Happy Little Trees

This isn't work. Or, at least, it didn't start out that way.

I think most everyone has had their own individual experience of lockdown. Lots of nonsense about the "new normal", many using it to reinforce their own particular bias regarding remote over office working being the future.

I suspect it's not as simple as one or the other; and that each individual will have their own needs, perhaps changed forever with the lockdown, or as much desire to return to the office to seek whatever passes for human interaction.

And this article isn't about that either. It's about a different journey.

In between all of the challenges of business experienced when lockdown hit, across several company boards, I felt that same desire for release that most felt. Work had become home, home had become work, and balance had become impossible.

Let's stop and count blessings a moment - there was (is) terrible human suffering going on and I think anyone who wasn't directly impacted can count themselves fortunate. I certainly count myself as that, and any indirect sufferance really isn't much of anything for me to worry about. We are lucky, and lucky too to have the opportunity to use that time to seek other interests.

I couldn't simply release through exercise - a few too many knee issues to keep up the running, so I'm now a Peloton convert, chasing the next goal most days. But that, in itself, wasn't the release I needed.

And there's only so many answers at the bottom of a bottle of vodka, albeit a few amusing ones over the years.

I'd been watching the Joy of Painting for a while. It was mainly to send me to sleep (the dulcet tones of Bob Ross being the only help I needed). But I also started to listen; Bob encouraging me (and, I suppose, millions of others) that "anyone could do this". Mind you, Bob said a lot of stuff. Stuff about "Happy Little Trees" and "beating the devil out of it" (his brush, if you need to know). I don't quite subscribe to all of it...

Earlier in the year, my family had bought me a ton of artist gear. Mainly starter stuff.

And we had a fairly unused pavilion in the garden. So, what the hell.

May 2020, the lockdown had pretty much taken hold. Everyone has their own story and this is mine; I set out to prove that Bob Ross was right. Anyone could do this; even me.

Right? Er...

No.

The first results weren't exactly encouraging, unless Bob meant "anyone can paint like a 5 year old". Having never painted on canvas before, or, frankly, having a damn clue which way round to hold a paint brush or a palette knife, or knowing how to thin oil paints or, well, anything else, it's probably a small miracle that it only looked this awful. And man, was it awful.

I'm not even sure that was my first painting. I still think this one was my first painting:

I look at it now and cringe. It was, frankly, ridiculous to believe Bob - that anyone can do this. No, a sausage-fingered, middle aged bloke with the artistic talent of a 5 year old could NOT do this. You can have all the gear, you can have all the online videos you want, but this? This was a goddamn mess.

I don't suppose normal people start cursing out Bob Ross on an old video, so let's not go into all the words I used to express my frustration; fairly easy to guess that I thought Bob was mainly talking nonsense (albeit, in a very pleasant way) about anyone being able to do this from the flowery language I employed.

I could NOT do this. I found it irritating and I found it f'ing stupid, and I found it ... you get the picture... and what a messy picture it was.

Something, though, had taken hold. I don't know why, perhaps it was the blind encouragement of those around me, but I kept going and going... and going.

Across a whole range of businesses, there were challenges. We all hunkered down during the day, all seeking new plans and new ways out of what was an extraordinary time. There's a responsibility I hold across a number of boards, and there was much time dedicated to ensuring that all those businesses, with employees in abundance, were as well position to meet the challenges ahead as possible.

So this was release, and it became a nightly ritual. I didn't binge TV, I binged on oil paints and fan brushes and liners and odourless paint thinner (not literally, I still had the scotch to binge on too, just in case).

Out of the first lockdown, I discovered the local art shop. Then I discovered the local art group. And over on Instagram, I found that there was a whole movement, hidden from my view in the last decade, that also adored the Bob Ross way. It's not just the technique; it's not just that his programs are utterly absorbing. It's the belief he extols, the pure joy that he reflects in what he does. I know some happy people, but bloody hell - his whole world was constant joy. It wasn't just art - it was magic.

And, for the first time in a long time, coming from such a low base of ability, from such an inept place: I kept going. I posted on Instagram. A friend said to me that she was surprised that I'd put myself out there like that. I took that to mean that my usual position, confident in my own ability, was clearly not the position I could take as an "artist" (I use the word loosely). For I was actually quite shit at this.

Even that, though, spurred me on.

May 2021. 12 months later.

I've started to sell paintings most every week. I've even been commissioned to do a handful of paintings. Canvases hang on the walls of friends, family and strangers - across the UK, even in the US (although I hadn't realised how much it costs to send a canvas to the US, so might have to put my prices up...). The one above was bought by some fellow for his wife, and he asked me to write a note, explaining something about it. It was the easiest, most natural thing I've ever written.

Compared to what I see on Instagram, I'm on a journey without end; I doubt I'll ever be that good. But it doesn't actually matter. To have this comparison, something that is almost unrecognisable to where I started, is enough. I'm not deluded, I'll never be a proper artist, or even an average one. But I'm a happy one*, and that is all that remotely matters.

(* I occasionally do throw away canvases in a fit of frustration and I might swear regularly when the brush doesn't do what I thought it might do, or the paint doesn't stick as I meant for it to, but deep down, I'm sure I'm happy...)

I'm getting on a bit now. I passed the big 5-0 during the last lockdown. I might not run forever. I might not ride forever. I won't always play tennis and I won't always kick a football (I don't think I've kicked a football since I gave up coaching a few years ago, thinking about it...). I can barely lift my own bodyweight now anyway, so I won't have that forever either. One day I'll retire and I won't even have a spreadsheet or a cap table or (say it quietly) an obsession for Salesforce. I doubt I'll ever write that book (though I once had one hell of a title and a half decent idea) and my piano playing days are well behind me (and should be left there).

But now - I'll always have the joy of painting. I've been looking for magic all of my life. It turns out, it was always in my hands.

(oh, and if you want to buy a painting... https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/BarcelonaSmith - the story of the name can wait for another day)