Thirty

Flowers For My Thirtieth 

I wanted to write something about turning thirty because it felt like a bit of a big deal, entering another decade, a milestone. I kept putting it off because it seemed a little self indulgent and also, is thirty actually a big deal? Now that I am thirty I don't feel any different, in fact, internally I still feel like I'm in my early twenties. I haven't got the responsibilities that many thirty-somethings do have, like a mortgage, a marriage or children, maybe that's why I still feel relatively young and carefree? Despite this I do feel like I am a little wiser than I was in my twenties and so even with my reservations I decided that I did want to write something down, if only to have a few words to look back on in years to come.

The feeling of being wiser boils down to three main things that I've learned and that have helped me find peace in my life, I'm sharing those three things here. They are personal so forgive me for exposing some of my deepest feelings, being open and honest takes courage. 

Learning To Forgive

The following isn't news, I've touched upon it before, it has even informed my art work. In order to explain what I've learned I have to tell a bit of a story. My parents separated when I was seven, my dad left to live with another family. My brother and I continued to see our dad and we continued to live in the house with our mum that he paid the mortgage on even though he wasn't there anymore. Years later when my brother and I had reached adulthood he decided to sell the house so that he could forge a new life by buying a property of his own. I took it hard. When you feel like you're being pushed out of the home that you spent nearly 20 years in, where all of your childhood memories are, it hurts deeply. Upset turned to anger and I didn't speak to my dad for a long time. Even though there was rationality to what he was doing, I couldn't see it. I was annoyed that while he was using the house-sale to fund buying a beautiful home in an idyllic part of England, my mum, brother and I had to move from a village into a small house in an estate location in town. It felt unfair, like we were going backwards. My resentment was painful, it ate me up. I hated not being able to talk to my dad but at the same time I couldn't forgive what he was doing, all those heavy feelings from childhood came flooding back and the only way I could deal with it was to ignore him, to stay silent when he was there, to avoid him altogether. 

We moved into our new house and some months later dad came round to say goodbye as he was moving to a new home in a county over four hours drive away. As he turned to walk out the door my emotions got the better of me, tears welled up and I couldn't take it anymore. The bitterness that I'd lived with for years was too much to bear, I decided there and then to forgive him and to work at having a father/daughter relationship again. It wasn't easy and there are still times when I think about how different our lives could have been if we'd stayed together as a family but I try not to let those thoughts interfere with reality. Broken families are so normal that it's heartbreaking and my story is similar to so many. When feelings are hurt and lives are changed it can be easier to block out the emotions and ignore the problem but in my case it made me too sad. Life is too short to hold on to grudges and I feel much better having a relationship with my dad. In my case learning to forgive has been freeing.

My Own Path

Deciding to be an artist, to travel and to do things my own way has not been easy. When I was younger I thought I would do certain things by a certain age; mortgage by 28, child by 30. I didn't anticipate that I'd take a year out to study a Fine Art MA or that travel would make my heart sing so much that I'd go on two long backpacking trips. Mortgages and children take sacrifices and I was too busy enjoying the freedom of not having those things. But living life this way did make me question myself, no one else in my family had done this. Was I doing life the wrong way round? It seemed like adult life should follow a set route; marriage, a mortgage, then children, then once the mortgage was paid and the children had grown you could start enjoying yourself. But personally I was too impatient and worried that I wouldn't make it to retirement age, a little morbid but that's just how my brain works. What if I spent my life working and paying bills only to keel over before I got to see the world and enjoy pottering around? I had worried that I was being left behind in the life stakes, with friends and peers owning homes, having good careers and making family plans before me. But I came to the realisation that I wasn't doing anything wrong, neither were those living life the opposite way to me. With time I realised that we're all doing what we think is best for us, we all want different things out of life and we all have our own ideas about what makes a good life too. I'm moving into my thirties feeling happy and content with what I have achieved so far and excited for what's to come. 

Self-acceptance

Shyness, introversion and being overly sensitive. All me, and all things that I've found painful growing up. Being an INFJ personality type who is also shy and a bit socially awkward is something that I've beat myself up over in the past. I've told myself to try and be more outgoing, to go and start a conversation with that person, to 'get out of my shell'. But I like my shell, I like my own company and quiet moments to think and daydream. Rather than try and change my whole personality I decided to embrace it. Reading up on what introversion means and finding similar souls on social media has definitely helped. I will always be that shy freckled girl, hiding away at a party, letting everyone else talk. I will always be the listener, the quiet thinker who doesn't always feel comfortable in groups of three or more. That's alright, if you're happy with yourself even if you are a little different then brilliant, don't try and change. 

