary for me to be able to refine a balanced composition and create a harmony of marks and colour.

It existed in that in-between space, neither fully abstract nor strictly observational.

As Patrick Heron wrote, “Merely to observe is to subscribe to the heresy of realism; and merely to project a rhythm is to subscribe to the opposite heresy of non-figuration. Great painting lies between the two and performs the functions of both.”

Looking back, I can see that this shift in my process didn’t just change how I paint, it changed how I experience rejection.

I’m no longer painting for others or to sell commercially. There was vulnerability in that choice, and subsequently, a growing sense of resilience.

For the first time, I felt that these paintings were honest, authentic expressions that came from a deeper place in me.

That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy someone’s positive response or compliment. When a viewer connects with something, it still thrills me. Or that I’m never going to sell something I make in the future. But I’m less bothered by rejection now, because it’s no longer about manipulating an outcome to achieve recognition.

It’s more about staying true to the process itself.

I think that if you're feeling rejected, I’d encourage you to see it as part of the ongoing process of finding your creative voice. And whatever that voice is, at some point, you have to turn inward and start listening to it, instead of endlessly scanning the outside world for signs of approval.

And when that connection is real, even rejection begins to lose its weight. It becomes part of the path, not the end of it.

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Beginning - 23 x 29 in

Medium: Painted digitally by hand using iPad Pro

“This post is a reflection from From London to Mexico, a book in progress about the quiet signs that guide us into unexpected change.”

This is a story about how everything began: my teaching career, my relationship with Virginie (we’ve now been married for 27 years), and the quiet thread of trust that would eventually guide us halfway across the world. At the time, I thought I was just recovering from a creative dead end. I didn’t know life was about to reroute me completely. Looking back, it all makes perfect (and slightly hilarious) sense.

In September 1995, I began my teacher training and suddenly found myself facing classrooms full of students. It was the opposite of the cold, solitary studio I’d grown used to over the previous few years. And it forced me to grow in every way imaginable.

That summer, just before I was accepted at Goldsmiths College, Virginie unexpectedly reappeared in my life.

Technically, we’d met once before at a student Buddhist meeting I was leading. She was a beautiful young French woman, striking and stylish, with that magnetic mix of elegance and unpredictability I’d always assumed came as standard for Parisians. I greeted her in what I considered rather flawless French (having spent my early childhood in Clermont-Ferrand), but she gave me the kind of polite smile usually reserved for shop assistants offering you something you clearly can’t afford. Needless to say, I didn’t make much of a first impression.

It was a particularly glorious summer afternoon when we crossed paths again many months later at a Buddhist garden party. I was newly single, finding a strange peace in the unraveling of what had felt like an emotional and professional collapse. I wasn’t looking for anything. I’d decided to stop chasing, to let go, to focus on myself…

But as I should’ve guessed by then, life had other plans entirely. Like my wonderful grandfather, when my grandmother used to scream across the house for him to fetch something, it seemed that life, too, had selective hearing.

When I think of that sunny afternoon, I can still vividly remember that background hum that only those who live in a city like London understand: the smell of newly cut grass, the intense scent of flowers in full bloom, sausages grilling on the BBQ, glasses clinking, laughter, and animated voices. Virginie overheard me speaking French (not something you’d expect from the quiet British guy in the corner) and was intrigued enough to come and investigate. This time, we sparked up a conversation and, against all odds, her eyes didn’t glaze over or drift to the next more exciting distraction. That’s usually the point where people politely excuse themselves, somewhere around minute two of me launching unapologetically into one of life’s big questions.

Oddly enough, I’d done my very best to look unattractive that week, having spontaneously shaved my head down to a number one after years of shoulder-length locks. It was a defiant move, following the abrupt ending of a long-term relationship.

I looked like an extra from the film Trainspotting, minus the Scottish charisma. That was just as well, since I wasn’t trying to sound charming.

But something bigger had shifted. One brief introduction became hours of connection. The garden emptied, but we stayed, talking through dusk.

Virginie was unlike anyone I’d ever met. Impulsive, unpredictable, striking. Everything I wasn’t. She’d grown up in Paris with a challenging childhood and had carved her own path entirely from scratch. Nothing had been handed to her. She didn’t waste time. She knew what she wanted and what she didn’t. Beneath her bold presence was a deep spiritual grounding. Her Buddhist faith was strong. That thread of shared practice was the ground we both stood on.

