Bea Pierce ~ Senior Graphic Designer...........by Jo

01. How did you begin your career - formal study or otherwise; where, how long, would you do it again or is there an alternative?

I completed a two-year Associate Diploma in Graphic Art at the University of Western Sydney, Nepean in 1991.

I came through uni on the cusp of the first ‘digital revolution’ to hit the design industry. At uni, we learnt about bromides, Letraset, typesetting (the old way) and hand-rendering. By the time we graduated, the industry had moved on to using computers for pretty much everything and I had to learn fast, from scratch!

We did have computers at uni – about 8 between 60 students, and 1 hour of computer studies per week. The software we had was Letraset Studio, OmniPage Pro and Typestyler. Letraset Studio was a precurser to Quark Xpress, which had already become the industry standard when I left uni. Photoshop, Illustrator and PageMaker were available, but not in common use in 1991 – or at least, not at uni anyway!

Because of this, and the fact that in 1992, when I began looking for work, we were in the middle of the ‘recession we had to have’, it took me almost 12 months to finally crack my first design job.

During that 12 months, I applied for hundreds of jobs, usually along with hundreds of other hopefuls. Because of the recession, experienced designers and even art directors were applying for junior positions, so it was very very tough to break into the industry – especially with no computer or on the job design experience. While trying to get in as a designer, I worked as a word processor, a printer in a photo lab, a technical illustrator for a small building contractor and a Santa photographer!

I finally got my break by offering myself on a two-week free trial period or as a no-strings-attached work experience temp; anything to get a foot in the door and pick up computer skills. A few companies took me up on this, and luckily, I’m a quick learner, so I picked up enough skills in Quark, Illustrator and Photoshop to eventually be able to scam my way through an interview and skills test to land a junior position in a publishing company.

Would I do it again? Probably. But I’d do a degree not a diploma (more theory and more comprehensive). Most people will learn more on the job than they’ll ever learn at uni, but it does make it easier to break into the industry if you have the bit of paper.

If you’re a talented designer, have done art or design at high school (if you’re a junior), have a comprehensive knowledge of the software used professionally and a strong portfolio, you could probably avoid doing a course and land a job on the strength of your folio alone, but you’d be incredibly lucky to be able to do this.

02. What inspired you to become a designer?

Oddly enough, I never wanted to be a designer; I wanted to be a photographer. There wasn’t really a specific photography course, so I agonized over whether to study graphic art or visual art, and eventually decided on graphic art because it offered more definite employment opportunities at the end.

The publishing company who took me on actually gave me a go on the strength of my photographic work over my (non-existent) skills as a designer. I spent two years working there, as both a photographer and designer. What eventually decided my career course for me was being continually rejected by every photography job I went for, except the ones I didn’t want to pursue, such as Santa photography.

That and the fact that the more I learnt about design, the better and the more interested in design I became. It helped that the publishing company I started off in had such a great team of people. I made several life-long friends there and loved the experience. I was encouraged and nurtured, pushed and allowed to grow. When I had outgrown the role there, my boss gave me wings and helped me find new challenges. I was very lucky to have had such a great start really.

03. Describe your own design style.

Ugh. I’m never very good at this. Um…. I guess flexible.

One of the things that I found the most challenging to come to terms with as a designer, is that 90% of the time, you’re not designing for you; you’re creating commercial art. So it’s not about you or your style, it’s about what is most appropriate for the job at hand.

My art is often fairly experimental, abstract, political, controlled chaos. And this does come through in my design work – if suitable for the client. But if I’m designing for a blue chip corporate, I can do minimal, clean-line, sophisticated, subtle… I love it when I get a job that allows me to go a bit wild and creative, but to be honest, they’re rare. I like to push boundaries where I can, but also to meet the needs of both client and audience, and solve design problems effectively.

04. How did you feel when you handed your first job over? How did you go through the ranks to where you are now?

Utterly terrified! Proud, scared, nervous… so many conflicting emotions. What if they didn’t like what I’d done? What if I’d misinterpreted the brief? What if I’d (gasp) made a spelling mistake in the headline?? The weight of responsibility, the expense of producing and printing a newspaper, the expectations of advertisers, my own credibility within the company – all of these things came home to me with a very big thump really.

