Right from my earliest, earliest childhood, painting and drawing was my thing and at 16 I left school and went to art college, first at Lincoln and then to Nottingham. Although the set up at Nottingham could hardly have been more free and unrestrictive, nevertheless I began to feel somewhat stifled by my sense of what I thought people around me might be expecting of my creative endeavours.
It was actually with a sense of freedom and creative release that I left art college into the mass unemployment of the 1980s. I sought to gain a sense of creative direction whilst mostly unemployed. After moving to London, by some bizarre quirk of fate, I had ended up as an MOD civil servant supposedly meant to be an accountant!
I stuck that for about two years, saved all I could, then left and converted a room at my mothers house in Lincolnshire, miles away from anywhere, into a studio and for four years painted there. The idea of actually trying to make a genuine living from this wasn’t really my focus. Whenever I produced something which expressed what I was trying to get at, instinctively I just wanted to keep it for myself and I never felt much urge to show people my work. For me it was an attempt to find some sort of creative and expressive truthfulness, though I did do some shows and made some sales. It seemed however, that every discovery, every insight and every improvement made was followed shortly afterward by more frustrations and creative difficulties. Like a labyrinth with no exit.
After four years I didn’t really feel I was getting as close to that creative and expressive truthfulness as I had hoped. In fact I felt somewhat broken. Also, I reflected upon the fact that I had spent four years of my twenties, with no social life, friends or relationships. Was I becoming like my father who had spent decades banging away on his typewriter all day and everyday producing novels that never got published and I concluded I didn’t want that..
So I moved to Sheffield. Since over the years of painting, I had explored all sorts of styles and approaches, I had acquired a good degree of technical skill, particularly in what might be called ‘traditional’ painting styles. I advertised for commissions for producing copies and portraits and I got plenty of this work, though mostly I found it drudgery. The people I painted pictures for were always happy but I found it generally uninspiring. My earliest ambition had been to draw for my favourite comic The Beano, I was commissioned once to paint a portrait of the wife of the owner of The Beano, so perhaps I did achieve my goal. By and by I was also getting more and more work coaching fencing and there really wasn’t the time for painting. Painting is still with me as an unfinished endeavour and I know I will return to it, but you can’t go about it with half measures, you have to dive deep.
I have probably thousands of paintings and drawings stacked up at home, here is a selection. If you click on any, they will open in a separate tab.
Anphortas 