Welcome!

It feels like this is my first blog post to have written, but if you scroll back you’ll see more. Maybe this will be a more honest piece of writing rather than conformist? When I say that I mean by topic, what we are encouraged to write in order to not confuse or complicate our brand. (Horrible word “brand” I will aim not to use it again…. But I get why people use it)… I don’t even know what my “brand” is yet, so my message will evolve.

Just to be clear, I have not set a plan as to what I’ll write about other than it will be about things that interest me, that I have found helpful, that I think will help others, or to simply get this massive inner narrative out of my head and give me some peace. I imagine a big chunk of it will be about creativity, but that’s not all of me…. In the words of the wonderful Fearne Cotton “we are not just one thing”

The style in which I will write I know will be waffly, likely go off on a tangent, possibly not make sense, definitely contain analogies as I’m not great with long but concise words, may have the odd swear word, but hopefully you’ll still enjoy it.

I have also chosen to write a blog rather than exclusively using social media, as quite frankly I myself need to step away from that world of dancing seals, Ikea hacks and quick dopamine fixes. I want to write with honesty and hope, the world of social media can be such a big illusion and a dangerous place for the soul at times.

I know I seek, and I think many others seek a place of honesty and hope, and I hope to bring this through my writing not just for others but for myself as well.

Told you I’d waffle….. As it feels like a first blog in many ways I thought it relevant to share a bit about me, the me that I am at this moment in time.

 Quick Life synopsis-

As I write this I have recently turned 40, have a few grey hairs that I try and pull out as they look like alien antennae, I have been with my husband for 24 years, have 2 children (amazing and exhausting… the husband and the kids), 2 noisy cats, a small group of friends, a few close relatives (apart from my sister and family who moved to Oz 4 years ago)….. and as a job I am an Artist, well the one that helps pay the mammoth bills at least, oh and we live in Bristol which is where I have lived my whole life.

As a big portion of my time is spent being creative I’ll explain how I arrived upon this situation

I have always been creative and from a young age was left to create as I pleased, I studied art in Paris, I’ve had exhibitions in London and New York, I float about in a huge light filled studio where every painting is both a battle and a breeze, I am enigmatic, eccentric, warm and difficult…. And all of what I have just written is absolute lies.. (Almost)

I have always been creative or enjoyed creativity, from watching Art attack on TV as a child, to joining a sewing club at junior school and studying art at local colleges in my younger years. Art materials weren’t as freely available when I grew up, and to even think you could make a wage from being an artist back then, was nothing more than a daydream for me. Actually it wasn’t even a daydream. I just studied art because I didn’t enjoy anything else as much as that and once my studies ended so did the art, and I got a job and work in an office for the next 13 years or so.

I worked in recruitment, I stuck with it because it paid the bills and that was the most important thing to do. I also stuck with it as we were promised the company would eventually be sold and we’d have a nice chunk of money at the end of it. That didn’t happen. The company shut down before this came to fruition. I also stuck with it because I liked a lot of the people I worked with, I also worked with some complete and utter dick heads, that I’m pleased to say I have never bumped into since. Although at the time I was shitting myself about the company closing down, I knew nothing else but my job there, I was peeved I had stayed there so long with the promise of this nest egg - but there are 2 amazing things that have come from this (amongst others of course). First of all the Directors who owned and closed the business, I did stay in touch with them, they had their reasons for doing what they did. Through them I have seen the happiness following your heart can bring, I have cried watching one of them surf (he’ll probably never read this… but if you do, yes I did cry watching you, it was bloody magical), and secondly I had to be pushed, I wouldn’t have left, despite if I’m honest not being happy there. If I hadn’t been pushed I wouldn’t have started painting as my job and I wouldn’t be writing this now.