I got to where I am now through sheer determination, tenacity and the willingness to do anything, try anything, admit to mistakes and offer ways to fix them, an almost obsessive attention to detail, good time and project management skills, quick learning and thinking and the ability to intuit or interpret people’s needs, even if they contradicted the brief.

I made a lot of mistakes along the way. I worked excessively long hours (often 14-16 hours a day, 6 days a week for about 8 years) in order to build up my skills and knowledge – something I wouldn’t recommend. It’s detrimental to your health and unfortunately, companies are all too willing to exploit enthusiasm in young gung-ho designers out to prove themselves and establish their careers. I spent a lot of time treading water and almost drowning, taking on projects or responsibilities way beyond my capabilities in order to learn, prove myself or move up the ladder. Much of my ‘spare time’ was devoted to reading, researching, self-training and developing my own experimental design projects, at my own expense.



05. Influences and inspirations of your design career.

When I first started, I was very influenced by designers such as Neville Brody and David Carson. I’ve always loved the work showcased in typographic magazines such as Baseline and photographic magazines such as Black and White. As I got older, I was influenced by the grunge design movement (mid-1990’s) and loved designers such as Dave McKean and Chris Holt. By the late 90’s, I was intrigued with the design work coming out of Sweden (pixel art, cutesy robotic pixel things, lots of flat colour and white or grey) and Japan (more cutesy robotic things, but not so pixel based, lots of stylized graphical objects such as flowers and plants, coupled with simple, harmonious colour schemes). I also got into magazines like Colours (semi-political, international arts, culture and design mag) and Fruits, which although more to do with fashion design than graphic design, still influenced me a great deal.

When the second ‘digital revolution’ swept through the design industry, I switched from print media design to multimedia – or ‘new media’ in about 1995. I was fascinated with notions of interactivity and often frustrated by the limitations of such a new medium, so was inspired by designers and artists who were pushing the boundaries of what was possible. Pip Shea (multimedia artist), VJ’s (working in the rave party scene) and performance artists like Stellarc, who was experimenting with cybernetics and interactivity intrigued me. I became involved with alternative art, music and design collectives such as Artcore and Clan Analogue and met many interesting people experimenting across medias and technologies. IDN magazine was also a big influence for me at this time.

Currently, I mostly look to fine artists for inspiration. I’m mostly interested in abstract art, performance art, installation and conceptual arts. Artists like Basquiat, Antony Gormley and Rosalie Gascoigne and fine art photographers such as Bill Henson. I still love Japanese design and often draw inspiration from fashion and fabric design, architecture and interior design, product design and sculpture as well.

06. What techniques do you use?

Um… I’m not sure I understand the question! Do you mean design process?

07. Favourite areas of design - advertising, painting, typographic, etc.

In multimedia: interactivity, usability and interface design
In traditional media: painting, typography and photography
In both: problem solving, innovating, conceptualising

08. Tools of trade; typical, favourite.

Well, I love working in Photoshop. I’d say that’s my primary tool. I also work in Dreamweaver a fair bit. I sometimes work with Flash, although I don’t really like it much. But my favourite tools are a pen and ink, paint brush and paper. These days, I do less hands-on design work and more conceptual work, so writing, sketching and experimenting with techniques and ideas is often easiest on paper.



09. What strategies do you have to cope with creative blocks?

I always carry a visual diary with me wherever I go. I jot down ideas or sketch things that inspire me wherever I am. Often, these things have nothing to do with anything I’m working on; they’re just things that interest me in the moment. But I love looking back through these books when searching for inspiration for a particular project, as ideas can often emerge from the most unlikely places.

I sometimes do things like go through old encyclopedias or texts on subjects related to a current project, and write down headings, subheadings or any specific words/phrases that jump out at me. Words can often trigger visual ideas.

Walking along a beach or through a forest is a great way to unblock. Taking time to think, slow down, meditate, draw random shapes in the sand. All these things can help shake blockages and get me into the right side of my brain.

If I’m really stuck creatively, I flick through design mags or web folios, looking for ideas – sometimes layout, sometimes colour schemes, sometimes typographical treatments… usually, I’ll sketch anything that grabs me into my visual diary, make notes on colours (by matching colours in a Pantone book) or stick cutouts from magazines etc straight into the book.

