Fortune Favours the Brave

Ten years ago I quit my job to become a full-time artist. It was terrifying, but I knew if I didn’t ever fully commit, I’d always lean on a safety net and never give it 100%.

Since graduating art college in 2008, I’d worked seven days a week (one full-time with an art charity and two part-time jobs) just to pay bills and make art. From 2002 to 2018, I was almost always broke. Many times, I ran on fumes, surviving off the sale of a single painting to buy food and time.

Quitting my job was the turning point. The pressure forced me to focus and step up as the artist I wanted to be but damn, it was scary! A solo exhibition in late 2016 was my first real breakthrough, almost two years after quitting my ‘real’ jobs. And then 2017 nearly crushed me with only one painting sale. But by 2018/19, everything started to change. Would I recommend this? It’s a huge gamble and often extremely uncomfortable, but if you can find a way to endure it, then yes I do. Sometimes you have to risk it all… and that’s when things start to happen.