Artist Karen Dyer has used the many hues of the sea?s blues and hints of reds and oranges in saffron as an expression of her art.

Mrs. Dyer, a former nurse, believes that art was always her calling and is certainly glad she answered.

?I started painting when I was at Warwick Academy and I always wanted to be an artist, but my family weren?t really art people,? she said. ?My father worked at BELCO (Bermuda Electric Light Company) and his view was ?you will do something sensible?.

?I did the sciences at school and I did pretty well in my ?O? Levels (GCSEs), but I did my art and I remember sitting on South Road painting a watercolour with Neil Woolf and some tourists stopped and bought it.

?I was so thrilled and I think I got $5 or so, but for me it was like really exciting and I recall going home and saying, ?oh I?m going to art college? and my father saying, ?you?re not going to art college?.

?So my plan was to go to London as a student nurse and my aim was to quit and to become an artist.?

Mrs. Dyer said she loved nursing and met so many fascinating people and she has no regrets about nursing.

?I wouldn?t have had the life experience that I have had if I hadn?t done it,? she said, ?But whilst I was in London I had taken up some photography courses and most of my friends in London were either artists or photographers so I was always on the edge of it all.

?I came back to Bermuda and worked at the hospital and when the hospice (Agape House) opened I worked as the nurse manager.

?It was really exciting part of my career and I gave that up and I was able to be a stay-at-home mom, so I had my boys to raise and then the art was calling me.?

She then went back to the Bermuda College as a mature student and studied under Charles Zuill and Diana Amos.

?Going back to college was really something,? she said, ?I was 33 and I was studying with 18-year-olds and I began by studying art history. And I went on a few trips to Italy with Julia Horseman to look at Renaissance painters and I signed up to do the two year programme at the college.

?Charles Zuill is one of my teachers that I have great respect for. He has a great influence on me. And Diana Amos was another one of my teachers and I always hear her voice in my head saying, ?that?s not finished yet ? don?t sign that!?

?Everybody influences you somewhere along the line and I don?t know what Diana is going to think of my work, but it is done and that is by the by.

?Charles Zuill has always been very encouraging and he encouraged me to continue on and I did a bachelor?s degree through distance learning with Vermont College, but it is now been taken over by the Union Institute.?

She said during her time studying she continued on with her painting and she did a study on feminism.

?I thought why don?t I know anything about this, so I studied people like Laura Bell, who was a wonderful writer,? she said, ?It is a really clear and wonderfully written book about feminism as a movement and sexism.

?It is not about women burning their bras, nor is about putting men down ? it is about no one putting anyone down and having respect for your common man and until we did that and treated everyone with the same respect, we are not going to iron out any of our difficulties ? be it race related, gender related or sexually related.

?We have to just accept people for who they are and we have to get over whether they are gay or straight, black, white or yellow ? whatever ? just accept people as people.

?Get over being impressed with rich people and get over being not so impressed with people who don?t have. Otherwise we are not going to get any further ahead.?

Another thing that has had a profound impact on her life is Buddhism.

?It is pretty straight forward and I don?t think you should get too excited about success nor should you get to upset by perceived failure, because it is all relative,? she said. ?It will all iron out in the end, so I try to stay on an even keel.

?I am human and I am going to feel sad and I am going to have these feelings, but I try to meditate to get back to a grounded place.

?I?d be happy if my paintings were well received and if they are not than I will just have to accept it that it is not my time. I am going to continue to paint and I find you have to be humble and I wont be happy going through life being conceited. It doesn?t pay in the end.

?I paint what I want to paint and I have been influenced by feminist painters like Judy Chicago and I have looked at a lot of Georgia O?Keefe?s work. But there are many other women artists that my work doesn?t look anything like.?

Mrs. Dyer has also studied people like macabre artist Kiki Smith.

?They are not like my paintings and she does almost like papier mache sculptures,? she said, ?Essentially I have been influenced by many painters and when I studied art history and looked at all the old masters.

?I have been to the Sistine Chapel, in the Vatican, it was just fantastic and if I lived there I would go there everyday. I just love visiting places like that. I also studied ancient Greek art and somebody was saying, ?do you know in the Olympics one of the paintings you have been doing is all over the Olympics.

?But of course the painting was done before then, but it is the ancient Greek influence that is coming through.?

Mrs. Dyer works at Masterworks and she deals with the administration of the projects.

?I did the Hogge Project, which was a fundraiser for Masterworks and I think it was a great fundraiser,? she said. ?It was very successful and I am glad that Capital G still have my hogge on display. It is a good feeling to know that you have made something that people can enjoy.?

She finds that art is simply a discipline ? you have to give yourself the time to do it.

?I am a mother, I work at Masterworks, I do membership coordination and basically if there is something to be done, I help do it,? she said. ?I use the computer quite well and I iron out the glitches.

?But it?s a discipline and I have had to be disciplined to do this show. It is frightening making art, because you put yourself up for public review.

?I don?t exhibit very much and this is my first solo show. I mainly participate in Society of Arts shows.?

She said her husband Robin Dyer has been really great in motivating her to complete the pieces for this show.

?When I have my moments of procrastination, before the show with Masterworks came along, he said if I didn?t start painting he would change her studio back into a dining room,? she said.

?It is no point if things are just sitting around collecting dust and you are not allowed to buy any more paint or brushes until you actually paint something. He?s been great for me, because he has been very supportive.?

She guessed that all the influences gets mixed up in her head.

?Painting in Bermuda with the ocean,? she said. ?I love walking on the beach and when you are a child you get caught in the undertow and you go round and round and you swirl in the waves.

?I am very respectful of the ocean and sometimes I am afraid of it. I do swim, but not on a heavy surf. The series that I did of the sea was I took photographs and then playing with Adobe PhotoShop.

?I went to see Kendall Henry and he was very encouraging about the work I was doing, which was turning digital images into large paintings, he felt that it was a positive step.

?It was a useful exercise and even though my work wasn?t selected and maybe next time I will be selected. I am not going to stop painting - I just have to keep on going.

?I don?t see it as a failure it was just that that particular group of painting were not selected. It all comes together in the end and you end up where you are meant to be.?