I'm Louise. I draw circles, make ink from the hedgerows, and run a small open studio on a farm in Screveton, near Bingham in Nottinghamshire.

For a long time I lived by expectations I thought I'd chosen. They were mine, but they came from values I'd inherited and never questioned. As I've got older and life has changed, I have questioned them, and the ones I live by now are different. The energy it takes to live against your own values isn't something I have any more, or something I'm willing to spend. I've always been me. Art is where I learned who that was, and where I learned to trust myself.

I was a maths teacher, then an actuary. By 2021 I was burnt out, and I started drawing for a few minutes every day because I needed something that was just mine. It became a lifeline. A few years later I left the job and didn't go back. We home educate our three children, so for years my drawing happened in the gaps: a park bench, a cup of tea, ten minutes while everyone was busy. The studio is the first time I've had a door to close behind me and a whole day to make things in.

I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. It explained a lot, including why repetition quiets me and why I can't stick to one way of working for long. Drawing the same small mark around a circle, again and again, is where the busy everyday me goes quiet. Picking up something I've never tried puts me back at the beginning, which is where I have the most fun.

I still love gel pens and smooth white paper, and I've got good at using them, so I haven't given them up. But I started to feel uncomfortable with how much my practice was costing the earth. It didn't sit right that the thing helping me heal and connect to something bigger than me was damaging that same bigger thing. So I buy less now, and I use it more carefully. And I started making my own, which is where the play really opened up. Now it starts with a walk. Then foraging: elderberries, oak galls, nettles, rusty nails. Then chucking it all in a pan to make a potion, and the thrill of waiting to see what colour it turns out. I still buy some things, like gum arabic and the electricity for the hob, but less, and closer to what I care about. The drawing is just the last part. More and more of my life has become the practice.

That's what The Imperfect Circle is: a table, the inks, and a door that's open Thursday to Sunday. Come as you are.