Where it truly began...
You might have heard me say "it all began with a walk in a bluebell wood..." Although that's not wrong, truth be told, the story really starts inside an empty Costa coffee mug.
Let's scroll back to 2018.
I sat there completely taken aback, eyes glued to the bottom of that empty mug.
"Whatever you do Rachel, don't look up now, he'll be onto 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 flies pounding against a windowpane, desperate 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 much to show for it.
At the time I was a youth and community arts worker, spending my days encouraging other people's creativity - work I loved, and still do. But somewhere in all that giving, I'd stopped making space for my own.
I was a little like that crazed fly - busy, busy - giving myself just enough of a creative outlet, in fitful bursts, to still call myself an artist. I've since learned there's a balance in pursuing your own creative expression (and it's okay to looks different in different seasons of life too!), but it was one I was sorely out of balance back then.
So back inside 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.
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I don't have time! I have all this other important stuff I need to do…
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What if my painting sucks? I'll be wasting all that money on expensive materials and then I'll feel rubbish!
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Where do I even start? I don't just want to paint any old thing.
- Then there was the business side of things, because I'd dreamt I could somehow make a living from being an artist. 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 her dream of being an artist. The day I heard a guest speaker, a real working artist, invited into one of my art foundation lectures:
"It was just my artwork and me - me and my artwork. It gave me a breakdown. I was living on my friend's sofa. I had nothing, no home - just trying to make my artwork work."
Emotional instability. Financial uncertainty. No home. It spoke straight to every one of my fears.
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 the 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, ten years later…
I was found out.
"It's still a dream for you… isn't it?"
Argh, that silent pause afterwards. It rang inside my conflicted soul.
Every part of my being 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 (and my now husband!), being around his contagious passion for music and hearing his stories of putting feet to his dream had begun to whisper, and slowly reawaken, 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 circumstance and personal failure, but holding on to hope - it awoke something inside 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. To be seen.
"Why don't you just paint something?"
I don't remember the conversation clearly after that, but I do remember his challenge: "Why don't you just paint something!"
It left me feeling found out, uncomfortable, and a bit shirty with him.
"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 knew something within me had been shaken loose that I was unable to ignore. The artist had burst out of her box, with a loud call to return. To look again.
I had no idea what that 'ping' of inspiration would be. But it happened. And it happened in such a beautiful, unexpected moment that it opened the door to painting landscapes, and eventually, to colour and light.
I'll be sharing Part 2 of the story soon.
