When Ann West awoke on the morning of her thirtieth birthday her life seemed perfect. She was a beautiful former model, living in an LA in a multi million dollar home with two gorgeous daughters. Growing up in working class Glasgow and Leicester was just a distant memory. Yet she woke up feeling depressed, empty as if she was living someone else’s life, three words drumming on the inside of her skull like a mantra. “This isn’t it… this isn’t it.” That morning was the beginning of an extraordinary journey that has taken Ann from Malibu to India, the San Juan Islands, Kauai, Ibiza and Glastonbury.

Following her spiritual awakening she turned away from her cosmopolitan lifestyle to study and then to teach. She has hosted talk radio shows, coerced the US Navy to cancel military exercises, become a Doctor of Metaphysical Science, received her PhD in Psychological Studies and written a book about her experiences in India. Despite all that Ann has always felt something was missing. That she was meant to sing. Her debut album ‘Confidante’ has been a lifetime coming. It’s hard to describe her music without resorting to clichés but think a contemporary Carly Simon with pop sensibilities, Celtic melodies and a hint of Nashville craftsmanship. The album was recorded in London and Hawaii with seasoned musicians and overseen by producer David Tickle, who has worked with Prince, Peter Gabriel, U2, Split Enz, George Michael, Jackson Browne and Blondie.

Now backtrack a few years and several thousand miles to Pollock, Glasgow. Ann’s earliest memories are of music.
“My mother and father had the most incredible voices and they would harmonise together. My great grandmother knew all the old vaudeville and Irish rebel songs. Granny would get the washboard out, one uncle would play the accordion, another the bagpipes, my dad was on the harmonica and my mum would play the spoons. Singing was just natural. It wasn’t something we did for money. It was just what we did”.

The West’s moved south to Leicester when Ann was six.  Times were tight. “I wore hand me down clothes,” she says, “One winter we didn’t have enough wood to put on the fireplace.” Ann was an intuitive – “I could walk into a room and know not to go near that person because I felt they were dark” - active and ambitious child.

She loved ballet and was an excellent gymnast but couldn’t pursue either because there was no money. “I had some looks,” she says, “and my aunties kept saying to me ‘you should be a model’.” One afternoon she plucked up the courage, got off the bus and enrolled at a local model school, paying for her course by working nights in a scrap yard. When she was 17, rejecting the career officer’s suggestion that she become a shop assistant, Ann took a train to London. She looked up a model agency in the phone book, found her way there on the tube and sat in reception, heart in her throat, clutching her “portfolio”, a book of snapshots she’d done for a local Boots. A photographer came in, saw her sitting there and she suddenly found herself with both a job and an agent.

Modelling she realised was her way to a better life and for the next few years she worked constantly.
“Catalogue work, swim wear, book covers, magazine covers. I came into the ring with Mohammed Ali wearing boxing shorts and gloves,” she says candidly. "Whenever I went on shoots I’d start singing and the photographers would tell me ‘You should be singing”.
When Ann left for California the red tops ran headlines like “Ann’s going West”.  Truth was LA wasn’t really Ann’s town and after the epiphany on her birthday Ann knew something had to change. After a few weeks she decided to go to an ashram in the Himalayas. 
“When I got back, the experiences in India had been so expansive that I really didn’t fit into my old life,” she says simply. “I sat and meditated for five hours a day and just absorbed what happened.” After her third trip to India Ann started teaching meditation and yoga and moved to the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest. She studied for her PhD in Spiritual Psychology while writing her book ‘Truth From The Source’.
From her window Ann could see the orcas swimming through the channel and she formed a non-profit organisation, The Universal Cetacean Institute, to help protect whales and dolphins.   After moving to Kauai in Hawaii she hosted her own talk show on TV, ‘This Is It’ and started two radio shows – ‘Ann of Avalon’ and ‘Truth From The Source’ on KKCR where she interviewed everyone from Bill Clinton to Deepak Chopra and discussed: “metaphysical teachings and philosophies with great philosophers and spiritual teachers, quantum physicists, authors, doctors, scientists, environmentalists, marine biologists – anybody who’s done something in their life to help raise humanity’s consciousness.” A passionate animal activist, Ann started working alongside the Natural Resource Defence Council (NRDC) to help stop the US Navy whose military low frequency sonar testing in the Hawaiian ocean was causing distress and death to cetaceans.