10. What extra skills have you learnt working as a freelance and or within a company structure?

o Time management
o Book keeping
o Business management (a little!)
o Project management and planning
o Team management and delegating
o Client liaison
o Writing documentation (such as briefs, design justification docs, specifications and style guides etc)
o People skills – dealing with CEO’s, account managers, sales and marketing people, programmers etc
o In terms of multimedia: cognitive psychology, information design, instructional design
o Teaching and mentoring

11. Do you prefer to work within a team or on your own? Why? Give an example.

For large professional projects, I much prefer to work with a team, as each person specializes in a particular area and brings a much greater depth of knowledge and experience to the project than an individual could. Working with a team produces a much more well-rounded and professional product, especially in terms of multimedia. Trying to be some sort of super Jack Of All Trades is very difficult and stressful. One person simply cannot know enough – or everything – to pull off a multimedia project.

In terms of my role, whether it’s art direction, interface design or something else, I tend to prefer to work alone when coming up with the ideas. But again, once I have some solid concepts, I like brainstorming with other members of the team, especially those specializing in areas beyond my skill to ensure the ideas are going to meet all needs and goals for the project.

I do enjoy freelancing though and working from home. But again, I prefer to freelance for a company and be part of a team than work for my own clients. The projects are generally more interesting and challenging through a company than those I can source by myself! If I do get a challenging project, the first thing I do is form my own team with other freelancers anyway.

12. What are your future ambitions?

Right now, I am very happy lecturing part-time and being at home with my kids while they’re little. Once they’re both at school, I may look at returning to more permanent work – or I may simply take on more teaching work. If I were to return to permanent work, I’d probably want to get back into multimedia, perhaps in a usability design or art direction role. But the one thing I have no desire to do is to return to very long hours and high expectations. My family now takes precedence over my career and I am more interested in being an artist than a designer these days.

My dream is to have a balance between parenting, lecturing part-time and being an artist. As an artist, I am still interesting in exploring interactivity, but in very different ways to the commercial multimedia world!

13. In your years of designing, what changes have you seen? eg: style, use of medium, etc

Blimey… lots!

STYLE-WISE:

o Early 90’s – neat but chunky iconographic style. Everything had rounded edges, typefaces were rounded, pictograms were rounded, everything was influenced by designers like Neville Brody. Lots of white with bright colours like hot pink and orange.
o Mid-90’s – grunge style. Definitely not neat and clean. Chaotic, rebellious, subversive. Typefaces were distorted. Layout pushed out of templates and ordered grids into a more freestyle direction. Reversed typography became very popular – lots of white on black. Very Gothic!
o Late 90’s – pixel art. A return to very clean and structured design, heavily grid-based and influenced by the pixels so prevalent in onscreen design. Everything was square and colour schemes were often subtle, flat colours and white or grey, lots of line work and skeleton or schematic drawings were popular. This movement was driven by designers in the UK, Germany and Sweden. Kinda cyberpunk revivalist.
o Late 90’s/early 00’s – Japanese design. Anime and robotics became a very popular influence with designers and cutesy Japanese anime-esque characters started popping up everywhere. Lots of organic influence design and natural colour schemes emerged. Using white space, a-symmetry and minimalism became popular again.

There were probably plenty of others but these were the ones I noticed and was influenced by.

Since I stopped working as a designer in 2002, I haven’t kept up with design trends through the 00’s – so I have no idea what’s popular now! Although the trend seems to have shifted back to very traditional corporate design styles, particularly in multimedia, and this is largely being driven by the popularity of content management systems – and their inherit layout limitations.


MEDIA/MEDIUM:

Early 90’s – first digital revolution

Introduction of Quark Xpress, Illustrator and Photoshop. When I first started using these packages, they were Quark 1.0 and Photoshop and Illustrator 88.

My first word processing job involved double-shuffling floppy discs on a very early Mac for about 6 months, until the hard drive was invented! At my first design job, my computer had 8Mb of RAM, a 40Mb hard drive and took approximately 15 minutes to rotate an object in Quark Xpress. Using Photoshop was almost impossible, as was working at print resolution. (Afterall, an A4 300dpi image is about 32MB). There was not enough disc space to save print res files, let alone work with them. But it hardly mattered as nobody really understood resolution anyway!

In 1993, we were blown away by the ‘new technology’ available to us – the Syquest drive and the modem. The first Syquest drives had 44Mb of storage capacity – doubling our disc space. And with the modem (about 14.4kbps then) and a program called Telnet (and a lot of learning of prompt lines), we could ‘modem’ our design files to the printers. It took almost 3 days to send the artwork this way. It would have been quicker to send it via courier, but it was more exciting to use the high tech option.

