‘What do you want to be when you’re older?” A scientist, an acrobat, an archeologist, a singer, a writer. These are all answers my kids have given me when I — reductionist adult that I am — have asked them this age old question. Their answers are perfect; I wish all that for them. But the premise of the question is ridiculous and unfair.
Throughout my childhood I imagined myself in many exciting roles — a journalist dressed in Katherine Hepburn style pants reporting from far flung countries, a photographer capturing monochrome images of life like Henri Cartier-Bresson, a back-up dancer to Britney Spears. None of them came true specifically (although I have been known to bust some moves to Toxic on a dance floor or two.) Should I feel disappointed in myself? I do sometimes. But in my kinder moments I can acknowledge that 14 year old me knew jack sh*t about what any of those jobs really entailed, and what I was really expressing was the desire to have a life that allowed me to be curious, creative, physical and well travelled.
Back in February this year, when days were still mercilessly short, I plucked up the courage to ask my boss if I could take a month off to paint. Honestly, I felt a little fraudulent asking. What made me think I have enough talent to require this dedicated time and space? What did I want to achieve over the month? What could I really expect to come from it?
To be clear, these were not interrogations from my very empathetic and progressive boss (he was supportive and agreed). They were the doubts in my own head that persisted even once August 1st came around and I stood opposite the giant easel set up in our barn, oils laid out in front of me and a stack of fresh canvases waiting at my feet. So I did the only thing to do in those insecure circumstances: took a large slurp of coffee, turned on an in-depth podcast about ‘90s music, dipped my brush in Burnt Sienna and sketched out an enormous, overly ambitious multi-person portrait of my family.
It is now August 31st and the days are sweet and long. I return to “real work” next week after the Labor Day weekend. I’ve wiped my brushes clean and am attempting to process how this month has impacted me and how to get back into the regular groove of life without derailing the pieces of me that have grown over the last thirty days. The only way I know how to do that is by looking at the paintings themselves. So, if you will humor me, and in the spirit of 90s heroine Tori Amos who personifies her songs in conversation (“She came to me when”), let’s take a look at the six paintings I birthed this August…
Painting 1: The Normans
There’s nothing like a chip on your shoulder to make you go over your skis (and to mix metaphors, apparently.) The premise for The Normans occurred to me in a moment of middle-of-the-night restlessness about a week before my month as an artist began — what if I could do a huge portrait of my family in the style of 1960s movie posters, giving you a glimpse of all the characters, varying scale and juxtaposition to add dynamism? Like Jiminy Cricket, my subconscious was prodding me to prove myself: Show skills! Go big! Make it difficult!
I used a cluster of photographic references, trying to keep them recent so it would capture my parents, my sister and I and our respective offspring at roughly the age they are now, the summer of 2023. Photographs where people are posed and smiling, eye-balling the camera, are less interesting to me — I enjoy trying to capture the natural postures people assume when they are at ease. My mum and nephew corpsing into giggles as he tries — in vain — to explain a video game to her on the phone. My niece resting her chin on her hand as she shrewdly assesses her hand of cards, something she has been doing with absurd success since age three. I made some concessions to create a more harmonious image: my daughter Tilly appears twice, mainly because I loved how happy my dad looks bringing her in for an embrace.
My immediate family — the people I grew up with, and those who have grown from us — are scattered across three continents. Like millions of other global families, we Whatsapp each other with little snapshots of daily life: my mum growing an entire English orchard on her village allotment, my sister harvesting lemons from her garden in Melbourne, me sowing wildflower seeds that bloom in June. I wove plants throughout our portrait as a nod to the gardens we all pop into, virtually, like the cups of tea we can’t share in real life.
I like many aspects of this painting, but it isn’t fully coherent. I was experimenting with various styles with each person I brought to life, and I fell particularly short in the depiction of my sister. Claire is captivating in real life, with a mischievousness and balanced beauty that I wasn’t able to capture because I was being too careful: trying to nail each particular feature, rather than her overall essence. Her portrait is the equivalent of not seeing the wood for the trees.
Ironically, my self portrait tucked into the bottom right hand corner is one of my favorites in this piece because it feels free — when I have little regard for how the subject will feel about the result I can relax, transcend capturing likeness and create an image that stands alone.
It took me two weeks to finish this painting. After so much human, I moved on to try smaller, more landscape driven subjects…
Paintings 2 & 3: Val D’Orcia and Orvieto
My top line assessment of both of these Italy-inspired paintings: not enough paint.
Lucien Freud and Alice Neel are two of my biggest artistic influences and both are generous with the amount of paint they use — Freud’s later works (like the iconic Benefits Supervisor Sleeping) are almost 3D. It’s not that I value more paint per se, but I appreciate what it indicates: a bravery in creating a new, bold image from what they see.
My paintings above are nice. Fine. You might pick them out in a thrift store if they came in a decent frame, and hang them in your bathroom. And that is actually a wonderful thing to aspire to — that anyone might want my work in their home (other than my parents) seems like a valid and honorable ambition for an amateur like myself. If that person has good taste, even better.
