Sheila was born Sheila Barbara Fingret in Leeds Yorkshire England in 1930. She married a South African doctor and emigrated to Cape Town, South Africa in 1952. Sheila lives and works in her studio home in Bowdon, UK. Sheila studied art at school in England and later in Cape Town studied with well known art teacher Jack McCabe and sculpture with Esther Josephson. She also took additional courses in Art, ceramics and silk screen printing and travelled extensively taking courses in Art whenever possible.

She ran the "Aspects of Art" group (which she personally founded) for the International Women's group Cape Town and spoke on "The Viewpoint of the artist" and "Aspects of my life in Art. In Israel she spoke on 'The Mystique of Art an Anthropological perspective'. She has been interviewed by the local and foreign press in Israel and South Africa and by the SABC in 1968 and 1989...she has received favourable criticism from the press. Her work has been sold internationally, and can be seen in such well known institutions as The Rand Merchant Bank, Telkom, Beilinsons Tel Aviv, etc. and in the private collections of many prominent people, well known collectors and patrons of her work in the USA, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, The Phillipines, Egypt, Cyprus, Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world.