My Art Cards collection was born after a tropical storm in the Caribbean. The beach on the Atlantic coast of Nevis, an island where I return each year to holiday, was awash with bottles, buckets and fishing paraphernalia. Doing my bit for the community, I collected the litter and was astonished by the variety of brightly coloured plastic rubbish and textures of the rope netting. In my studio later I washed and cut up the flotsom and jetsom into manageable pieces which I then glued to a wooden board. My first collage “Sunset” remains my favourite because I felt I had discovered something new in the making of it. My obsession with collecting ‘found objects’ has been with me ever since I can remember. The overlooked and the abandoned speak to me. It interests me why a broken black umbrella reminds me of an oil slicked bird washed ashore and why a rusting wheel can give off energy even though its travels are over. I am always looking beyond and behind at the meaning of things. The titles of my pictures and their happy fleeting simplicity belie their environmental whispers. What you see in the pictures of the beaches is what it should look like without the litter- the irony is that I am using the discarded rubbish from the beaches to make these idyllic images. The collages take a long time to make individually and require frequent visits to the beach to find a certain colour to complete a picture. The present collection sells through art galleries and directly to customers, so the initial excitement is still burning within me. The cards are a special reminder of how beautiful the world can be if we look after it.