In July 2006 she got Donald Schregardus, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy, to agree live on air to funding a $95 million environmental impact statement. While music has always been part of Ann’s life she slowly came to realise just how important, indeed essential, it was to her. 
Singing for fun became a burning desire to make her own music. She started off writing devotional songs and then went back to her Celtic roots (notably on the haunting Ben Nevis).  Over the next few years Ann honed her craft, writing with an eclectic group of writers such as Alan Hewitt (Earth, Wind and Fire) and Rory Kaplan (who had played keyboards for Michael Jackson) and Amy La Television (Toni Childs).
“I was introduced to Richard Fammeree, who had written some great songs for Toni Childs,” she says. “We started writing and before we knew it I had 40 songs."
‘No Wonder’, a song she co-wrote with Rory Kaplan, was one of the winners at the BMI sponsored Kauai songwriting festival - Ann won a Gibson guitar signed by Sheryl Crow. She then visited Nashville to write with Frank Myers who has had 10 number one hits, one of them being with Alabama. They re-worked ‘Calling For An Angel’, ‘Missed it Again’ and ‘Writing on the Wall’. Ann also wrote ‘In The Name of Peace’, included on ‘Confidante’. It can be heard currently on the World Peace One website (www.WorldPeaceOne.com), a global event for humanitarian causes that will launch  in 2009.
The 11 songs were recorded at Avalon studios in Kauai and SARM studios Hook End near Reading.  David recruited Mike Rowe (Oasis and Sheryl Crow) on Keyboards and Bass, Chris Sharrock (Robbie Williams) drums, Dave Randell (Faithless and Dido) Guitar and Alex Acuna (Beck and Joni Mitchell) percussion. It was an eye opening experience for Ann.
“I never really understood what it took to create a piece of art. An album is never really the sole creation of the artist but a synergistic weaving of the wealth of knowledge, talent and creativity of the whole band, producer, writers and unseen, unknown elements that influence the end result. Every one involved has something unique and wonderful to offer.”

‘Confidante’ is indeed something truly unique. It is simultaneously the realisation of a lifelong dream and the latest step on Ann West’s fascinating journey.

Cindy Knight
Cindy is a specialist nurse fully qualified in offering advanced medico-beauty treatments. She trained as a registered nurse at Bromley Hospital NHS Trust. After extensive study and further training to gain additional qualifications, she has now realised her ambition of opening a Clinic which provides high quality, professional treatments to clients, which many delighted customers would be happy to testify. She is a full member of the Royal College of Nursing and is committed to attending regular accreditation updates in aesthetic procedures.

Cindy's greatest belief is that clients should always be made to feel comfortable and relaxed before, during and after their procedures. Indeed, many customers have commented that the surroundings feel less like a clinic and more like a small, discreet health spa. Clients are always assured of excellent and extensive follow up care to their treatments.

Team In addition to Cindy, the Clinic's other key staff are here to help make your experience as pleasant and comfortable as possible. Like Cindy, their primary concern is every customer is well informed, relaxed, and most importantly, happy with the results of their treatments.

Dr Abbi Lulsegged
Cindy Knight Clinic is delighted to welcome Dr Lulsegged as a member of the team. Dr Lulsegged is a highly trained NHS Endocrinologist and has a wealth of experience and credentials, including Bsc, MB.BS, and MRCP. His presence adds further support and knowledge to complex and innovative treatments, and he shares the Clinic's ethic of pushing boundaries forward in order to offer the best medico-beauty treatments possible.

Leah Howlett-Knight
Leah joined the clinic in Autumn 2004, bringing with her excellent customer service skills and over fourteen years' experience of working in the services industry helping the general public. She has enjoyed a successful career heading up a department in a prestigious Tunbridge Wells hotel, and is now delighted to bring her expertise to Cindy Knight Clinic.
Leah specialises in the area of laser treatments at the Cindy Knight Clinic.

Diana Knight
Diana is our newest member of the team, having worked for over 22 years in the Public Sector. She is qualified in both Customer Services (NQV3) and Human Resources (CPP). Diana will provide assistance and information regarding all of the procedures available at the clinic.
She is here to answer any queries customers may have and is happy to help with any aspect of the Cindy Knight experience.

