Born in Suffolk
Foundation Harlow College 1992
BA (Hons) Fine Art University of Hertfordshire 1997
Co-founder CAPA COLLECTIVE, member of ARTWORKS4YOU, Hertfordshire Visual Arts Forum (sculpture group) Printmakers Council

Liz has had a studio in Parndon Mill since 1999, and is keen to participate in its rising profile as a centre for arts and crafts in the area.

“My studio is initially set up for printmaking. Using both intaglio and relief printmaking processes I aim to make innovative prints.

My work includes blind embossing (where a deeply bitten matrix is used to impress an image on thick papers without using ink) multiple plate and reduction linocuts (both produce complicated prints through repeatedly working and reworking an image on a piece of lino, using colour and tone) and woodcuts.

I have also worked with collography, a inexpensive method of printing using very basic equipment such as cardboard, anaglypta wallpaper, doilies, you-name-it - you –can-print with it to produce images with a wide range of textures.

Apart from more traditional methods such as etching and aquatint I also use plexiglass as well as copper or zinc plates for dry point, and use carborundum grit to create textures.

Not forgetting monotypes, the most painterly printmaking method, the one off print and monoprints where a single print is produces by working into a print with methods like collage or hand colouring.

I also work with steel, either rods or sheet steel cut into shapes and hammered before being welded together. Being of a contrary nature I rather like to make things that are either soft and fragile (like the lily) or cosy (like the handbags) or sensual and female (like the Torsos)

I enjoy the process of making metal pieces despite the constant logistical problems with welding. I mean I obviously don’t weld in my studio and always seem to be battling with the elements |(too hot, too cold, too windy) outside in my garden but I do get work done somehow!

I also collect things from a variety of places, like a magpie or probably like a rag and bone man. After a while one or more pieces collide and a piece emerges, like the red shoes. I bought them in a sale, wonderful spiky red shoes and then read the story of The Red Shoes by Hans Andersen. The shoes are lined with copper with the story embossed in it. The whole piece is about female creativity but also maybe about Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road!

I like the coincidences too. I bought a pair of Chinese shoes, tiny ones for bound feet and read up about the ‘Lotus shoes’ and discovered that large unbound feet were called ‘Iron Lilies’