There’s something about open space and horizons; the combination of land, sea and sky that fascinates me. It’s probably from living on a peninsula, surrounded by water on three sides, but it manifest itself in my practise in all sorts of ways.

Early memories of walking back from Hilbre Island seeing a wall of water coming across the estuary and knowing I won’t beat it back to West Kirby. Or sitting in the sun by the Menai Straits on Anglesey watching clouds roll in off the sea with the menace of rain, yet passing straight over me to create thunder and lightning over Yr Wyddfa.

Understanding how we experience space led a lot of my research work in digital realities when teaching computer animation and interaction design. Working with weather systems to change gameplay in my Masters thesis. Then it manifested itself in my PhD exploring cultural cognitive differences in how we design and experience virtual spaces, differences that also are present in our interactions with physical space.

Walking and working in the landscapes of the Dee Estuary or Eryri gives me the time and opportunity to make to think, through sketching and photography. While reading spatial theory and researching those landscapes gives me the knowledge to think to make. Either way it’s the spending time there that counts.

The ability to walk to somewhere I can see the sea and the horizon, to get a true sense of distance and scale, has turned out to be a necessity for me.

This pattern is obvious in some of my projects.