Virginie had been given my number by what I now know to be two conspiring Buddhist friends who had long been trying, unsuccessfully, to set us up.

Shortly after, she called and invited me to see Fame: The Musical in Soho. That was the last thing I would’ve chosen to see, but as if on autopilot, I agreed, and we started dating. In any case, Virginie had made her decision, and that was that.

After the show (which, to my surprise, was actually rather good), we went for a drink in a nearby café. Minutes into the first real opportunity to get to know each other, Virginie, mid-sip, half swallowed her chewing gum, and nearly choked on the spot. I was terribly phlegmatic and mostly introverted. She was sanguine, the center of the party. I haven’t had a boring moment since.

By early 1996, midway through my teacher training year, we decided to move in together. We found a cheap apartment in South London and made it work. I was studying full-time, and Virginie took a full-time job as a nanny. She was still learning English at the time, but already had experience in childcare and as an animatrice in France. She adapted quickly. She always did.

That was the beginning of everything.

If you had told me then, on that summer afternoon in a South London garden, that one day we’d be living on the shores of the Mexican Caribbean, running our own private learning centre, I’d have assumed you were out of your mind. Or perhaps more accurately, that I’d eventually have to be out of mine to make it happen.

We came together through the most unexpected of moments. Our lives were different. Our upbringings are opposite. But we shared something essential, a spiritual path, a hunger for truth, and a quiet belief that life was always calling us toward something more aligned.

Over the years that followed, through the late 1990s and 2000s, our life unfolded slowly and deliberately: two decades as educators in London. Two children. A series of homes, bought and sold, until we finally settled into a small cottage in Wimbledon. A place we loved. A place we thought we’d stay.

But even then, I think the whisper was still speaking. Quietly. Patiently. Waiting.

It’s only now, looking back, that I can see what it was guiding me toward, not just away from a quiet sense of stagnation, but toward presence. Toward a life built not on force, but on flow. A life of trust.

Thank you for reading Listening to the Light.
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In Your Mind’s Eye - 25 x 25 in - Medium: Digital painting, created by hand in Procreate

Am I?

What if…

my words and paintings aren’t for interpretation?

What if…

they’re just here to create a field,

something quiet and truthful,

that others might fall into for a moment?

Could it be they’re not meant to prove anything…

just help me stay connected to something deeper?

To honor the process itself:

that quiet, intuitive rising from my center.

That inner knowing…

That flicker of light..

Those moments of sublime alignment.

What if that’s sufficient?

Not beauty explained, but beauty felt.

Maybe this is why I create.

Not to gain attention,

but to honour what echoes through me,

an imprint of what matters.

At least to me.

But then there’s doubt:

is this my ego in disguise…

its reason for being..

clinging to its own illusion,

disguised as honesty?

Or is it another deeper part of my self…

a softer voice,

not needing recognition.

What if…

I am.

WHAT IS IT TO BE ALIVE - 27 x 27 in

Medium: Painted digitally on iPad Pro

“This is a reflection from From London to Mexico, a book in progress about the quiet signs that guide us into unexpected change.”

Looking back to early 1995, after a few intense years of making art, I remember reality inevitably catching up with me. I could no longer cover the rent for my studio and had reached a complete dead end: physically and emotionally. I had to find a job… any job.

I ended up in a central London kitchen, and after a while, I was promoted (if you can call it that) to a sandwich delivery boy. I was paid on commission: if I didn’t sell, I didn’t earn. My friend, charming, relentless, and apparently born to flirt with PAs over chicken tikka baguettes, did brilliantly. I, on the other hand, lacked the gene for small talk and couldn’t bring myself to compliment someone’s tie in exchange for a tuna melt. Most of the office workers treated me like malfunctioning background music: annoying, vaguely in the way, and best ignored.

One day, after coming back to the shop with zero sales and a heart full of defeat, the manager must’ve seen something in my face. He took pity on me and moved me behind the sandwich counter, where at least I’d get a steady wage. I accepted the lifeline, but it wasn’t a fit either. The pace, the pressure… it wore me down. It all ended one day with a slip of the hand. I was slicing a baguette, midway through a customer’s increasingly absurd list of sandwich demands, when the knife slipped and carved a clean line through the palm of my hand. It was the most meaningful mark I’d made in months. Ironically, I’d spent years carving stone and shaping form with care and intention, only to have life make its own statement: right there, in flesh. Looking back, it felt like a line being drawn under that chapter of my life. A cut, yes… but also a quiet full stop.