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Forgiveness, forging my own path and accepting myself. It feels like I have come a long way over the last decade and a bit of adulthood. As I'm a few days into a brand new decade I am going to take what I have learned and expand on them, with the hope that the older I get the more I can learn about the world and about myself too.

Any thoughts or comments are most welcome but please remember that I am a real person, putting my heart on my sleeve and speaking from my own experiences and learnings. My writing isn't perfect but I hope you can understand the gist of what I am trying to say and I'd love to know if you have any wisdom to share. Be kind, always. 

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Eternal Inspiration: The Royal Forest of Dean

Five Drawings From Claire Leach's 'Woodland Studies' Series Inspired By The Forest Of Dean 

In November last year my partner and I decided to mark 11 years together by taking a weekend trip to the Forest of Dean. Over two days we did three walks and took hundreds of photographs, the photographs and memories made in that short time have inspired a series of drawings that I am still in the process of making.

This wasn't my first trip to the forest however, it is a place that is so special to me that it is hard to describe. My mum and dad would take me to the Forest of Dean which sits close by the English/Welsh border when I was just a tot. On a visit when I was two we brought home a puppy springer spaniel named Valentine, my parents even looked at moving there permanently. When my parents separated when I was seven my dad continued to take me and my brother to the forest, alongside my step-family. We camped and took bike rides along the trails, my memories from visiting with my whole family became muddled with new memories with my step-family. Despite the emotional upheaval and the hurt I felt during a difficult time the forest remained the same. I could still remember the trees, solid and steadfast, magical and sometimes unnerving. The river still twisted through the land the same way, the rapids by Symonds Yat unchanged. The air smelled like coal smoke and leaf litter in decay, as it always did.

Ancient and Mystical Trees In The Forest Of Dean 

Ferns, Moss and Leaf Litter At The Forest Of Dean

In later years I visited the forest on my own. I'm not sure what it is about the place but whenever I return I feel like I'm home. It's quiet and inspirational, not just to me. J.K. Rowling grew up in a village just outside the Forest of Dean, it is said to have inspired the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts, not only that but Harry and Hermione camp in the Forest of Dean in the seventh book; The Deathly Hallows. J.R.R. Tolkien is also said to have based Middle-earth on the area in The Lord of the Rings. The enchanting quality that the forest possesses has seduced me and I can only imagine that as long as the trees are still standing that I'll continue to draw them. 

Is there a particular place in the world that you find very inspiring? Perhaps you've used somewhere that you have visited several times in your work, or maybe the place that inspires you most is right on your doorstep? Let me know in the comments below and tell me of any places that you think I'd be inspired by too. 

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I’m An Artist

What Makes Someone An Artist? 

“I’m an artist.”

It took me a really long time to own that sentence. I'm nearly 30, I have a BA degree and an MA degree both in Fine Art and yet I still cringed when people asked what I did; 'I work as a temp in an office, oh and I make drawings'. I thought that if I said 'I'm an artist' then they'd have an assumption about me, maybe that I was a bit pretentious or snobby or that I was pretending to be better than I am. This frame of mind may have something to do with my working class background. On my maternal side my nanny is a school caretaker, my grandad is a retired scaffolder turned chicken farmer. On my paternal side, my grandfather was a dairy farmer and my grandmother who died a decade before I was born was a homemaker as far as I know. My aunties and uncles are lorry drivers, cleaners, warehouse workers and grass cutters for the council. My mum works as a packer and my dad as a mechanic and workshop manager. All are jobs that are vital and keep the world ticking over but don’t involve an element of creativity.  Put bluntly, as far as I know no-one in my family is or was artistic. I have no idea where my appreciation of art comes from; I had no one teaching me how to draw when I was younger, no one took me to an art exhibition or encouraged me to follow an artistic path. In my family and in many others; art is not a necessity, it’s a past time, a hobby and being an artist is not useful. 

