How did writing become part of my art?

I have always had two great loves: Art and English. At school I was taught that my passions were two distinct subjects that led to separate careers, and I would have to choose between them. When Gray’s School of Art accepted my portfolio I took that as a signpost and so, I became an art student, then a primary school teacher, a wife, then a mother of four, and eventually now work solely as a professional artist. 

But yet, all that time, my passion for writing never stopped. In fact, in the years that I doubted myself as a painter I turned to writing. I filled notebooks with my thoughts, wrote short stories, wrote poems, diary entries, and composed nascent essays. I read and read. I chose writers that inspired me to dream and wonder if I could cut it as an author. I read terrible books that I couldn’t believe had been published and yet also gave me hope that I had something to offer. I bought books on the craft of writing and made frantic notes on them as if I was studying a course. I have an entire complicated first draft of a novel in a drawer in my studio that I wrote in the wee hours before my very young children were awake. I developed it over two years, but couldn’t quite hear my writer’s voice in it and shut it away, or turned it to the wall (as I do with all paintings that I can’t quite make work). But these explorations were always to myself and for myself. I hadn’t quite found what I wanted to say yet.

Painting and (embarrassingly!) Instagram helped me find my voice. During covid, sales and interest in my work gained traction.  My posts evolved from quotes I admired to writing original, personal musings. The word count restriction in a post meant I had to streamline my thoughts, and, because feedback on what I wrote was instantaneous, I had the sense of having an audience. Followers and collectors told me they enjoyed reading my stories and poems as much as seeing the paintings. This encouraged me to try writing stories inspired by the landscapes I paint. Now in my work there is an interplay between what I paint and what I write.

This year I’ve stepped away from Instagram to take a more targeted approach to exploring and improving my writing: I participated in a poetry slam at The Lemon Tree, attended writing workshops, am submitting pieces to competitions, and I write a quarterly newsletter to my mailing list on my website. Most importantly I wrote a eulogy for my Grandad that has proved to be the inspiration for my most ambitious creative idea yet: a book that I plan to be as critical and unique to my next exhibition as my paintings.