That was it. The sign I needed. I handed in my notice and walked away.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that low point was a gift in disguise.

At that point in my life, I was practicing Nichiren Buddhism. I remember chanting with all the strength I had: desperately, determinedly, calling out for something to shift. The practice was simple but profound: chant every day, take action, and then let go. Trust that the right causes would bear fruit.

But trust didn’t come easily. My mind was chaotic. I was full of doubt and shame about the situation I’d landed in. Still, the teachings reminded me to stay awake to life—to notice signs, synchronicities, openings. To expect them. And to move when they appeared, even if they didn’t match my ideas of what life should look like.

Around that time, I happened to speak to an old friend of my then-girlfriend: someone I hadn’t spoken to in a long while. We were catching up briefly over the phone when she mentioned she’d recently completed a teacher training course at Goldsmiths College. She described it as intense but incredibly rewarding. “You should really look into it,” she said, with surprising conviction.

At first, I laughed. Me? A teacher? I’d made it very clear to everyone around me that teaching was not for me. My own school experience had been complicated. There were a few wonderful teachers, but also many who taught through fear and control. No one would guess nowadays, but I was shy at heart, quiet by nature, and the idea of standing in front of a classroom full of kids was nothing short of terrifying.

And yes, part of me still carried the old belief that art teachers were just failed artists: those who’d missed the last train to greatness and decided to settle in the staffroom instead. I couldn’t help but think of my old grammar school art teacher—a cool, clearly talented young guy who seemed far too gifted to be trapped in that chaotic classroom. Most of the students didn’t want to be there, and he spent more time managing behaviour than teaching. Every lesson was reduced to basic observational drawing—no concepts and minimal movement, zero creativity, and no paint in sight. It was the ultimate insult to art. And to him, really. That memory sat in the back of my mind like a warning sign.

Eventually, I made a single phone call. Just to inquire.

One phone call. That’s all it took. After all my tortured artist soul-searching and noble struggle, they booked me in for an interview the next day and practically welcomed me aboard on the spot.

I was, understandably, thrilled. And by thrilled, I mean silently pissed off and totally petrified at the thought of the huge blunder I’d just made.

Just as you’d expect, the course was fully funded by the government, and I’d also receive support with housing and living expenses. As if on cue, every door opened at once.

I didn’t have many other options. But I was beginning to learn something deeper: that life hands you exactly what you need to grow—paying very little attention to your grand plans. And if you’re able to let go and trust, things can shift in ways you never imagined.

This was my first real experience of not just listening to the chatterbox in my head, and surrendering to life. And it changed everything.

Looking back, I can see the signs were there long before I admitted them.

I had built up this story—this myth, really—that in order to become a “real” artist, I had to suffer for it. Work long hours. Push through isolation. Make sacrifices. And eventually, someone would discover me and I’d receive the recognition I deserved. But the truth was, I had drifted far from anything that felt alive. And while I don’t regret those years (I truly gave it my all), I can now see that I wasn’t listening. I was forcing.

What finally broke me wasn’t the lack of money or the rejection. It was the loneliness. The aching absence of energy, collaboration, and connection. By the end of it, I made a vow: Whatever happens next, I want people in my life. I want noise. Movement. Presence.

If this moment speaks to something in your own life, a breaking point, or a strange, quiet persistent voice nudging you to change direction, I’d love to hear about it. Feel free to share in the comments or just sit with it. Sometimes the most meaningful shifts begin where things fall apart.

Sublime Collapse - 20 x 25 in - Medium: Watercolour, ink, and pencil on paper

Often,

an emotional fracture

in my heart

is part of learning to trust.

Shards give way to piercing light.

To see, I come undone,

not through comfort,

but through the fierce clarity that follows rupture.

Today, I felt like giving up.

Again.

That familiar ache returned.

Yet…

The suffering I endure does not last

if I let it pass;

it brings me closer to what is real

and to my truth.

If this moved you, I’d love to receive your comments or likes. Every gesture helps keep this creative path alive.

