“From the beginning my twin passions were drawing and horses, my hero was Leonardo da Vinci, and my dreams were of becoming an artist living in a wooded valley with clear flowing water at my door and horses grazing all around.I was a wild young thing. I hated the confines of school especially in the summer and was a disruptive student unless in an art class. By some miracle that was enough to win me a place at Walthamstow College to study fine art; there, drawing was considered the first essential. After several years at Goldsmiths College in London, I moved to Devon where going to Newton Abbot and Devon & Exeter racecourses became a regular activity; I sketched the horses in the parade rings and my paintings naturally reflected the bright colors of the jockey's silks. I began to sculpt horses, experimenting first with clay whilst staying with a friend, Takeshi Yasuda, the celebrated Japanese potter. I also experimented with plaster and later with copper wire which was a bit like drawing in the air. The resultant classical looking pieces reminded me of da Vinci's horse sketches, but they lacked the power and essential nature of the horse I sought.Then out of the blue the answer came in on the tide. Driftwood. It was like a thunderbolt, I had never seen sculpture anything like it, it was like line drawing with wood. I had never seen any driftwood sculpture before. It had a power and authentic quality that made it something extraordinary, and it was mine alone. I knew I was finally ready to show my work to the world. As a child I never could have dreamt that it would be driftwood horses that would make my name.”Now at her home and studio in Devon, in southwest England, Heather has created a beautiful sculpture garden and gallery. The gardens are open for charity twice a year. Every year she introduces something new and opens her house and studios each autumn as part of Devon Open Studios. Her driftwood sculptures are now increasingly cast in limited editions of fine bronze.Says an art critic, “Heather is a genius with an eye for nature that in another generation would have seen her burnt as a witch - now she is rightly considered one of our country's finest artists.”