Not Just An Art Business

Grief, anger and a gun that fires purple bubbles.

If you read my last article you will know now that what made this time different from the other times I have tried to make a career out of my art was losing both my elderly parents, losing myself and using art to get through it. But also that some of the things they said when they were leaving stayed with me. My Dad regretted not making art his full time career and my Mum wished she had travelled more. (The Escape Hatch)

But even though I had taken on the lessons it still took me another few years to put them into practice.

Losing our parents is a very peculiar thing. You logically know that it is going to happen at some point and that it is the natural way of things, but what no one tells you is that losing them can totally unanchor you. But I don’t think its just that.

I started noticing something, in my friends, in online chats, in the things women were writing openly about maybe for the first time. Around the time perimenopause and menopause hit, when the kids need you less and your parents need you more, when one crisis seems to land on top of another, women seem to reach a point where they realise they have spent years caring for everyone else. You wake up one day and wonder where the last 20 years have gone. You don’t actually know who they are or what you want any more and between this realisation and having some idea of where you are going next there is a sense of wandering in the lost zone.

I painted my lost zone. I painted women who looked a little lost, women who were overwhelmed, and women who were suppressing their anger that someone had had the audacity to die. My work in this period should have been dark and sombre but somehow it became colourful and kept a bit of humour. My painting ‘Bubbling’, came about as the part of grief that is anger arrived. I remember clearly sitting at my easel being so bloody angry that people died. My painting exploring the subject of suppressed feminine anger, features a moody woman that looks like she could kill you with a stare holding a gun which emits purple bubbles. The anger is softened.

Then one day my work changed subtly again. As the worse of the grief left I started to paint the feeling of releasing a breath you didn’t realise you had been holding, the feeling of sun on your skin as you take a moment for yourself, and the feeling of coming out of the other side of all the change. My leading ladies looked up to the sky with eyes closed and hope, surrounded by flowers and butterflies and skies.

It was then that I realised that I didn’t just want to build this business for me - I wanted to build it to connect with other women in the same stage of life. I wanted to give them something beautiful that recognised where they were. That didn’t try to fix it, just let them know they were not alone. To see the big emotions, and soften them with colour. To give her something to hold on to that is just for her that says there is more coming, you are not just lost.

My word art grew out of the same thing. I call it soft graffiti. Its pretty but does look like something you would spray paint on the wall if you were feeling a bit rebellious. Its not perfect, its free and full of life and it says the things we think about at 3am. Or it hands to the encouragement you sometimes forget to give yourself.

It still took a ridiculous amount of time to get this business off the ground. Another woman could have no doubt done it in months not years, but the idea needed to evolve and so did I. I needed to take the time to realise what I was actually painting that had come out of me so instinctively and to realise where it was going. I also needed to evolve myself so that I could move forward.

I also learnt a few things about myself while I was trying to build this business during that really hard time. I discovered that I was way more resilient than I thought I could be. For the first few years I would try something and it wouldn’t work, then I would get frustrated, I would cry and think I was not good enough. What the hell is it with us always feeling we are not good enough. I would give up, sometimes for weeks, feeling it was all impossible. But then I would wake up one morning and my energy would have returned and I would try again. This still happens now. It hasn’t been plain sailing but I kept going.

There is so much to do when you build a business. I used to say I was “still building the website” when anyone asked. It started to sound ridiculous even to me after a few years but it isn’t just that, its products, and suppliers, and postage and legal stuff, and writing copy, and socials and the list goes on and on. You have so many hats you need a hat stand.

Finally, two months ago the website, which I built myself was launched. It has originals, and canvas prints and cushions. It also has my first curated box. The Rediscovery Box.

The Rediscovery box is built around the Bucket List book which I designed myself. In the middle of feeling lost I decided it would be a good idea to buy a bucket list book. I bought one and started filling it in. Putting ideas of what I would like to do or see or have in the pages help me remember who I was and gave me hope that there was more to come. I have hardly started doing any of the things yet but just having them there as a reminder of me was a massive help. There was only one problem. The book I bought was black and plain and uninspiring so I made my own version. After a few versions I have now arrived at a version I am proud of. It has spaces to write, spaces to say why you want to do it and spaces to say how it felt when you did. It will eventually become a book of your adventures and if you don’t get to do any or all of them it will still be a book of your dreams.

One of the things in that book was that I wanted to start my own business.

It is really early days but its one I can finally tick off.

There’s more coming. I’m just getting started.

Jewels x