Empty Thoughts are Full - 30 x 24 in

Medium: Painted on iPad Pro

“This is a reflection from From London to Mexico, a book in progress about the quiet signs that guide us into unexpected change.”

Does anyone talk about that part?

There’s a strange kind of emptiness that follows achieving something you were sure would open doors for you.

I’d worked hard for my Bachelors degree in Sculpture. At the time, I thought it would stand for something. Maybe you’ve had that feeling too; that strange gap between expectation and reality, when you suddenly realise there’s no clear next step, and no one waiting to show you the way.

In 1992, I stepped out of art school into a world with no survival guide. No real sense of where I fitted into the industry.

That was partly my doing. I wasn’t mature enough at the time to recognise or seize the opportunities that did exist. It never dawned on me that I’d need to learn how to promote myself, or how to begin navigating the art world as a practising artist. In retrospect, I’d have chosen a course that included this element, and I would have benefited enormously from connecting with an established artist who was already doing the work.

A number of the more experienced students, or those with existing connections, had already set up links to previous or potential work experience. They seemed to know how to position themselves, how to make the transition from student to working artist. I didn’t. I was still hoping the work would speak for itself.

Still, I gave it everything I had. I exhibited here and there. I made a few sales. There were moments of possibility. But it wasn’t enough—not financially, and certainly not emotionally. The work became isolating. The silence around it began to close in: thick and airless. Not the rich silence of absorption, but the hollow kind that echoes back at you.

I should say that the work itself wasn’t the problem. In many ways, I loved it. I was absorbed, physically engaged, and there were moments of real presence. But that didn’t cancel out the deeper isolation. There was no structure around me, no feedback loop, no one really seeing what I was trying to do. That’s the kind of silence I’m talking about. Not the quiet of focus, but the kind that starts to press in from the outside.

To get to my studio in Southwark, South East London, I used to set off early on my motorbike. It was a thirty-minute ride from Earlsfield, where I shared a flat with a few other ex-Wimbledon students. London was wonderful in the early hours; quiet, expectant, still holding the cool of night.

I always enjoyed those journeys. There was a sense of freedom and possibility: a kind of meditation, really. I’d be so intensely immersed in the process of riding, all my senses at their sharpest. It was a solitary journey, but one I connected with. I felt completely at one with the busy world around me.

Once in the studio, the atmosphere shifted. A different kind of silence. I’d often be one of the only artists there at that hour. If I passed someone else, we’d exchange the usual nod and eye contact that spoke a hundred words.

I remember the excessive layers I had to wear to keep warm. When I carved stone, I had to work outside in the yard, since the noise of chipping away would have been too disruptive for the other artists working in quieter mediums. The work was hard, dusty. I wore a mask and was covered in stone dust most of the day. It got everywhere: ears, nose, eyes… and, if I’m honest, places where the sun don’t shine.

But despite the austere environment, I felt I was where I was supposed to be.

At lunchtime, I’d sit with a flask of tea and a simple sandwich that tasted much better than it was.

Maybe you’ve had a place like that too. Somewhere rough around the edges, but where something inside you came quietly alive.

Even then, as I worked alone in my studio, I wasn’t just trying to make objects. I was trying to understand something. I carved into stone, cutting away at what was solid. I modelled clay and plaster, pressing form into being with my hands. Each gesture was a negotiation: taking away, adding, reshaping… trying to reach toward something that lived beyond the material surface.

My early sculptures were figurative, inspired by the ten states of being described in the teachings of T’ien T’ai: from the depths of hell to realisation and Buddhahood. I was trying to give shape to something invisible—the emotional, psychological, and spiritual terrain of human life.

Already at that time, without fully realising it, I was reaching toward something unseen; a deeper current within the human condition. I didn’t have the words for it yet, but my hands were searching. The smell of stone dust, the cold texture of plaster, the stubborn resistance of wood under the blade… they were all part of that search.

I didn’t have the words for it at the time. I was just working, just trying to make sense of something. But in hindsight, maybe that’s how it starts for most of us. Not with clarity, but with a quiet pull towards something we don’t yet understand.

That silent work, I now realise, marked the beginning of an unexpected transition on my spiritual path.

