I create paintings and gather words and poetry from local people about the place in which they live. I then integrate these texts into the paintings. I am creating a small anthology of the poems I have been kindly given by members of the community. In 2023 at the invitation of Professor John Williams from Sophia University , Tokyo, I visited Kitaushima on Sado island and made several paintings and poems about this intriguing place . We also held a community event painting in the village hall I intend to build upon this and create more work inspired by Kitaushima and the surrounding area with co-creations from the people who live there. My work looks at place names, customs, traditions, folklore, climate, dialect and disappearing words, and the non-human such as plants and animals. All of these elements come together to create local distinctiveness and sense of place which helps us to both look back to the past and forward to the future.