I’ve been drawing for most of my life, apart from that bit where i was working my butt off in an office.
I distinctly remember saying aloud to my managers at the time, who were interested in my skills as an artist, that i had accepted my fate. I couldn’t perform my best at work and continue making great art.
Essentially i had given up, and ploughed myself into the corporate world, while being distinctly unfulfilled.
The pain an artist feels when they are removed from their craft either by choice or circumstance i would compare to losing a limb. I am of course only guessing, for i have not yet lost a limb, but i have on occasion been maimed and incapacitated for a time on my various body parts. But should i have lost a leg, i imagine the grief experienced would be quite comparable to that of losing one’s connection to their art.
And so, I continued in my monochrome life for a number of years, where i stopped visiting galleries, stopped reading books, stopped engaging quite entirely in any sort of colourful life. And my life’s it seemed, was turning the same pale stained shade of grey that covered the disappointments on the walls of that office.
That was until, i fell.
I vaguely remember holding a maoam sweet in my hand and being surrounded by my colleagues on the stairwell, we were continuing a meeting we’d come in for just after the entire world’s lock down and on my first day back i managed to fall down the stairs. Quite likely I’d forgotten how to use them since being cooped up in my flat for almost two years, too afraid to go outside.
My sick feeling and inability to contribute to the meeting on the stairs soon made me realise that i had in fact broken my ankle. I slithered down the stairs to the bemusement of my colleagues, who i think thought i was overreacting, into a taxi and to the hospital.
It was in my recooperation at home, minus the office work, that my mind began to shift. The Summer Exhibition for the Royal Academy was about to close for applications and I decided that now, incapacitated as i was, was a great time to start a four foot painting, to be completed in a week. I worked harder than i ever had in that week, propped up on the floor, leg braced and plastered, but the discomfort was nothing compared to the joy I was getting from painting again.
And i promised myself that if i got accepted into the exhibition, i would stay in London and make one last attempt at being an artist. And if i failed, i’d pack my bags and take off to see the world as soon as i could walk again.
To be continued…