More honesty, it’s fucking hard work! I am not adverse to hard consistent work. I absolutely love painting but I was not prepared for the challenges it would bring. I knew financially it was going to be a strain, but didn’t anticipate how I would react to this strain, but equally as big a challenge has been the emotional, daily self analysis, doubt, confusion and exhaustion. It is not without joy. I get a whole lot of happiness when I see a painting I have produced and I look back and think “shit, that came from inside of me”, or when someone sends me a message to say that seeing my paintings inspired them to try again, or when a commission brings someone peace or joy…. And a really important one to me is having my children witness their mum doing something as a job that I choose to do and hopefully no matter how big their dream feels they’ll go for it as well.

Something I have learnt along the way is that there is no wrong time to do the right thing and no right time to do the wrong thing. Also I’m adding to that… there is no right way to do the right thing, I mean in the sense of being an artist etc, of course there are right ways to do certain things like add the milk AFTER the water when making a cup of tea, those things aren’t up for debate.

What I mean by this though as well, is the preconceived idea I had of being an artist, hence my fantastical romantic depiction above. I sit at my dining table writing this on a keyboard linked to my phone. Also I’m sat here writing not painting… slightly procrastinating as I am supposed to be finishing a commission eek! I sit at my dining table most days painting, I do have an area to paint in the garage, but the light is shocking and I’m so messy it looks more like a storage area. This is on the to do list though, as the husband is slightly fed up of me destroying the dining room, and I’m fed up of packing stuff away all of the time. But having said all of that I am no more of less of an artist because I paint at the dining table, I am no more or less of an artist because I am enjoying writing as a part of what I do. My hope is that you can also dump from a great height that thought that you have to live up to any idea of what you “should” be, just be your own version of you…..and enjoy it…. I am trying my damnedest to do so.

I also don’t buy into all the pompous stuff we are “supposed” to write about our art. (even though I have something like this on my “About me” page, think I might have to change that) View my art as you wish, take from it what you want, I don’t understand it most of the time and actually rarely create with an absolute message to convey or reaction I want to achieve. You could show me the most poignant piece of artwork, depicting a gut wrenching scene, which I am sure will cause a reaction, but I bet you I’ll be searching for the brushstrokes or interesting marks within that same painting as it is these things that get me excited, we all gain our joy from different places, and express ourselves through Art in different ways.

 A few other things that interest me.. interior design, or rather just a good old nose around other peoples homes, Rightmove isn’t always the best place to do this!

Preloved and vintage clothing, although 90’s clothing is now classed as vintage which I find difficult to process.

Reading, I studied English literature at A level, don’t actual think I finished a whole book. Writing a whole essay on the idea of “the” being added or removed to a title of a book and the difference this would make was enough to put me off for years. My real love of books started in my late 20’s, fiction and non fiction, of course Harry Potter, but more recently I have been absolutely willingly consumed by the power of our brains, to heal ourselves and others, how and why we process the thoughts we do, how we can choose how we think, about energies and understanding how that is what we are, the implications of blockages and freedom…. And the magic and answers we all have inside of us that has been diluted over hundreds of years.

Encouraging other creatives is really important to me. I would if I could be a life long student, or maybe explorer of things, not like Indiana Jones, maybe more like Johnny 5. I was a good student at school, if that meant applying yourself and working hard… one thing I am not so good at being taught is art. I am definitely an observer and trier… I am not confident enough yet to receive critique well, I’m working on that. So what I am trying to get to saying is I hope that by being open and honest about what I do, will in turn encourage others. I have created a workshop (something I never thought I would do) but I hope people see it as me sharing what I do for others to tr,y rather than me teaching. I don’t think you can teach art, you can teach techniques, you can encourage, and you can encourage practice, but how we do and view things is as unique as our fingerprint. There is no right or wrong way.

I have learnt to view art for what it is not for what I think it was meant to be. I can look at it on a superficial level or deeper - both excite me and neither is more worthy

I’ve also been very slowly writing a book over the last 2 years, so this is going to serve as good practice for my keyboard skills if nothing else.

I hope you have found this first snippet insightful, and if there ever was a sign that I’m on the right path for me, as I’ve typed this a sale has come through on my website (I haven’t had one for weeks), so you can write, be an artist and still be making a living whilst off on this tangent that now feels to be the right way not off track.

With love and thanks, Flo xx