Hello and welcome to my website ~ a place for sharing my creativity with you.

So that you know a little bit more about me, please read on… 

I’m the Creative Director of WordBarn writing solutions, Founder of PLAY/WRITE Literary Group, longtime member of Pencils and Whatnot Writing Group and a fellow member of The Poetry Society

I am joint Editor of, and have several of my short stories and pieces of prose published in, two collaborative anthologies: ‘Writing and Whatnot’ and ‘Journeys and Whatnot’ .

As Staff Nurse at the Countess of Chester Hospital (and previously at Hampshire Hospitals Foundation Trust) I work across the board, in elderly medicine, complex care, endocrine and diabetes, acute frailty, respiratory, Covid, AMU and ED. 

My original art is available to purchase here and on Saatchi Art online. 

Writing is my dream job. I get to create, produce and deliver words. But not just any words. Subtle yet powerful in equal measure, I string them together in ways that touch the heart. The impact of using words in just the right way can make all the difference. With my background in the nursing profession, I know just how much open, raw communication, above all else, is an essential part of our increasingly complex lives. 

My paintings are created with the use of eclectic media, such as ‘apothecary acrylics’ using ‘sgraffito’ techniques, where layers are covered then exposed. And my writing is more than words: I find it must have rhythm; a cadence to soothe and startle, all the small details brought to life, suffusing my prose. The subject matter breathes. Images linger. Humanity, empathy and realism are explored through a sometimes illusory world, taking simple moments and teasing out the dynamism that lies within.

I hold a Bachelor of Nursing Degree from the University of Southampton and have worked for the NHS since 2015. A challenging time to be a nurse, but meaningful work sustains me. This compelling perspective explores how we are all laid bare, through life’s lottery, where value is determined by the things we can lose at any moment – our health or standing.  A principal theme in my work is humanity, challenging the ‘everyday routines of our lives and how they can be struck by joy, magic or tragedy’. I’m also concerned with the growing issue of social isolation and the gap between the saturation of ideas and the denial of these. 

My creativity reflects this oscillation, acknowledging our vulnerability to the simultaneous tensions between strength and weakness, resilience and reliance. Exploring, through the medium of colour, word and form, the balance between a primal need to discover our ‘self’ as individual, as pioneer, unearthing our identity and purpose and the craving for partnership where a shared view of the world somehow connects us to our ‘true selves’.

Self-taught, I’m inspired by artists and writers whose works achieve a physiological response. Where the body and the mind, are moved or changed in some discernible way, if only for a moment, and perhaps longer; perhaps indelibly. 

On a biographical note, I’ve lived and worked in many countries overseas, from India, Jordan, Romania, the USA and Hong Kong, though I’m Cheshire-based now, having spent the last twenty-five years raising my two children in Hampshire. I’ve been a cocktail waitress, a clerk, a piano-bar singer, a copywriter, an au pair, a home-maker, a mother and a nurse. I’ve worked in the infirmary at HM Winchester Prison and the Sir John Moore Army Training Regiment, taught in a school for mentally and physically disabled children and adults and taken care of babies with HIV and AIDS. I’ve been a Volunteer in an orphanage and I’ve cleaned other people’s houses for a while. I learned a lot while sweeping floors; like what I wanted from life and how no job should ever be undervalued, as all of us in recent times, discovered.  

“I can sew on a button, but I can’t make a shirt,’ I once said when asked about my seamstress skills. An analogy perhaps, for having a go at things, but also not quite mastering them all. This kind of ‘one must have something one is good at’ kind of thinking causes pressure. What if one doesn’t? To my delight, I discovered that there were some things I loved more than anything else. And at the top of that leaderboard, escapism through visual arts and the written word also happens to be my passion. So, I had a go. And if I’ve mastered them… well, you can be my judge.”

Christina Cummings