The medium has shifted over the years, but the essence hasn’t. When I returned to painting decades later in Mexico, I found myself drawn to the same invisible questions. Instead of controlling, cutting, and modelling form, I try to let it flow… without resistance, without force… allowing whatever is ready to appear on the canvas.

While I had been a practising Buddhist for years, it was through those early sculptures—and later, my abstract paintings—that a quieter truth began to surface. They revealed something I hadn’t quite grasped, even after all the chanting, meditation, and spiritual seeking. The heart of it wasn’t in the striving, or even in the stillness; it was in the surrender—not of effort, but of control over how things should turn out.

Learning to surrender willingly was a huge shift for me. Before moving to Mexico, I clung tightly to plans, outcomes, and the illusion that I was steering the ship.

People often assume that living in the Caribbean is what brought me peace. But the truth is, the real change wasn’t in the scenery. It was in the slow, quiet, internal letting go. The more I surrendered, the more the world seemed to rearrange itself in response.

And yes, I now live in “paradise.” Though it’s worth noting that surrendering is significantly harder when you’re being eaten alive by mosquitoes, sweating through your clothes, swatting sand flies, dodging snakes, and side-eyeing the occasional tarantula or scorpion. Still, I try to remember all that the next time I’m sipping a mezcalita with my feet in the sand and the crystal-clear waters lapping at my toes.

Presence, after all, comes with texture.

Looking back now, I can see how much of this was already beginning in that dusty, echoing studio in the early ’90s. I just didn’t know it yet. In retrospect, the real education was never going to be about fitting into the industry. It was about learning how to listen: first with my hands, then with my whole self.

Author’s Note

Even when I look back on what once felt like failures, missed opportunities, or just plain bad luck… I have no regrets. The truth is, the universe gave me what I needed, not always what I thought I wanted. And it still does.

The moment the sun offers itself to the night, trusting the dawn.

But until then, there is a release into deep shadow.

It draws the line once more, fighting to stay afloat,

and with its last breath,

lets go of its red flames.

If this moved you, I’d love to receive your comments or likes. Every gesture helps keep this creative path alive.

Awake After the Rain - 19.75 x 15.23 in

Medium: Painted digitally

I had always painted as a child, for as long as I can remember. It was such an important pastime for me that family and friends saw something special in it—even then. I think I was drawn to it because of my nature as a young boy. I was unusually shy and withdrawn. I’d spend hours on my own, making.

There could be many reasons for this, including my parents’ decision to move to France shortly after I was born. They both spoke English at home, but I attended French schools until I was eight. As an educator now, I understand the challenges children face when they begin school speaking a second or third language. The long-term benefits of bilingualism are enormous, but early on, there are often delays in communication.

Still, that quiet, observant nature became my strength. I spent hours—years—looking deeply, recording and analyzing. That deep visual sensitivity became my superpower.

For many years, I struggled with the written word. And to add insult to injury, the lack of self-confidence this created in me meant that it wasn’t until my mid-forties that I began, tentatively, to write. If I’m honest, I don’t think I have a natural affinity for words and probably never will. But I’ve grown to love writing—as a companion to painting. For me, painting will always come first. It’s how I communicate what I feel and experience at the deepest level.

I first discovered the St Ives School of Painting in Cornwall during my teens. We had previously lived in France and Singapore, and my family had recently returned to England. My grandfather Leonard invited me to join him and my grandmother Pearl on a week-long painting course. My grandparents had been going there for years and were friends with the then head of the school, Roy Ray.

Roy and his wife ran a B&B and rented out rooms—we stayed with them during the course. It was a dream come true. The schedule included two guided sessions each day—morning and afternoon. We’d start the week sketching en plein air, then return to the studio to develop ideas through monoprinting and painting on canvas, interspersed with life drawing from a model.

All this required fuel: full English breakfasts, pasties or fish and chips for lunch, and the occasional visit to one of the many local pubs–strictly for artistic inspiration, of course. Needless to say, I was in heaven.

My grandmother Pearl had suffered from polio in her youth and walked with crutches, so my grandfather pushed her around in a wheelchair. If you’ve ever been to St Ives, you’ll know that the cobbled hills and steep lanes were never designed for wheelchairs. And Pearl wasn’t exactly a featherweight (she’d have laughed at that). The sheer strength it took to push her up and down those streets was nothing short of heroic–though I don’t recall grandad being offered a knighthood. Instead, he was awarded a long, healthy life. I think that might be one of the reasons my grandfather stayed so fit right to the end.

