How finding home on the canals restored art's meaning for me

“I want to run away with the circus!”. My eight year old self's precocious reply to what I wanted to do when I grew up. I felt fully qualified as I loved being outside and had designed a really cool poster for the Big Top, alongside the Big Top itself of course. Never mind what I was going to do, that list was endless. I knew exactly who I wanted to be when I grew up. It was who I was right then, just with a big, open horizon.

But I was not immune to societal pressures. As I grew up I started to believe living independently by creative means from a transient home was a naive dream and I tried to have normal jobs, a normal relationship and a normal flat. I was terrible at all of it, broke and very depressed, although I didn't know it at the time. There are gentler ways to do what I did next, this is not advice by any means, but it is the story of how it went for me.

Sensing the first inklings of home. My route to the canals.

The decade that followed is a tale for another time, but in brief I hit a rock bottom, took an impulsive and life affirming solo trip to Kiev's Balkan Fest in 2008, felt transcendentally euphoric, returned, quit my job then the country, worked as a travelling European tour guide, lived all over and started to meet my tribe. I did not have a plan but I was starting to feel again.

One day, down to my last fiver, I needed a job and somewhere to live asap. The universe and it's strange nudges at crucial moments is also a story for another time, but when I applied with no experience to the urgent “liveaboard canal boat crew needed” advert, against all logic I felt I would be going to that boat. Three days later, I did.

I am forever grateful to James Scowen for being the best boss, teacher, friend and skipper I could have asked for. James and Tranquil Rose introduced me to canal life, and it was a revelation. I felt right at home. After two years on the boat, with the help of savings from the job, inheritance from my Grandma and local knowledge from more-family-than-friend boater Big Phil, I bought my first boat on Christmas Eve 2018, Bluebell, a 32’ Springer.

My first boat, Bluebell a 32' Springer

Feeling the fear! The stark reality of dreams come true.

Christmas morning, the euphoria faded as I woke up to reality. What had I done?! I'd wanted to be truly independent, and I'd got exactly what I'd asked for. I had been wild and reckless in what I'd wished for, and as the dust settled, I had no idea what to do with it.

The same was true of my art. In my late twenties my work was accepted by a small gallery in London, and I had some success with individual pieces shown in larger group shows. At first I was overjoyed, but the dark sense that there had been a big mistake and I would soon be exposed started to creep in, until it was all consuming. I didn't dare create out of curiosity as I had done in the privacy of complete anonymity. I didn't know who I was, and all I created were attempts to cover what I was sure was the awful truth. I had absolutely nothing to say of value and was not a real artist.

Creating art whilst travelling in France

Being real. When life leaves no space for imposter syndrome.

Living on the boat made it impossible to continue like this. There wasn't time! I had to learn fast, I made enormous mistakes, swallowed my pride more often than I wanted to and made my life harder by refusing to do so more often than I wish I had. But I discovered I could cope. I had to give up on perfectionism. The first time I fixed a problem on my engine and got up and running under my own steam, I felt like I'd broken through a barrier. I realised the impossible dream had been granted, and I started to believe I might be up to it. I also started to see it wasn't that big a deal if I wasn't up to it, so I may as well try! In short, I had to get over myself.

A few things happened during this time. I gave up alcohol, and the loss of an incredibly inspiring person also presented a stark choice. We are here in this imperfect world. All we know is now, there is nothing to lose. Are we doing this, or not? I still try to remember the challenge on her part every day. It was a turbulent ride, but with nowhere left to hide, I couldn't avoid whoever I might be anymore, and stopped trying to work it out. I was also exhausted. I would just be, and that was that. Anyway, within the boating community that I was becoming ever more at home in, no one batted an eyelid at whoever I might naturally be. I was encouraged, but never seen as unrealistic. Everyone was on their own, personal missions. This was new!

The art (and joy) of letting go: challenges start to taste like freedom.

By this time I had let my artwork fall by the wayside, which in hindsight I am glad about. It was now becoming more natural to not overthink, and be honest with myself. To my great joy, the desire to create started to creep back. I could feel it again now that the terror of being exposed had eased and I was already seen. I started to draw and paint anew out of curiosity without pressure. I was also broke and couldn't afford to go out, so I got lost in my interior world as I used to. I felt no imposter syndrome in what I was doing, it didn't need to fulfill any criteria, it was just what I was doing.

