My Story

Born in Cape Town, I moved to London as a teenager. I studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University, followed by an art foundation course in London at Central St. Martins. This detour led me on to a very different life path than Oxford seemed to be laying out for me, one I could never have dreamed possible.

In 1999, with my artist husband Ralph Lazar, I packed in my (relatively) ‘proper job’ and moved to the Seychelles for a year. There we worked on projects that became our creative studio Last Lemon, which is still going strong today.

Then one day in 2004 (back in London), I placed a chewed-up architect’s model inside a wooden
Ikea box and something magical happened – life was breathed into that little guy and the space
in the box opened up to infinity. I had created an entire parallel universe! Godlike. And the
Glass Cathedrals concept was born.

After building my art business in London – organising big ramshackle art shows with Ralph
in the East End and being represented by some amazing small galleries on the art fair
circuit – in 2010 I moved with my family to Marin, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge
in California.

There I began my ‘labours of love’ projects, including The Traveling Bookbox
Show (the essence of books in boxes), Cinerama (cinematic dramas in sparkling
dioramas), Starstuff (portraits of illuminating people) The Swerling Circus of Small
(what it says on the bottle :) ), and the politically motivated In the Now series.

Since 2022 I’ve been back in brilliant London, with regular pilgrimages to Southern
Africa, land of my heart.