As a forces kid, I grew up in many countries. Each time we moved, I found myself starting again in a new culture. The arts became my way to belong. A song, a painting, or a dance could connect me across difference, even when I didn’t have the language or references to fit in.
It’s no surprise, then, that I found my way into the arts. I studied theatre and arts management at university and began my career as a puppeteer and puppet-maker. Later I worked with DAISI, placing artists in schools to enrich learning and community life. I saw first-hand how creativity could open doors, build confidence, and help people understand themselves and others.
When my husband and I decided to buy a house, our bank manager told me I’d need a proper job. I laughed—and found one. That’s how, in 2005, I joined Rain—a small, four-person team trying to build a renewable energy sector that barely existed. There was just 0.2% installed renewable capacity at the time (it’s now around 42%).
At first, I was doing a bit of everything: office management, events, communications. I soon found myself as Head of Finance and Operations, but what really held my imagination was how much the new energy movement reminded me of art. Renewable installations were like public sculptures—beautiful, hopeful, sometimes contentious. They told stories about who we were and what we valued.
Within my first six months, I spoke to our then-CEO, Matthew Spencer, about art projects. I’d been inspired by an installation of red windmills made with five local schools and couldn’t shake the feeling of it. It felt like renewable energy for the soul. Our first collaboration followed soon after—a partnership with glass artist Siddy Langley, who designed Regen’s Green Energy Awards trophies and still makes them to this day.
Regen was full of quietly creative people: dancers, poets, jewellers, singers, and musicians. Even those who didn’t see themselves as artists had creativity in their bones.
Our focus was practical—finance, policy, public awareness, planning—but I became fascinated by the poetry of our energy system. The more I learned, the more I saw that energy was profoundly human: a metaphor for connection, power, and flow. Energy literacy wasn’t just technical; it was emotional, even spiritual.
Then came 2008. The Regional Development Agencies were abolished, and Regen lost 100% of its core funding overnight. To keep the team afloat, the senior management all cut our hours. I went down to three days a week—and found myself craving creative purpose again. Around that same time, I learned I was expecting twins. Suddenly, I knew I’d have just 30 hours a week—total—for paid work and art-making.
I couldn’t choose between them, so I decided not to. My art and energy work would become the same thing.
That was the beginning of the Art and Energy idea. Not as a project, but as a question: Where do art and energy meet? What happens in the space between them?
Regen was the perfect incubator for that experiment. It was full of curiosity and courage. I persuaded the team to appoint an intern—Nick Davies—to research creative energy projects worldwide. His work became Energy and the Arts, our first publication, mapping more than a hundred examples. It gave us legitimacy and inspiration. We realised we weren’t alone—there was fertile ground here.
We were soon joined by Naomi Wright, whose ecological sensitivity and philosophical curiosity have shaped my work ever since. Naomi’s “energy walks” drew attention to the way sunlight flows through nature and into human creativity. She reminded me that energy isn’t just something we consume—it’s something we embody.
Over the years, we commissioned poetry, ran slams and residencies, created a musical (SWIMBY), hosted festivals and training programmes, and wove creative practice into our everyday work. Sometimes people resisted—it made them feel vulnerable or unsure. But once we held our first poetry slam, the energy in the room changed. People saw themselves and their mission reflected back in a new, human way.
One colleague who’d been sceptical told me afterwards, “I finally get it.”
I’ve learned that art in professional spaces can be confronting. It challenges pride, ego, and the comfort of certainty. It’s messy, emotional, and sometimes exposes our humanity in ways spreadsheets can’t.
I’ve also learned about envy—the sting of seeing someone make a piece you wish you’d made, or getting funding you couldn’t secure. I’ve had to face that shadow in myself and learn to see creativity as part of the life force—the genius in all living things that allows us to adapt and thrive. In a world of scarcity, we need both necessity and generosity. We need to build spaces that feel abundant enough to share ideas freely.
Regen taught me to take risks. The marvellous Merlin Hyman, our CEO and one of my greatest mentors, once said: “It’s easier to apologise for something brilliant than to ask permission for something no one understands yet.” That advice has stayed with me ever since.
When I first began this work, I was following in the footsteps of artists who were already exploring the currents between creativity and energy — people whose ideas shimmered with possibility and helped me imagine what was possible at Regen. In many ways, I was handed a baton by them, and then I found myself passing it on.
Curious pioneers like Emma Pavans de Ceccatty and Sophie Whinney, and so many others, are carrying this conversation into new spaces — asking their own questions, finding new forms, and inviting new voices in. That’s how this work should be. Art and Energy was never meant to be a fixed idea or a programme; it’s a living inquiry.
The real legacy is not a single artwork or publication, but the freedom for others to make their own discoveries — to answer, in their own way, that question that still sits at the heart of it all:
What happens in the space where art and energy meet?
What I Carried Forward
When I left Regen to found the Art and Energy Collective, and we made the UK’s first solar-panel artwork—now in a museum in Switzerland. We taught communities to make their own solar artworks, created Moths to a Flame (a mass-participation project involving 58,000 people for COP26), and developed Our Compass—a framework helping communities respond creatively to the climate crisis.
After years of commissions, training programmes, and exhibitions, I’ve come full circle, returning to collaborate with Regen once more. The world has changed—AI, austerity, inequality—but my conviction hasn’t. Creativity is still one of our most renewable resources.
Now, I’ve returned to Regen for a while, and am reflecting on all that Regen’s art and energy work has achieved with the brilliant creatives we’ve collaborated with. The hope is to learn and shape what happens next.
In an ideal world, we’ll develop a Creative Power and Community Energy School—a space for an even wider variety and diversity of voices in the culture and energy sectors to learn from one another. If we can build better relationships between them, both can thrive—and together they can help shape a future that’s still worth living for.
I have often been asked about the value of the arts - what are we hoping to achieve? When there is so much difficult stuff in the world, can you really justify making art?
In the darkest moments—when the world feels broken beyond repair—I think of something Naomi Wright once told me:
“Even when you know death is inevitable, you can still live well. Living well matters.”
That’s what art and energy both teach us: how to live well. How to stay human while transforming systems, and the skills we develop through practicing the arts are those that we need to face whatever the future holds.
In a low-carbon future, there will be singing, dancing, poetry, and play.
They are intrinsically low-carbon activities. These aren’t luxuries. They’re lifelines.
Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter containing industry insights, our latest research and upcoming events.