When I was little I went through the usual phases of wanting to be a variety of different things when I grew up. I wanted to be a teacher so I could write on the white board whenever I wanted, I liked the idea of being a vet because I loved animals so much, my dad was in the army and I was outdoorsy so I wanted to be a soldier at one time too. When I reached the end of school I decided to take A-Levels including ceramics and photography, not for any career prospects but because I hadn't studied them before and they sounded fun. Whilst studying my A-Levels I went to New York City as part of an art college trip and fell head over heels in love with everything I saw that was art related. The galleries in Chelsea, the artefacts and abstract expressionist paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and especially seeing Monet's Water Lily triptych in the MoMA. Hypnotised by the colours and scale of the painting I was entranced and suddenly knew that I wanted art to always be part of my life. After my A-Levels I did a year-long foundation degree at another local college where painting became my favoured medium of expression. Having relished the idea that with fine art you have free-reign to 'do whatever' I decided to do a BA in Fine Art. I wasn't the brightest in the group, nor the most talented. I didn't really know how to get the best grades either, I just experimented. I splattered paint and used charcoal, I focussed my efforts on the human form and then landscapes. I left university with a passion for drawing.

After a period of time working in non art related roles and travelling I returned to university to study an MA in Fine Art. I saved hard so that I could work on my art uninterrupted for a whole year with no uninspiring temp job getting in the way of my practice. My MA degree was an awakening, led by a tutor who believed that life will always trump art, I felt out of my depth intellectually but enjoyed being surrounded by difference. The course was made up of mostly Chinese students, with two Indian girls and a boy from Thailand who came to be my best friend on the course. I'd been to China and Thailand and I felt a sense of companionship with the international students. Artists visited and spoke to us; I realised that artists are just regular people who perhaps see the world in a different way and aren't afraid to put their way of seeing and thinking out into the world. My assumption that artists had to be a certain way was smashed. I'd thought that you had to be working on your art 24/7 to be a real artist or that you had to exhibit several times a year, or that by being an artist you were a serious sort of person. As time has gone on I've realised that all artists feel self doubt or anxiety at some stage or another about their work, all artists are human. I left the MA with more exhibiting experience and a little more confidence in myself. That was in 2014 and still despite the new qualification I was still a nervous artist, shrugging off my practice when anyone asked about it like it was no big deal. I didn't want to be made fun of, even though in reality my art was everything to me. I saved up and travelled again, for longer this time and had even more time to think about what art meant to me and what I wanted to do. I had to write my occupation on custom forms and I started writing 'artist'. It was the first time that I properly embraced it. I make drawings, I show people those drawings by posting them on social media and by exhibiting when I can even if it's not often. I think about my work all the time, every day. When I look up at a cloudy sky I see the work of Turner in my mind, when I write in my neat and precise way I think of Tracey Emin and how her handwriting in its scratchy and messy manner is so at odds with mine. 

I don't think that my BA or MA degrees in Fine Art are what gives me the right to call myself an artist, they are just qualifications I'm lucky to have because I was privileged enough to choose what I wanted to do at university. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud to have studied Fine Art for four years but you don’t need a qualification to be an artist. I call myself an artist because it is what’s in my heart, I identify with it. I see the world in an interesting way sometimes and I have a fierce passion for it. Art is everywhere. A paint splash on a wall can sing to me much more than an exhibition of Damien Hirst sculptures. I can't name you all the artists of the renaissance but I have studied the surface of a Cy Twombly painting until my eyes went fuzzy. My work doesn't sell out as soon as it hits my online shop but the process of creating the work gives me enough satisfaction and happiness without the association of money. So, what I'm trying to say in another 'classic Claire' rambling piece of writing is this; calling yourself an artist is your prerogative. It is not up to someone else to define you. If you like to draw then perhaps you are an artist. If you write poetry, dribble paint on canvas, create music or study the details of the human form in weekly life drawing classes then perhaps you are an artist. 

If art in any form speaks to you and you yourself create then perhaps you are an artist. If you think you are then own the phrase, tell people proudly when they ask and don't let other peoples preconceptions about what an artist is or does limit you and your thinking. Only recently have I learned to embrace the title ‘artist’ and feel brave enough to say ‘I’m an artist’ when asked what I do, it’s an uplifting feeling to acknowledge it, I only hope my bravery stays around and that my confidence only ever grows. 

So, what do you think? I was nervous writing this one, because I feel completely unqualified to tell people what it means to be an artist, it is different to a lot of people. But, this piece of writing is here to explain my story and how I came to embrace the title and I want you to feel confident embracing it too if it speaks to you. Let me know in the comments below if you call yourself an artist and if you've always felt comfortable doing so, perhaps you're someone who thinks like an artist but isn't brave enough to own the title yet, thats ok, I'd like to hear from you.

If you enjoyed reading then please click the heart at the bottom, share or better still leave me a comment, I love reading them. ❤️