My Lovers sculpture emerged as a tribute to the transforming power of Love. I was moved to capture Love as a timeless and elemental force, the eternal pull of a tide drawing two people together.
I'm never influenced by celebrities. I would never consider going on a certain type of diet because someone famous did. But today I stand corrected. Today I feel moved enough to listen to a celebrity. To be influenced by her choices and her suggestions.
As a visual artist, I find great inspiration in the varied disciplines of creativity. When I was first introduced to the renowned cellist Jacqueline du Pré, my soul was electrified by her virtuosity and sensitivity.
With youth unemployment just under a million, young people are turning their hand to gardening, graphic design, baking and beauty therapy to escape the dole queue and kick-start their careers. For many young people, the transformation from unemployed to entrepreneur is life changing; giving them back the skills, confidence and motivation that being out of work has taken away.
There are many simple ideas and tips that I have picked up along the way from fellow sufferers, or have discovered by trial and error at home, and I'd like to share some of these with you. Anything that can improve your quality of life and maintain your independence to some degree has to be a good thing.
Nothing can be more dangerous to an already anxious generation than to sink into a hole of depression. I am tired of reading disheartening articles about how younger generations are already failed and without a future. How we are doomed to despair, how older generations have given up on us as a hopeless case. All this negativity, it's no wonder we are starting to believe it.
Welcome to Catching the Comet's Tail, a series of interviews with writers, artists and musicians discussing creativity and their creative process. To launch the series, I am delighted to welcome English author Elizabeth Fremantle.
What I do know is for one day, inside the walls of the Hospital Club, I felt listened to, valued and welcomed for who I am. The power of that unity between women is what we need to build upon for a future where everyone can aspire to have their all.
My name is David Tait - I'm an NSPCC Trustee and 'charity mountaineer' having now successfully climbed Mount Everest four times - in 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011. I climb to raise both awareness and money for the many violated kids - one of whom was I.
On 9 April, vegan athlete Fiona Oakes, 43, won the women's race in the North Pole Marathon in -28°C, breaking a course record by 44 minutes despite the worst conditions in the race's history.
It is all too easy to let your true ambitions, your dreams and consequently yourself, be consumed by the expectations of others, by life's pressures and by fear of failure. This however; is no excuse to surrender. I often say that mistakes are things I did and regrets are things I didn't do.
We are also seeing a new generation of highly-talented designers such as Elie Saab, Robert Abi Nader Abed Mahfouz, Walid Attalah, Essa from the UAE and others who continue to impress the international fashion world with their fusion of modern and Muslim-inspired elements into their ensembles.
However, I have noticed that much talk surrounding "Lean[ing] In" has centred mostly on women who already in the workplace. Whilst I have nothing against this, I feel as though younger women, girls of my own generation in the UK who are still in school, are, comparatively, missing out on this exciting 'buzz'.
When we look upon beautiful works made by the hands of men, we may be swept off in their purity, the directness of vision that turned ideas into masterpieces. In doing so, we are quick to forget that no man - even the brightest, most inspired among us - creates entirely in isolation.
Art possesses a limitless field of possibility within creation through the total freedom of choice
How did I walk out of my job as lecturer in Japanese to bring up one, then two, then three children, I think? How did I put up with the dirty nappies, the night feeds, the parking two children in the play-pen so as to get to the toilet - the blizzard years?