Originally from North Wales, Iola emigrated to Canada in 1966, settling in Vancouver, and moving to Victoria in 1980. She grew up in the Welsh countryside where music and the visual arts played an important part of her life. It was during these early years that she began taking watercolour instruction. Later, when she began studying Voice at the Manchester College of Music 1961 - 1963, she became interested in the connection between music and painting. It was not until the 1990s when she returned to painting in oil,  that her colour-music appreciation was re-awakened. She uses both brush and palette knife to build up areas of colour and textures, create rhythm and movement, and to capture the feelings and mood of a particular moment.