Affordable art fairs, the dalai lama and indian drainpipes

My paintings are on show at the Affordable art fair in London, Battersea in less than 2 weeks. I showed a collection of paintings at the Battersea Spring Exhibition with the Greenstage Gallery 16 years ago and I'm enjoying remembering the lead up to my first big show.

In the 6 months prior to the exhibition I embarked on my first experience living and working abroad figuring, if I can do it from here, I can do it from anywhere. My aim was to gather all the art materials I needed, paint a collection of work and ship the paintings back in time for the show.... from Northern India.

My first challenge was finding art materials and I started this quest in Varanasi and continued it to Bodh Gaya. I asked many locals and tried to explain in many different ways what I was searching for. I was amused when twice I was ridden across town on different days, in different rickshaws, only to find myself at the same silk shop. (I guessed the owner must have been giving commissions to drivers who bought tourism to the shop!) I finally found a helpful student who understood what I needed and sent me to an art shop where I was excited to find everything I needed; Quality brushes, canvases and lots of paint.

I rented a simple bedroom on a roof top terrace in Bodh Gaya (We were also on a Buddhist pilgrimage visiting sacred sites from the Buddha's life and Bodh Gaya was where the Buddha attained enlightenment.) Whilst my husband to be did a meditation retreat, I did a painting retreat.

The air was warm and sweet and my memories taste like chai. My little room with blue painted door, concrete floor and sparce, starched white sheets became my own peaceful sanctuary. A small window looked out over luminous green paddy fields and the chatter of village life sang into my room through the open window and the gaps around the door. I was alone but happy with the company of colourful laundry drying in the sun and conversations and laughter of Tibetan families who rented other rooms on the roof top terrace. H.H The Dalai Lama was visiting and teaching under the Bodhi tree and my Tibetan neighbours were on a pilgrimage of their own.

I walked daily across the rice paddies, taking in the striking vivid greens and punchy orange flashes of local woman farming the fields in orange sarees. I spent my mornings having teachings on meditation with an exciting teacher Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, a Tibetan Nepali teacher and master of the Karma Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism and spent my afternoons into the evenings painting.

I painted interiors. I was looking inwards and was so absorbed by the beauty and simplicity of the dwellings we inhabited. We travelled off the beaten track and avoided touristy areas and expensive hotels. I painted 2 single beds on opposite sides of the room. We'd rented a few places like this where, as a soon to be married couple, we were faced with two beds looking like they couldn't get far enough away from each other. This always made me chuckle. Inspiration was everywhere.

So many of my subjects found their way into my art through India. Skies of washing, colourful like prayer flags criss- crossed across court yards, A bike stood next to a coral coloured large flat wall, large expanses of colours were everywhere. Small blue tables, were outside on the streets, around which people sat on the floor. Objects perhaps out of place, but perfect. Barber shops set up with shelves, products and mirrors around the trunk of a roadside tree, Interiors and exteriors merged. I was practising self reflection, looking inwards whilst taking in a multitude of exterior newness. Small arched windows glimpsed life outside or are you outside looking in, windows in my paintings were always too small and walls too ambiguous to know. Colours and experiences were rich and embracing and they continued to pour into my paintings for years to come.

After several months of painting and a few locations on, it was time to send work back to the gallery. Another quest ensued with how to package stretched canvases. Some I had made wooden boxes for and 3 of my favourite paintings I removed from their stretchers, rolled them up and popped them in a drainpipe. I remember them as vivid as the rice fields. One of them looks down on a white single bed. Over the bed are draped a long pair of stripey tights, and on the headboard is resting a large pink sun hat. The painting was called 'Bed Dressed' (Sounds like Bed Rest). I like my names to have a few readings so they match the sometimes ambiguous setting of the painting. There's humour in keeping it open to interpretation too. I sent these all off with a kiss and a prayer towards lovely Herefordshire where Will from the Greenstage Gallery waited for their arrival.

The paintings in the drainpipe never arrived. The drainpipe made it but the paintings vanished somewhere between Hereford UK and Bodh Gaya, India. It was disappointing, especially as a customer had agreed to buy one of the paintings from just seeing an image of it, but I couldn't help feeling a cosy warmth of satisfaction that perhaps, they had been stolen by someone who loved them, or at least thought them worthy of slicing the wrapping and sliding them out of the drainpipe, perhaps to sell on. It's a mystery where they went but the others continued their journey to Battersea AAF spring show.

Leaving Bodh Gaya heading North to Dharamsala, we waited for hours at the train station. My future husband meandered off to check emails at a local internet cafe. He came back wearing a wide smile. He handed me a can of lemonade, an incense stick and a sticky Indian sweet. These he said "Represented a feast, champagne and fireworks!" I had sold all of the paintings that had made it to the fair. We celebrated with new friends, sitting on the floor of the train station and toasted to living and working as an artist and to all the people and places who make this world so rich and wonderful. I couldn't have been happier.

I am still showing with the Greenstage Gallery to this day and Will and I share many adventurous stories of paintings traveling from abroad. I owe my art career to the fairs, to Will for trusting in an enthusiastic young artist and to India for a lifetime of inspiration.