Mid-90’s – computers changed rapidly

I bought my first Mac-clone system in about 1995 (I couldn’t afford a real Mac) and it cost me around $20,000. It was super fast for the time, although you still had to go have a cup of coffee while waiting for Photoshop to do most things on a print res file.

There were a plethora of media types that came and went: Syquest drives, Zip discs, Jazz discs. There were faster modems, CD’s then CD-R’s. Finally RAM and hard drives got into the 100’s of MBs. SCSI peripherals began to be replaced by USB ones and networking became popular. Telnet was replaced with FTP, email replaced office memos and text based bulletin boards morphed into the Intenet.

Mid-90’s – second digital revolution

In 1995, I was interested in getting into ‘digital imaging’. Animation and digital computer graphics were really taking off in the film industry and high resolution digital imaging was popular in the advertising world. There was a lot of money to be made in photo retouching and computer manipulations. But it was still pretty difficult with Photoshop and the limitations of computers then. Small business’ couldn’t afford the high-end professional packages such as Live Picture, so we drank a lot of coffee!

I lucked into multimedia in 1996 through freelance work. Because it was so new, very few designers knew how to design for the internet or multimedia. Programmers were driving the visual aspects, which is why new media looked so awful in the beginning. Because of my Photoshop skills, I started getting work doing early ‘multimedia’ in the form of slides for multimedia presentations (being put together in Powerpoint or Director) or for software packages.

It was a huge learning curve: I had to learn to speak Geek so I wouldn’t be bamboozled by programmers (who detested designers in the beginning), learn to use a PC instead of a Mac (programmers hated Macs and cross-compatibility was a big issue then) and learn to work in pixels instead of dots, RGB instead of CMYK and understand resolution for various screen displays, from computer monitors to TVs.

The Internet was never designed to be a graphical medium; it was a text based medium. Hence the Hypertext bit of HTML. Us web design pioneers had to devise ways to hack HTML to make web pages look visually appealing as more and more companies discovered the power – and cool factor – of having a web page. Web ‘design’ was very restricted for a long time. Everything had to be designed to fit HTML tables, look good in 216 web safe colours (or less) and compressed to the max so that people could download the page(s) on dial up modems.

In terms of multimedia, there are plenty of media types that have now disappeared:
o Hypercard
o Video disc
o Shockwave (a precursor to Flash)
o Mbed
o Mpeg

In 1998, I was the art director for the first McDonalds Australia website. It was designed for Netscape 2.0 and the websafe palette. It was pretty cutting edge in that it was database driven (and hence, even more restricted in terms of design and layout) and featured a games section for kids. Flash was very, very fledgling and was called Shockwave Flash then. Nobody thought it would ever take off. So the company I was working for used Mbed to design the games section. As it turned out, it was Flash that succeeded. Mbed died soon after the site was completed.

Late-90’s

The Web took off. Everybody who was anybody wanted a website, even if they didn’t know why the needed one or what to do with it. There was no standardization, no conventions for design or development and plenty of cowboys. People were earning huge salaries and companies were charging exhorbitant rates for creating web sites, because so few people understood the technology.

Lots of revolutionary web interactions changed the course of multimedia – and offline media as well:
o Online stock trading
o Ecommerce and online auctions
o Community portals such as Yahoo
o Search engines such as Alta Vista
o Online dating
o File sharing and self-publishing, such as Napster
o WhereIs (online street directories)
o Hotmail (email access for people without email accounts)
o Online chat and forums
o Intranets
o Online training and education – course delivery, value adding through training CD’s packaged with software programs etc
o POS displays
o Interactive touchscreen kiosks in museums etc
o Mobile phone technology
o DVDs
o Internet cafes (access to the web for people without computers or web accounts)

The 00’s

The Web is still changing. Now we have a new buzz word – Web 2.0. This refers to the new technology and web usages since the turn of the millennium:

o Google
o Wikipedia
o YouTube
o Second Life
o MySpace, Flickr and other online communities
o Podcasting and vidcasting
o Streaming media, such as online radio stations
o Blogging
o Interactive and digital TV
o Bpay and Paypal
o Google Earth
o GPS systems
o Instant messaging
o Networking and integration between online and offline technologies

14. What do you predict as new trends of design style?

I’m bored with conservative corporate – I’d personally like to see a return to something rebellious and subversive again. Something that will push the boundaries and be a little experimental… it seems that Steam Punk is popular, as is neo-Victoriana, so perhaps a trend towards turn of the (20th) century styles is in order? But it would be nice to see something new rather than something retro I think.