Alison first had psychic feelings and experiences at the age of six. She started giving consultations in the playground from an early age. She has always been interested in people and what motivates them. Her passion for magical stories, experiences and people has been influenced by her Irish/Chinese background. One of her aunties reads the tea leaves and her mother had psychic dreams. Her Chinese father had the intuitive ability to read people and enjoyed helping people in whatever way he could. For a short time at primary school, Alison was bullied for being different.

Now she helps people be more compassionate and tolerant of themselves and others. But she was popular with other class mates and entertained fellow pupils with funny plays she wrote and directed and acted in! She has always loved communicating and from the age of 8 to 21 wrote a diary every day about her thoughts and psychic feelings. Alison still loves writing and has a monthly column in Fate and Fortune.

For a period of time she felt she had to hide these psychic feelings and it was only after she completed an honours degree in Sociology at Leeds University that she once again allowed her psychic gift to come through. Alison started doing playing card (cartomancy ) readings for friends and family. Alongside a career in retail where she became a buyer and manager Alison developed her psychic skills by taking courses, doing readings and being taught by her Spirit Guides. Click on Readings for more info.

In 2000 after a challenging, learning time in her life Alison set up her own business. She decided to dedicate herself to her psychic work and her passion for life coaching. Alison loves supporting, encouraging and motivating people to do what they really want to do and be who they really want to be! She sees the magic in people loving what they’re doing and doing what they love. From that her Psychic Love Coaching Practice was born and the Psychic Love Coaching Programme created. Alison knew from personal experience what it felt like to be a “square peg in a round hole” and is particularly interested in helping people find their true soul purpose. She loves to work with people who want to develop their creative ability, are interested in spiritual matters and are seeking an alternative path.

She is also fascinated by matters of the heart and soul and guides people towards finding their perfect soul mate or alternatively finding happiness on their own as a soul alone working towards their hearts desire. Alison has also set up Soul Trader, a support system and network for people working alone.

Dan Proops had his first exhibitions at the Chenil Gallery in London: he was fourteen. The two sell-out solo shows, six months apart, created a media commotion. “…I’ve always been inspired by the connections between technology, design and fine art”.

By 1990, Proops’ final year at Goldsmiths, all his peers had succumbed to Conceptualism except Proops who kept painting. His passion for the medium endures, resulting in a unique, ongoing body of work vividly exploring the areas where classic art meets new technology.
“I did a series of old masters transcriptions, exploring ideas about tradition and taboo, using digital techniques, censorship by pixel’.

In the 90’s, his developing art was exhibited in over twenty shows in London including Cork Street and The Serpentine Gallery. “…so the thing about copying and influence is that it is at the centre of my Caravaggio (and most art). It’s the blurring of the lines between counterfeit influence, appropriation, theft ...”

In 2003, Proops began an association with Eric Franck Fine Art, and was exhibited at the prestigious London Art Fair. The ‘Proops Search Engine’ was zooming into Vermeer and Ingres. In 2005 Eric Franck showed three major works at Art Brussels to great acclaim. ‘I think the Internet is the most important artwork of the 21st Century’ Proops’ breakthrough came in 2006, with his solo show ‘Sam’s Desktop’. Its themes, from Pop to the zeitgeist, from global brands to the Internet as art form became central to his work. In the sequel, Sam’s Desktop II (Menier Chocolate Factory, May 2007)

Proops uses his trademark ‘digital’ painting technique to make a dark, rich mix of references to war, art, ‘reality’ and ‘fake’ and our ambivalent attitudes towards popular culture. Proops dazzling new collection Sam’s Desktop III will be exhibited at the Empire Gallery in May 2008.

DegreeArt.com and PR Lisa Agasee presents Quixotic - a series of exclusive evening events aimed at the cultural and social dilettante. On display at the fabulous venues selected for the nights are DegreeArt.com's collections of the finest UK emerging contemporary art.

Come to browse, to socialise, to network, to debate or to buy, the evening is Quixotic - it is simply whatever you want it to be. Quixotic brings together a gathering of people who like art and think it's a great focus for meeting new people in a relaxed and social surrounding. Quixotic nights will be held at The Empire Gallery on Vyner Street, E2 - the new home of DegreeArt.com Ltd. Housed in a converted Edwardian chapel, the Empire Gallery has recently undergone a complete renovation which has seen the space transformed.

The first Quixotic evening was held in November 2006 with superb art, music, excellent company, food and drink plus a few surprises thrown in.

To read the review - Click here