Brenda Hurley NAPA

I came to live in Tring in1978, after a brief two years in the neighbouring Berkhamsted.

I followed my husband from the north of England with our three children, when he came to work in London.

Coming to Hertfordshire was the start of a new life and career for Roy and myself. Settling in Tring was easy, it was a town where I felt I could put down my Yorkshire roots, a town with friendly neighbours.

I was a dress designer in the north, but I had always wanted to be an artist, and to express myself in paint. Incredibly I was able to do that when I came to Tring. To retrain as a mature student at St. Alban’s Art College, there I learnt to paint in oils. When I finally left, I was able to paint, exhibit, and teach my new skills to others. For over twenty years I enjoyed landscape painting. Painting the Chilterns, the coast in Dorset, figurative and still life subjects. I told stories in paint.

In 2012, after a visit to Kingston Lacy house in Dorset, where I saw some magnificence wooden sculptures, the work was so fine I knew only a master carver could have tooled them. I recognised the artists extraordinary skill, later I found out the work was by Grinling Gibbons a master carver, who worked with Christopher Wren on St Pauls. But for me at that moment, I was just astounded at the intricacies of the carving. 

I wondered who, and when, it had been made, and a name popped into my head. ‘Louis’. 

Later I took pen to paper and ‘Louis’ became my hero in my first novel. No surprise that he was a master carver. I started telling stories with words not paint. Together we have journeyed through his ghostly years, and three books. Ghostly Embrace published 2019. Ghostly Return 2021, and Ghostly Light 2023. 

Now with a new hero, Luna Dance will be published 2025.

My year is taken up by writing, painting, and exhibiting, occasionally I teach workshops for local art groups. During June I open my studio for two weeks, everyone is welcome to come and visit, and chat about art.

My books are fiction, romantic and dramatic with a little adventure thrown in. And I must have a happy ending. I want the reader to be surprised, to have a page turner with a few twists and a good conclusion. 

My art must be colourful, well balanced and composed, and it must reach out to the viewer. That is my job as an artist and writer.