Heathfield Art and Books

Gilda Puckett

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Gilda was born in Appledore, Kent and attended Ashford Grammar School where, although she showed a flair for drawing and disappointed her art teacher who wanted her to study fine art, she was persuaded by the humanities department to apply to Oxford and won a minor scholarship to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

After graduating in 1978 her tutors assumed a career in journalism or the civil service would follow but with radical sympathies in the family and one grandfather who was a poacher and another who brewed potcheen in the garden shed, it was not surprising that things didn't go to plan. Getting out of London and back to the countryside became a priority and by 1986 she was working as a plantswoman for a local nursery.

Although she had always drawn and painted, it was in the late 1990s that she started to work and study intensively and in 2000, resigned her job to paint full time.

Despite working in other genres and media, watercolour remains her preferred method, and her strongest interest is in landscapes which feature local Kent views and studies from her travels to Yorkshire and Ireland.