And being a bit of a cyberpunk fan, I’d love to see smart paper and interactive cross-overs into traditional media. But NOT in the form of a fridge with an internet connection… that’s just stupid.

15. What kind of design works have you found to bring in the bread and butter - the most common jobs.

o Web brochures for small companies
o Direct mail and marketing brochures
o Corporate ID, especially business card design for small business

16. What achievements or design works would represent your work?

2001-07 Part-time multimedia design lecturer at KVB Institute of Technology
2002 Art Director for the development of Landcare Australia’s website
2001 Art Director for the development of an online educational website
“Miss Trails House” for the National Trust, for primary school children
Launch of my own online project “CrispyDisc”, a self-publishing tool for independent musicians (now defunct)
1999/2000 Finalist in the IDN Awards for the 5000 Fingers of Dr.T. website
Art Director for the development of two series of training CD-Roms (four in each) to accompany Wilcom design software for the embroidery industry
1998 Invited to design a 5-page spread for Desktop magazine’s special designer issue.
Finalist in the Nocturnal Design Awards for the 5000 Fingers of Dr.T. website.
Art Director for the first McDonalds Australia website
1997 Art Director for Telstra Big Pond national rebranding campaign
(from On Australia)
1996 Finalist in the Macromedia People’s Choice Awards for the Sydney Kings outdoor advertising campaign.

17. What has been the low point of your career? The worst job, the worst client and what did you learn from it?

Hmmm… I once had a job for about a week in a typesetting studio. I don’t remember what it was called or where it was, but I couldn’t stand it! It was like being in one of those horrible boarding schools you hear about. The desks were all in lines, facing the front. There was no talking allowed and if you weren’t using two hands at all times on the keyboard (ie: you couldn’t spend any time thinking, sketching concepts etc), the floor manager would come around and rap you on the knuckles with a ruler – literally! It was so arcane I couldn’t believe it. I had the dubious title of “Art Director” but was not allowed to discuss projects with my minions, which made it very difficult to brief them on what they were required to do.

After a week, I met with the Managing Director and told him what I thought. He was not exactly receptive to some ‘young upstart’ telling him how to run his design department – as I suspected – so I quit. He tried to intimidate me by telling me he’d ensure ‘I never worked in this town again’. What a cowboy!

It taught me a lot about how not to run a business and how not to treat staff, especially creatives.

18. On a day to day basis - what is the most rewarding of your career and the least rewarding?

Right now as a lecturer, I love being able to give back to young designers, inspire them and get them thinking. The least rewarding would be when I have to fail someone.

In terms of design, I love it when I nail a design solution and get everything right with it.

The least rewarding is when clients want to argue constantly over nitty gritty issues such as fonts or colours or second guess professional decisions such as usability or information design aspects they don’t understand, whether they make sense or not, whether they are purely for their own ego satisfaction or not and whether they impact on the bigger picture or not. Getting bogged down with a client who aspires to be a creative is seriously irritating, especially when if their changes fail, it’s you they blame.

19. Do you undertake environmentally sustainable methods of design processes?

When I can. That’s one advantage of multimedia really!

20. Do you, as a graphic designer, feel you have a moral responsibility/obligation to society and how does that make you feel?

Definitely. As a designer, especially in advertising, you are the one creating the stuff, the spin, the hype being shoved in front of people to try to persuade them into taking certain actions or feeling certain ways. And that can cause a lot of internal conflict. I felt conflicted on a daily basis for years when working in advertising and constantly had moral dilemmas.

It’s very difficult to sit in a board room with a bunch of suits from a gambling company and listen to them casually discussing their strategy for getting young men hooked on gambling, to increase their profit margins, with no qualms whatsoever about the impact this may have on their targets. “If they’re stupid enough to fall for it, then they deserve to be exploited” one shrugged at me once.

It bothers me even more now, as a mother.

There have been a few occasions in which I have refused to work on accounts because of my moral concerns about the intent of the client. Mostly, I have been lucky enough to have had the support of my business managers – and in one case, the company refused the account altogether.

