I decided to become an artist in a hospital bed.
A 60-day portrait painting challenge.
Can't lie to you, folks. I spent the entirety of day 7 sobbing.
It's a good job tears run right off oils.
In the eight weeks I spent in hospital, I developed a hunger to create. I spent every evening dreaming up new expressions and weird ways to patch ideas together, scribbling them down in a battered notebook that had travelled over 1000km with me.
Eight weeks. I know.
I was sick.
Of everything.
From the stale brioche they served every morning, to the repeating cycles I couldn't quite seem to escape. I was sick of not enjoying my own life, sick of not meeting my own expectations — or those of my over-achieving mother's — and sick that I hated every path I took. Because fundamentally, I always knew the path I was supposed to be on.
Art.
So lying in that hospital bed, scrawling ideas from the whacky to the wonderful, I decided that 28 was quite old enough to make my own way in life. And if that meant starting over again, venturing into the unknown, or embracing a chaotic lifestyle — so be it.
I couldn't lie to myself anymore. I had to at least try.
It feels shameful to squander a talent in the one domain I actually enjoyed. And I had to get real with myself — I wasn't doing much else with my life.
At 16 I'd been told to drop art studies because "you're good at the sciences. You've got so much potential. You'll waste a good A-level slot by picking art."
Not long after I had my first burnout.
I remembered saying I wanted to change subjects, that I could become an artist, and being told "no, you'll die poor and unrecognised for your talents."
So I gave up on that dream, and those hours of joy, to pursue something sensible.
I did many sensible things over the years. None quite fulfilled me — and I'm not in too much of a mood to talk about it, lest I cry into day eight.
But what I will say is: I'm beginning to understand contentment. Not the radical acceptance of being in a sticky situation but a contentment with the fresh eyes that come from heading somewhere you always wanted to go but never did.
Looking at my day 7 painting I’m thinking to myself: For a woman with no formal education in the arts, who picked up a paintbrush again after six months after abandoning it for another sensible something— it's not bad.
I'm teaching myself layering techniques, how to use Kremer pigments, how to model form, where to add detail. And I feel… quite satisfied.
My first painting using powdered earth pigments. Eleven of them — ground by hand. I can proudly say I made each one myself, learned its history, and mixed it with linseed or walnut oil on a glass slab with a muller.
If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it properly — from the pigment up.
So here we are. Day 7 of 60. The portrait is finished. The tears have mostly dried.
On Thursday I move into my first art studio. Bright, big, mine. I'll walk in there with this painting under my arm. And a smile on my face because yes, I finally found the courage and self-respect to give myself permission to live for myself, to walk the path I always wanted to walk.
I’ll be on substack making a visual diary of what happens next. I’ll be posting there- painting, and sculpture- and here for more blog entries.
This Substack is the diary of what happens next. I'll be posting here — painting and sculpture — but feel free to check out my blog for writing.
This is the slow business of giving myself permission to live the life I always knew was mine.
I'm posting now and then. Aiming for weekly. Subscribe if you'd like to come along.