Those memories stayed with me. They laid the foundation for everything that came later in my creative life.

But it would take me over three decades to arrive at a place where my work was no longer about observation, accuracy, or technical control. Don’t get me wrong—I’m grateful for my classical training. Without it, I don’t think I could have approached abstraction with any real authenticity.

I remember visiting the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague during my student years. The academy, perched on a hill like a 19th-century time capsule, had a fiercely traditional program. Year one: drawing. Year two: painting. Year three: sculpture. Only in the final year were students given space to experiment with abstraction. But their work—rooted in deep, technical mastery—was exquisite. That memory stayed with me, even though I wouldn’t let go of realism myself until much later.

It was during my years as Head of Art in London that abstraction—and those early memories of St Ives—resurfaced. I’d begun a part-time master’s at Wimbledon School of Art and took the opportunity to review my own practice. Around that time, our daughter Anaïs was born, and I found myself captivated by her scribbles. We’d draw together, sometimes on the same piece of paper. Her mark-making was spontaneous, free of thought. I compared it to the Buddhist ink paintings I had once admired—where monks, in a meditative state, would express a single gesture with total presence. Those childlike lines, so pure and unfiltered, became a quiet revelation.

Fast forward to our move to Mexico. With two kids and a dog in tow, we arrived with very little. All our possessions remained in storage in England. The only creative tool I brought was my iPad Pro.

I remember hearing a story around that time about someone who bought their grandfather a brand-new iPad. He was full of gratitude, said thank you with genuine warmth—only to be found later that day happily chopping an onion on it. I often think of that story as a reminder that tools only reveal their magic when we meet them with intention—and for me, that intention had quietly shifted.

The freedom of the digital medium changed everything. I could make changes, add layers, and undo mistakes without the usual painter’s remorse. Something about that looseness helped me move beyond fear—especially my old fear of colour. Years of sculpting in restrained, careful tones gave way to bold experimentation. Colour returned, and with it, a sense of joyful surrender.

It started with playful doodles, testing brushes, and tools. But something surprising happened: I began enjoying those unplanned experiments more than any observational work. They reminded me of those drawings with Anaïs. Free, intuitive, alive. And I started enjoying colour. For someone who spent years sculpting in shades of “emotionally repressed monotone,” this was a breakthrough.

And then, ever so naturally, those experiments began to cohere into something more structured. Compositions emerged—not by design, but by trust. By stepping back. By letting go.

I now look back on that shift in my painting, and I see how it mirrored my life. That period was a call to surrender. Burnout had forced me to stop. To let go of outcomes. To stop controlling the composition—not just in art, but in life.

And it wasn’t easy. Surrender rarely is. But it changed everything. My paintings became practices in presence. Not performances, but offerings. Invitations to meet what is.

That’s when the phrase came to me—listening to the light. It’s not something I strive to do. It’s something I return to. A quiet attentiveness. A willingness to follow what reveals itself in the stillness.

These days, I paint less to express an idea and more to witness what arises. To hold a space. To listen—beyond the noise—to the subtle light that shapes it all.

Language of Light - 30 x 24 in - Medium: Painted Digitally

About Listening to the Light

I’m starting Listening to the Light as a quiet space to share glimpses from a life lived a little differently: through words, paintings, and the slow unfolding of presence.

This is a journal of sorts. A place to reflect on what it means to return to light: in art, in writing, and in the quiet work of guiding others forward.

Though writing helps me make sense of things, painting is my primary language. I’m a visual artist and the founder of The Heart of Learning, a creative learning center on the Caribbean coast of Mexico. My work, whether in the studio, in the learning space, or on the page, comes from the same place: a practice of attention, trust, and presence. It’s how I try to live, lead, and create.

After many years living and working in London, I made a leap across the ocean to Mexico. That move changed more than just my surroundings. It changed how I see, how I listen, and how I create. It taught me to pay closer attention: to change, to silence, to the invisible currents that shape a life.

Now feels like the right moment to start sharing more openly.

Much of what I’ll be posting here comes from my upcoming book, From London to Mexico, alongside glimpses into my paintings and process. All of it is shaped by the same quiet search for meaning, presence, and light.