It’s great to be in a position in which you can pick and choose what companies you work for and what companies you won’t, on moral grounds, but unfortunately, this is a rare luxury. I do feel it’s important to stand up for what you believe in if you can though, otherwise these companies will continue to get away with exploitation unchecked.

21. How do you establish your hourly rate when presenting the cost to your clients?

Depends on the job. Mostly I have the same rates regardless, but if I’m working for a small company or a charity, I often discount my rate. For some jobs, I’ll provide a flat rate rather than an hourly rate if requested.

22. What does your pricing structure include? eg: fuel costs, person hour rates, materials costs, advertising, etc.

Depends on the job. I usually break down rates into:
o Design development (art / creative direction)
o Implementation (page layout, HTML/CSS/Flash dev etc)
o Complementary creative services (for example, photography or illustration)
o Work changes, alterations etc
o Ongoing maintenance
o Admin costs (for example, travel, material costs for printed proofs, CDs etc)

23. How do you sell yourself? (Is your website your only regular advertising structure/mode?)

I don’t really. People find me through word of mouth now.

But when I was starting out, I registered with freelance agencies such as Desktop People and Equatorial Talent. I joined design communities such as Australian InFront, Design is Kinky and AIMIA. I actively participated in online design forums, wrote product reviews and how-to articles for magazines like Desktop and Publishing Essentials and entered design competitions. I developed an interactive CD folio and sent it to design houses along with my CV when looking for work. I went to trade shows, conferences and seminars and networked a lot. I always have business cards in my wallet and of course, I’ve run my website for about 11 years now.

24. How do you work through client conflict and difficult customers?

He he he… that’s the advantage of working in a team! I leave it to the account managers to deal with those issues.

Of course, as a freelancer, I’ve had the occasional difficult client. One client was a complete nightmare and still owes me money. He did a bunk and even the Sherif couldn’t track him down.

Basically, it’s very important to establish your terms upfront. Make sure that the contract between yourself and your client clearly states fees for work changes. That is changes to the design specification for the job (this is particularly important if their changes require you to start again from scratch), additions or alterations to the content once the design has been signed off – and how many times you are willing to make changes (for example to text content) before you charge them – and beware of ‘feature creep’ as clients are expert at saying, “Can we just add this little thing…?” Cover your back and ensure you have a signed paper trail agreement for every stage of the project. Clients are also experts at blaming you when things go wrong – as are external suppliers such as printers, so paper trails and signed documentation is very important.

25. What would you consider your dream job or dream client?

Um… one with no unrealistic deadlines or expectations, in which I could be as creative and experimental as I liked and everyone would like the end result and not want to second guess anything! Yeah right…

26. How do you maintain ongoing professional development - conferences, updating skills, updating software and materials.

Online tutorials and forums are wonderful things. As is Google. If I don’t know something or need to learn something new, I jump online and research it. I subscribe to forums that interest me so that I get email alerts of upcoming events and forums. And I network, talk to friends and contacts in the industry regularly to keep abreast of what’s happening. I do short courses when I feel the necessity as well.

27. How do you remain progressive in your skill of trade - magazines, study, etc.?

See above!



28. Where do you see yourself in future years? Do you think you will be in the same field or are you interested in other avenues?

Who knows? When I left uni, I’d never heard of the Internet, so could never have predicted I’d have ended up there.

29. Do you think the graphic design industry is high pressured? Well paid?

Yes and sometimes. Some industry sectors pay well, some pay appallingly and operate sweatshops. It’s an unregulated industry, so it all comes down to doing your research on a company and negotiating a good employment package.

30. (What do you think of the new mediums -vapour screens, microsoft mousless coffee tables/interactive softwares, bioplasmic)

Wow! And I thought I was up there on new media! I’ve never heard of any of these, so can’t comment, sorry.

But what I will say is if they’re well designed and thought through, have emotional appeal for the general public and genuine usefulness, they’ll succeed. If not, they’ll disappear and in a few years time, no-one will remember them at all.


I have enjoyed Bea's website and all the talent she displays. This lady seems to really enjoy her chosen career path. I wish her heaps of success and I feel I have come away from this research with a better insight and understanding of this field of art form.

Autobiographical: Bea Pierce
Bibliography: http://www.20-20.org