The Art of Returning

There was a girl in her early 20s who was single-mindedly setting out to create a job that involved art.

She had drawn animals for as long as she could control a pencil, always was notably good at art throughout her school years, and went on to earn a degree in the field of fine art.

She then set out to hustle her own way into the world of art, as a profession, quitting her waitress job and making a promise to herself to work her way out of a vulnerable situation. She then did this for a decade.

She was me, hello!

if you have followed me for any length of time at all you might know that I began by painting animals. There truly was no other subject more befitting for me to learn to craft a style of artwork. I skipped many steps, and jumped straight into a self taught approach to oil paintings. My very low paying waitressing job did not afford me good materials, everything was cheerfully cheap, even at times substituting paintbrushes with cotton buds, or just my finger tips when the situation deemed desperate enough. (A technique I still use to this day.) I worked hard online, with a blog, social media, and an effective use of search engine optimisation. I had taught myself marketing skills, as well as painting.

Eventually, when commissions rolled in consistently from my efforts, I left waitressing behind to work full time as a painter.

What is most important for me to emphasis about my story, something I wear with so much pride, is that I had no funding behind me. I had no help. My rent in a questionable and often dangerous house share cost £300 for my room. My aim, was to sell at least a couple of paintings per month in order to both pay my rent, food and have the ability to buy in new materials, most especially canvases. This was done methodically, although my memory of this at the time was haphazard, as life was difficult and there were no assurances on sales. All I could do, was keep pushing myself to try. Quitting was a non option.

After 2 years, I reached out to a publisher who I work with now, who took my work on and immediately had a new collection in galleries, art fairs and available to buy at a larger scale. It was a dream come true.

In recent years I grew, and so did my style and imagination, birthing the newer style of work that became so much more abstract and ethereal in nature. This breathed new life into my artwork and practice.

So since then..?

Things became difficult after an unexpected house move, when my youngest boy was 1 month old. A series of unfortunate events onfolded, as they do. Painting has always been a place of solace, but on this occasion, a curve ball of body pains made that harder, and had told me that I was pushed to the very edge.

The need from my time at the easel had to change, and instead of being a place to work, needed to revert back to a place of joy and expression, with hopes to incorporate that into my working life. Utalising the skill of painting as a somatic modality is such a therapeutic way to work, one that had become ignored as art becomes work, and expectation. We all know that art in any forms becoming work can be killed, and I have always worked so hard to protect the authenticity of my art. But when under immense stress, this ability fell.

In light of feeling very unwell, I sought to figure this out. Many changes later, and there is a huge difference. But a great takeaway has been that returning to what came first is usually always the right way. After chasing through GP appointments and medications that did not work, I felt strongly to return to what nature knows (what I had spent a decade painting) and utilise herbal remedies. After years of chasing whichever artwork would showcase my talent the most, I returned instead to the whimsical little girl who loved art, and whose eyes glittered for tumbling nature and jewel like flowers.