Yet, it’s embarrassing to admit though that I want to strive for more. I want to try to create images that feel distinct to me and the strange fusion that my brain, hands and life experience brings to bear on the canvas. Two artists I hugely admire — Julia Chiang and Heather Guertin — both achieve this through their work, which in their abstract beauty are so vastly different to my own artistic inclinations but inspire me nonetheless. Time to push on.
Painting 4: Poppies
Now, that’s more like it.
I have been walking out to look at the poppies in our yard every day since they began to bloom earlier this summer. I had planted a random assortment of wildflower seeds in May so the mass of delicate yet radiant red and pink flowers, reaching up and drooping low on long thin stalks, were a surprise. The rice-paper thin petals look so transient that I didn’t want to miss a day.
Summer fields in the flat English countryside. Remembrance Day solemnity. A flower fairy book I obsessed over when I was six. At that age, I wanted my sister and I to change our names to Poppy and Polly, so that our entire family — like our parents Peter and Pat — would be P. Norman. Poppies, man. Plant them wherever I end up laying, with a few forget-me-nots because I’m a sentimental narcissist.
Painting Poppies was joyful. She presented herself to me and I did her bidding. I never doubted myself in how much abstraction was needed, how much fidelity. She’s complete, and I’m glad she tapped me on the shoulder.
Painting 5: Sarah
I have interviewed my friend Sarah Blakley-Cartwright for this newsletter and waxed lyrical about her multi-hyphenate talents. Sarah is a fashion pioneer, writer and magazine editor; her new novel Alice Sadie Celine comes out this Fall and is already receiving great praise for its “elegant study of three women” that “satisfies the head and the heart” (Publishers Weekly). But most of all, Sarah is the living embodiment of generosity.
Sarah lives life with abundance: she embraces friends warmly, dresses exquisitely, consumes literature and art and film ravenously, celebrates the successes of loved ones loudly and throws sprawling, bucolic parties at her house in Andes. On a whim, I chose to paint from a photo of Sarah from this summer, lounging happily on the wooden dock with a Barbie car float bobbing on the pond behind her.
Generosity demanded confidence. I worked quickly, embracing the recreation of the mood through shapes, color and shadows, and eschewing concern over adding every detail from the source material. The image I created needed to communicate ease and sensuality. I left the water as flat blue, no ripples or reflections. The lights and darks of her skin in the sunlight could be bold and imperfect. The mountains should be thick, mellifluous strokes.
The result is simple, inaccurate and truthful. Thanks, Sarah, for the inspiration.
Painting 6: Crecy Walk
Browns. Dark earthy tones. I feel compelled to push myself to play more in this tonal arena after some years of naturally leaning into brighter colors (this plays out in clothes too, for me — I know I should have a closet full of well made neutrals, then I click on a neon orange sweater from H&M.)
So, for my final painting this month I picked an old photograph of a Christmas family gathering circa 1985, at our then home in Woodstock, UK. My mum made those curtains with the late seventies pattern — brown circles on cream — and she’s the one wearing the red shoulder padded two piece in the back of the picture. Apparently it was on sale at a store called ‘Looking Glass’ and all three sisters (my mum and two aunties) would wear it for fancier events. That plus them all having similar short brown hairstyles led to some debate on the family thread over who was in the picture and who was taking the photo. We think Aunty Jayney was behind the camera this time.
I could talk about my intentions with this painting. It’s half sketch, half complete painting. I wanted to keep colors solid where I could and capture detail through shape not shading. I left faces unfinished, an unskilled nod to the background characters in Manet-era impressionism.
But really I just love this scene. The adults look a little drunk. We’re all squashed into the small dining room. There’s a half-assed card game going on and used napkins strewn over the table, candles burning. My sister and I both have our best party dresses on — I particularly like the white sailor collar on Claire’s outfit. I look tired and solemn in blue like three year olds do as evening descends. My Grandpa has his yellow silk cravat tucked into the top of his shirt like the debonair World War Two soldier he was. Eileen Alice Mary Louise, my Grandma, has her hair swept up elegantly as she did every day of the life I knew her in, face perfectly powdered. We have probably just eaten one of her famous trifles.
That feels like a fitting place to end my month as an artist — coming full circle to my family, but this time focusing on mood over detail.
I still have very little sense of where my time spent on painting will take me, but I know without doubt that this is a month I shall never forget. It has given me the freedom to try new things, shake off some insecurities and build my small body of work. I have stood, paint brush in hand, for hours at a time, playing with ideas and feelings and trying to turn mundane moments and things into art. It has been humbling and ecstatic all at once.
I am 41 years old and in dangerous mid life angst territory. I will admit that it has been haunting me somewhat: contemplating moving into the second half of my career without really achieving the things I imagined when lazy adults asked me ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ I haven’t broken any stories, haven’t developed any iconic photographs, and I haven’t danced my heart out behind Britney on a world stage (that may be a bullet dodged, in hindsight.)
But perhaps we’ve been asking the wrong question. What kind of life do you want to live? Curious, creative, physical. And maybe one day I’ll be lucky enough to see one of my paintings hanging in your bathroom.
Amy, these paintings are beautiful (more than bathroom-worthy!) and the month so thoughtfully reflected upon. Thank you for doing & sharing this