Growing Up via the Scenic Route
Some lives unfold in straight lines. Mine took the scenic route, shaped by movement, place, people, and the spaces in between. Growing up across countries, cultures, and communities taught me early that identity is not fixed. It forms through experience, relationships, and the ways we learn to belong. Those early lessons continue to shape how I live, create, and work today.
Early Days
Born in Bath, UK, to a British father and an Australian mother, it wasn’t long before we exchanged the English weather for the sunny climate of my mother’s hometown, Rye, on the Mornington Peninsula. What followed was a life shaped by movement and transition, with childhood and adolescence spent between Australia and Brazil, and later my own path taking me to San Francisco and then England. Growing up across cultures and places taught me early that identity is formed through experience, relationship, and the ways we navigate change.
Due to our family remaining in Brazil longer than planned, I attended Toorak College in Mount Eliza as a boarder for several years before returning to Brazil to complete my secondary education at the American School in Rio de Janeiro. From there, I travelled to San Francisco to study at the Academy of Art, intending to complete a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Enticed by the music, energy, and nightlife of the 1980s glam rock era, I spent almost as much time managing rock bands around the Bay Area as I did in the art studios. Eventually, that chapter gave way to the next, and I moved to the UK, where I completed my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Coventry before training as an art and special-needs teacher.
Throughout this time, art-making became a way of making sense of change, absence, and overwhelm, particularly when words were not enough. These early experiences fostered a deep appreciation for creativity, diversity, and the grounding role of family and community, and continue to shape how I understand growth, connection, and transition today.
Finding My Calling
My early career in the UK involved working with young people excluded from mainstream education. I developed inclusive, art-based approaches that supported learning, expression, and well-being, particularly for those who had struggled within more traditional systems. This work reinforced the importance of compassion, flexibility, and meeting people where they are.
I later worked as a Specialist Learning and Support Teacher and Consultant within a Local Education Authority Early Intervention Service, collaborating closely with families, schools, and professionals to support children with complex social, emotional, learning, and behavioural needs.
A growing fascination with the intersection of behaviour, emotion, and lived experience led me to complete a Master’s in Art Psychotherapy at the University of Hertfordshire. I subsequently worked within CAMHS and established an Art Psychotherapy service for Warwickshire Youth Justice, supporting young people and families navigating trauma, exploitation, and involvement with the justice system.
Returning to Australia
Since returning to Australia in 2015, I have worked across cultural, therapeutic, and educational settings. This includes several years living and working in a remote Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory, where working alongside Warlpiri artists and supporting the Aussie Desert Dogs programme deepened my understanding of community, culture, and resilience.
Alongside my therapeutic work, photography and art have remained constant companions throughout my life and travels. From live gig photography to documenting daily life in the central desert, creative practice has been a way of witnessing, reflecting, and staying connected to people and place. This work has included exhibitions and media projects, and continues to inform how I attend to detail, story, and meaning within my therapeutic practice.
My personal history and professional life are deeply intertwined. The experiences that have shaped me are central to how I understand and engage with others, and they continue to inform my work today.
Current Practice
Now based on the Mornington Peninsula, I specialise in attachment-based, trauma-responsive, and affirming therapies, including art psychotherapy, Interactive Drawing Therapy, EMDR, and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy. My work explores the relationships between attachment, trauma, development, and identity, honouring each person’s unique experiences and ways of being.
My current practice includes clinic-based art psychotherapy with Barefoot Therapists, alongside collaborative work with Tootgarook Primary School, where I am implementing The ARC Initiative Pilot. This whole-school framework supports inclusive, creative, and personalised developmental pathways across all tiers of intervention. I also provide integrated EMDR, innovative therapeutic approaches, and clinical supervision within my private practice.
Guided by a strong ethical foundation and a belief in the value of more-than-verbal expression, my work honours the many ways people communicate their inner worlds. Through art, movement, and sensory experience, people are supported to express what may be difficult to articulate in words, trusting that creative expression can reveal, hold, and reconnect what words alone cannot.
When not working, I can be found on the beach with my Desert Dog, Luna!
