Rather than a standard CV, I want to share with you those experiences which had a direct bearing on my artistic development.

I was born in Hamburg at the beginning of the great depression and my first memories of life are rather bleak. On my tenth birthday my parents gave me an oil painting set. This was the best present I had ever received. Two years later I sold my first painting.

When I was fourteen, I studied with a professional painter who painted like the Old Masters. He instructed me in the practical aspects of painting. He taught me 'to see' what I looked at; to find the geometry of an object, the rhythm in a landscape; how to delete, use the imagination and create. He told me "Painting a picture is a craft like any other where you are producing something. It needs to be learned and can be learnt. Some become good at it. Others don't". He also said "I am very good at it. My works are displayed in galleries all over the world to be admired and enjoyed but none, I must confess have what I look for in a work of real art. It does not mean that my life's work was a waste of time, only that very few of us have the gift that enables them to give their work a soul or magic or the mysterious power we feel when looking at it".

When I was seventeen, the war had ended. My old friend was dead as were my parents. Life for me and my three younger siblings was a struggle for survival. I inherited the old painter's equipment including his huge easel. Painting when I could probably kept me sane.

Three years later, the Hamburg Art Gallery reopened showing modern paintings that the Nazis had declared 'decadent'. Somehow they had been saved from being burnt. There were Impressionists, Cubists, Surrealists, Expressionists and much more. I remember running from one painting to the next. I was overwhelmed; it changed the way I looked at the world, seeing it was not all death and destruction.

I migrated to Australia. In 1953 I joined the Western Australian expedition looking for Leichhardt's remains. I then stayed on living in the bush for years and this was a time of healing.

In 1960 I returned to Adelaide to work at Maralinga where I was exposed to radiation which damaged my immune system. Back in Adelaide I undertook an Art Teacher's and Commercial Art Course. I married. I was often ill, however, I produced enough works to fill the
Habitat Gallery – most of these paintings sold. On doctor's advice we moved to Kangaroo Island for the fresh air. For twelve years I taught art. In 1985 we moved to Brisbane. Work and family gave me little time to paint. In 1998 after the youngest had left home, we settled on a bush block in Hervey Bay. Establishing a home kept me busy until 2008 when I started work for a solo exhibition, 'Beyond Decorative' to be held at the Hervey Bay Regional Gallery in September 2010.