Being an artist is still a dream for you ... isn't it?
You might of heard me say “it all began with a walk in a bluebell wood...” Although that’s not wrong, truth be told, the story really has its start inside an empty Costa coffee mug in 2018…
I sat there completely taken aback. Eyes glued inside that empty mug.
"Whatever you do Rachel, don't look up now, he'll be on to you. Just stare at the bottom of the mug...because that won’t make you look awkward!" I thought to myself.
The question darted around inside me like one of those frenzied butterflies pounding against a windowpane eager to escape into the world beyond.
“Too late. It's rattled me. I can't hide it now.”
I ALWAYS KNEW I WAS AN ARTIST
But I got stuck. Caught saying I was an artist without really having much to show for it. I found myself busy busy (a little like that crazed fly) doing the things that although weren’t entirely out of whack with my passions, left me neglecting my own creativity. It had become about only encouraging creativity in others, whilst only giving myself just enough of a creative outlet, usually in fitful bursts to justify to myself I still was one.
Until one afternoon I found myself staring into that empty coffee mug.
Somewhere down the line I’d lost the artist I was created to be
I can reel off a whole list of excuses that made perfect sense at the time for why I wouldn’t create space for my art.
I don’t have time! I have all this other stuff I need to do…
What if my painting sucks? I’ll be wasting all that money on expensive materials and then I’ll feel rubbish!
Where do I even start? I don’t just want to paint any old thing.
Then there was also the buinsess side of things (because I’d dreamt I could somehow make a living from being an artist). Trouble was everything to do with business had the frighteners on me so if I could dodge that bullet I was going to!
But underneath all those excuses lay the moment my 19-year-old self made the painful decision to walk away from the dream of being an artist.
The day I heard in a group lecture: “It was just my artwork and me; me and my artwork- it gave me a breakdown. I was living on my friends sofa, I had nothing- just trying to make my artwork work…”
Emotional instabilty. Financial uncertainty. No home . It spoke straight to every one of my fears. Having just moved away from home and an earlier rejection from the art college I’d dreamt of going to since I was 14, it was a potent mix that led me to walk out of that seminar and vow never to do anything that would put me in that position.
Never mind that painting was what made me come alive:
- Just for the sheer pleasure of doing it
- Just for being connected to myself and feeling ‘the most Rachel’
- Just for surprises that emerge in the washes of paint and how the creative process empowers me
AND LIKE THAT THE ARTIST IN ME WAS PUT IN A BOX
So back inside that Costa Coffee mug...
I was found out.
“It’s still a dream for you…isn’t it?”
Argh that pause!
It resonated inside of me. Every part of me was responding with a resounding YES that not even I could ignore. And it rattled me.
Having spent a few months getting to know Sam, a musician, being around his contagious passion for music and hearing his stories of putting feet to his dream began to whisper to my own creative dry soul.
Listening to his stories taking him across the world, meeting new and inspiring people, the dedication to hone his craft, the desire to serve a higher purpose than himself, riding the ups and downs of circumstances and personal failures, but holding on to hope awoke something inside of me.
Inside that Costa coffee cup it was like the dam broke inside of me.
I couldn’t make excuses to myself anymore.
Being an artist was still a dream... a dream waiting to come out of hiding into wide-open spaces.
“Why don’t you just paint something?”
I don’t remember clearly the conversation after, but what I do remember was his challenge: “why don’t you just paint something!”.
It left me feeling found out, uncomfortable and a bit shirty.
“Well I’m not going to start painting just anything...I need something to ‘ping’ - something that will inspire me.” Period. End of conversation.
Happy I’d somewhat managed to deflect attention away from myself, I really knew something had been shaken up within me that I was unable to ignore. The loud call to return to painting again.
I also had no idea what that ‘ping’ would be. But it happened. And it happened in such a beautiful and special moment...
I’ll be sharing “Part 2” of the story soon!