Symbolist mural I created near Olympic Park, London

Coincidence or not, the moment I gave up trying to meet expectations, something strange happened. I had given up in a way, I was constantly broke and broken down in some form but I was starting to feel curiously joyful. Life was not perfect and a bit of a mess but I was steering it, and I was painting. I didn't care if it was perfect, I suddenly saw that it probably never would be. I was starting to feel alive. Swiftly following this, I had a well paid enquiry. It went well and another followed. To my amazement, the work snowballed faster than I could notice what was happening, and I was doing it. Mural work kept coming and I was working creatively on projects I couldn't wait to get to, living on my imperfect boat, walking around wide eyed and open mouthed, feeling the wonder of my eight year old self at 44. I still am.

The other side of the coin. Practicalities of being an artist afloat.

As astounded as I am that I truly am living my dream, the practical challenges are a healthy reminder that nothing comes for free. Nor should it. You just need to be paying in the currency you don't mind parting with! I love painting huge canvas, which presents an interesting challenge living in a 9m² space! But necessity is the mother of strapping canvas to the ceiling, making outdoor painting set ups in the jankiest of tow path settings and almost jacking it all in one freezing February 5am, out of coal, gas, battery, money and motivation on the way to my shift at the bacon factory. I am vegetarian, but there was ice inside the windows.

Yet here I still am. As I challenged myself, “go on then. Get a normal job, rent a flat”, I already knew I wasn't going to. I hadn't come all this way for nothing, and the peace that occasionally descended from not thinking, just being, made almost anything worth it. I had spent over two decades not feeling or knowing myself, and now I had rediscovered the flip side I didn't want to go back. This applies to anyone. Not canal life per se, but any life that really makes sense to you.

My practice today - following curiosity and accepting imperfection.

Today, I am excited about my work. I love art that connects with viewers in a direct way, removing barriers that traditional gallery settings can present. I also love well hung, creative galleries! But I have taken huge enjoyment in creating large murals all over the country, meeting folks from different walks of life and becoming invested in the stories behind the pieces.

My work on canvas has evolved too, and the nature, community and dialogue of the canals is as inseparable now from my work as it is from daily life. Living as a solo, female boater as a continuous cruiser is absolutely possible (and provides wonderful entertainment to the Camden lock drinkers as you miss the bollard with the rope for the fifth time in a downpour), but it challenges some deep set attitudes, especially when you like to take responsibility for your engine and fix it yourself. The Huntress lives somewhere within this idea, but not exclusively. She relates to the meaning we invest in symbols, snap assumptions, what defines a hunter. I enjoy her as I didn't have any particular intentions when I started painting her, I just knew she was a figure in my mind, without fulfilling any self imposed obligations. And all this is set among the nature that boaters find themselves in, even in city centres.

Me on my current boat

There's a creative party, and this is your invitation!

Creating vs producing transcends simply making a “good” painting. By taking the pressure off, I have rediscovered the joy in painting, I am less serious. I have stopped trying to paint The Best Painting In The World, loads of people are trying to do that, leave them to it! Meanwhile, go on your own personal adventure. It is entirely free of any guarantee, every second will be new, it will be nerve wracking and it can provoke occasional alarming flashes of pure, transcendent, unadulterated joy when least prepared. And very occasionally moments of peace. The rest will be the maelstrom of chaos that is the world we live in, but within that there is magic.

Finding my way to be in the world has given art back its meaning for me. We don't need to decide the point, the challenge is not dismissing our true selves, and then going for it like life depends on it. Because it does. For every single challenge my choices have presented me, I am grateful. Creating on the cut (as boat folk call the canal) is not the answer for everyone, but existing authentically, creating whatever comes naturally, letting go of the illusion of control…there is joy hidden here.

From this former cynic to you, I tell you, there is magic still in this troubled world, and we need it, not despite the horrors of the planet but often because of them. If that seems ludicrous because life feels excruciating, pressured, messy and as far from a creative paradise as you can get, then you appear to be on the very same path as this old skeptic! It is wild, uncertain and dangerous out there. But it is alive and free. Comfortable it is not, but the flip side is that rare treasure worth its weight in gold - something real.

Your path will not be the same as mine, but if you listen closely, and sometimes it's as simple as rejecting what you know isn't right, you may be amazed at what floods the void. This is a communal magic, this type of creating, and there is infinite space for everyone. If you're not sure what that is for you, go ask your eight year old self, they know better than you may think. I hope to meet you there!