What kind of space is this?

Listening to the Light is a place for:

• Reflections on creativity, change, and the inner journey

• Paintings and studio notes exploring presence and perception

• Honest glimpses into the process of living and creating differently

There’s no noise here. Just quiet invitations to notice, reflect, and walk alongside—if it speaks to you.

What can you expect?

• I’ll post about once a week. Sometimes a reflection, sometimes a painting or studio note

• All posts are free for now

• Later on, I might offer deeper content for paid subscribers, but only if it feels truly worthwhile

• For now, just come as you are, and follow along at your own pace

Thank you for being here.

If this space resonates, you’re warmly invited to subscribe.

This isn’t a place of arrival. It’s a path still unfolding… step by step, in the presence of light.

The Whisper Before the Storm - 29 x 23 in - Medium: Painted Digitally

“This is a reflection from From London to Mexico, a book in progress about the quiet signs that guide us into unexpected change.”

In the early 1990s, I studied sculpture at Wimbledon School of Art, back when it clung to that name (rather earnestly) and was known for its figurative tradition, where often monumental sculpture was made out of stone, wood, metal, clay, and plaster. At the time (that’s the reason I chose this wonderful place, harking back to the 19th-century ateliers) I had the quiet but determined ambition to make it as a full-time artist. Sculpture was my love, my discipline, and I had every intention, however idealistic, of making it my future.

Despite my being somewhat resistant to the idea of becoming a teacher (my own experience of school was bittersweet), I come from a family where art and education were already quietly entangled. My grandparents on my father’s side were both lifelong educators. My grandfather, a head of art and a devoted amateur painter, was perhaps my earliest mentor. I spent many school holidays with him on short trips to St Ives, Cornwall, where we would stay for a week or two at a time.

St Ives was the perfect retreat for abstract and modernist artists like Barbara Hepworth, Patrick Heron, and Ben Nicholson, who were won over by the raw forms of the landscape they experienced around them.

Every morning or evening, when the shadows were at their best, my grandfather would grab his easel, paints, palette and brushes, and power off for a brisk stroll in search of a suitable spot to paint en plein air—most always satisfied that he had found that special view with a distant hint of turquoise, trapped through a gap between two granite walls, and containing the perfect balance of spatial challenges, colour opposites, and textural contrasts. I would always join him. Watching and soaking up his fast process, totally absorbed in each moment, each brushstroke, sharing that quiet space (well, not always. Often people stopped to ask questions, or if we were fortunate, just silently admired). I’m almost brought to tears when I remember those precious times: moments that left a lasting impression on me.

What impacted me most was the light. St Ives, almost a peninsula jutting into the Atlantic, was surrounded by powder beaches on nearly every side, and there was something about the fine, silicone-rich sand that caught and amplified the light in an astonishing way. The paintings that we made there were vivid and intense under the St Ives sky. They could feel almost too saturated, slightly fluorescent and out of place, when returned to the softer, smoggy hues and shadows of London. That clarity, that luminous sharpness, entered my senses without me knowing how deeply it would stay.

I remember too the old, damp studios: oak floors soaked in strange alchemical mediums and layered glazes of oil paint and turpentine. There were tea and biscuit breaks in the middle of long, trance-like sessions of making, when the hum of human voices and the faint cries of seagulls would once again break the silence… small rituals that felt timeless.

We would walk through a landscape that shifted constantly: rocky coves, open beaches, narrow streets winding between whitewashed houses. Oh, and of course, how can I forget the ancient mustard-yellow, lichen-covered roofs? Incidentally, the perfect complementary colour to turquoise blue on Isaac Newton’s famous colour wheel; a technique used by painters to create a sense of three-dimensional space on a flat canvas. All of this magnificence under that relentless, ethereal glow.

Now, reminiscing, I know I was picking up more than technique. I was learning how to be present enough to truly see… to notice the atmosphere around a subject, the way a shadow breathed against a wall, the way colour could burn into memory.

Much later, long after I had let go of art school ideals and left London behind, it was those early memories that quietly returned to guide my hand again. This time under the wide skies of the Mexican Caribbean, where a different—yet just as powerful—light would once more reshape not only the way I painted, but the way I lived.

In each new light, the old ones return: silent mentors of the soul, reminding us how to see, how to feel, how to begin again.