nspiration can come from anywhere, but for Fiona Rose Rodriguez-Roberts it came from the loss of someone very dear to her. Mrs. Rodriguez-Robert lost her mother-in-law to leukaemia in early January of this year.

?My husband and I spent the holidays at his home in England,? she said.

?While sitting with her (Carol) in the hospital our conversation came once again to the pain and difficulty of finding any working veins left in her, talking to the nurses that came to try and how they must notice people?s veins everywhere they go.

?The idea (for these pieces) was born there. I find any part of the body beautiful, but hands, veins, strong and pronounced ? what a statement of life. The very things most of us hate, those bulging, protruding, ugly veins were so very important for Carol. When she left us days after New Year the ideas I had spinning around began to take a more definite form. It is unbelievable how many people I know that have cancer or someone they love has cancer. All sales from this show will be going towards Cancer research.?

But this work is much different from her usual genres.

?This body of work is not in my normal medium,? she said.

?My love is spinning my own fibres and weaving, knitting and sculpting them into odd creations. The human body is my normal genre.

?Again it is all or nothing so I can go a very long time without working only to reach the edge and have to create to keep sane.

?Not really healthy or consistently productive.?

Mrs. Rodriguez-Robert?s says she does not paint anymore.

?I have not painted since college,? she said, ?Much to my husband?s despair. I do not like to paint. It drives me nuts.

?I guess if you have to put me somewhere I am a textile artist that primarily works sculpturally. Tactile work, art you can touch though you might not always want to.?

But she said up until recently she has not been working at all.

?I think that is why Kendra strongly suggested I would ?do? the show,? she said.

?A bit of a much needed kick or she just got fed up with me constantly talking about my ideas and not getting them done. I have not had a show in a very long time. I do not want to think about how long ago, that would be far too depressing.?

When asked whether her Kaleidoscope, Art Classes for Children help with her art and how, she said: ?Well, I have the blessing and the curse of feast or famine.

?My children, the children that I teach, are wonderful and they scream creativity. Some have been with me since I began eight years ago. They are open to anything and everything and children expect you to give them what they give you.

?The children that come to class give me more than 100 percent. They expect that back. I love it, you would have to love it, it takes a lot of time and a lot of energy and I can not imagine doing anything else.?

But she said on the flip side of this is that she is often very tired at the end of the day and her work has taken a backseat these last few years.

?I miss it,? she said. ?It is like an itch you can?t quite reach until it is so very painful you just find some way to scratch it. I am reaching that point. I am going to have to create or go nuts.

?Some of my students have also reached an age where I feel very hypocritical telling them to try and draw something everyday and follow your dreams when I am not doing it myself, and they ask me what am I working on.

?Children are wonderfully honest, brutally honest at times. It is another reason why I love to teach them.?