Diana has felt a life-long kinship with the artistry of the Celts and a great reverence for the detailed illustrations of monks who created such manuscripts as The Book of Kells.

Diana was born in Northern Ontario. Many of her early years were spent in Kenya and England. At the age of seven, she returned to Canada with her family.

While musically and artistically gifted as a child, Diana didn’t start painting until she was an adult. While recuperating from an operation she received a gift of watercolours from an artist friend who had dreamt of Diana painting. She was delighted and began to paint, embarking on a new path.

During a stay in the mountains of Utah a year later, she woke up one morning and felt inspired to start drawing. Her first Celtic cross was entirely penciled in one 15-hour sitting. “It just dropped fully formed out of the sky onto the page,” she recalls.

Diana is innately gifted in creating the knotwork in her art: try to follow the lines in some of her intricate pieces and notice how each of them alternately weaves under and over one another. Now, realize that she does this naturally and on the first try. That being said, Diana continues with a time-consuming process involving an incredible devotion to detail while inking and painting her work. Each piece is comprised of endless fine lines and minute sections that present difficulties for work in metallic and acrylic media. Some designs have such inherent movement that, even while being painted, they prove especially challenging simply because they refuse to remain still to wait for completion.