About Bertie & Gertie Designs

It all started when I used to get sweets of school kids for doing their art home work. I had the dream parents who wanted me to be an artist. So I rebelled and although got my art o'level, and dabbled for a few years decided to go into art properly in my mid 20's.

I started by doing a foundation part time arts course at City College in Liverpool . I was a single mum, and when got offered a chance to go to Newcastle University decided that I'd love my degree but with my tiny child in tow it wasn't a practicality. I'd worked on a few programmes as a community artist, so after that joined one where they provided child care. I worked there for nearly two years doing a mural in the staff canteen, and then started my own business as a co-operative, where I tried to employ as many as I could. Our first big project was a mural for Wirral Inroads which attracted a lot of attention from the Press.

This gave us the launching pad we needed to start the mural squad ltd. We got a huge commission from Liverpool Football club. It was just a fluke we wrote to them as we knew they were building a new stand, and we got a lucrative contract where I painted 21 murals for their new rooms: champions, European etc.

After that we got many public art commissions usually working with teenagers and children to paint murals to cover building sites. We also got a job working for Noel's house party and Park hampers where we were given an A4 sheet and told to make a 21 foot trailer out of it. All this time I was producing my batik art work and cushions which proved really popular, and which Brookside bought some off us to put in their shops and their flats of the characters.

My colleagues in the Mural Squad where not investing the work that was expected of them and so reluctantly I closed down the business in order to take a break.

I then worked as an outreach worker, and when I heard about the Hamilton Quarter incentive in Birkenhead , opened up a community art gallery called Spice. I funded this in the first year as working as an outreach worker at LIPA when it first started then tutoring for Arch Initiatives over the next three years. It was very stressful as I made most of the stuff for the gallery, a lot of which sold.

The whole purpose for the Spice Gallery was to create a meeting point for artists, to promote them and give them a fair chance to show their stuff. It was a very interesting time all in all I held many exhibitions the most notorious being for Mathew Williams, a convict which attracted yet more press. Unfortunately the people I worked with let me down, so I decided to put my career in the arts on hold and went into IT. I

I combined my skills with a multi media career going to Uni for a year and gaining a post graduate qualification. This ended up me going into lucrative posts as an outreach worker in UK online centres and eventually being an analyst for IT problems. However the arts after a seven year break are calling and now I'm starting again. I'm currently working on some paintings and am promoting myself through my website and DOT art. I usually contribute to the Liverpool Academy of Arts' Beatles exhibition every year.