In retirement, it’s the first time I’ve had a career plan. It’s ten years this year since I left paid work. It was as easy as taking off a coat that had got too hot, too heavy and too scratchy. In short, it was a relief. I knew I wanted to be an artist when I retired. I didn’t want to ‘do some art’ – I wanted to retrain and become an artist. It took longer that I’d anticipated to start – I was very tired when I left paid work, and I also had my life-partner’s long illness and subsequent death to recover from.
Five years on from starting, I’ve just had a big solo show in a good gallery in the middle of Edinburgh. I’m proud of myself! It was satisfying recently to take out my old business cards from a little business card-sized plastic box and put my new cards in, saying “Rachael Dixey – Artist”.
How did I get there? On a three day painting course back in 2019, where I was very obviously out of my depth, the tutor, a very good artist, gave me two pieces of great advice. Firstly, don’t run before you can walk, and secondly, go away and learn how to draw. I was someone who felt they ‘couldn’t draw’ but was hoping I somehow might be able to do art without it. Wrong. She recommended the Portfolio course at Bridge House Art School in Ullapool, a long way from where I live in North Yorkshire. But I applied, passed the in-person interview and then sat down to wait till the course started. This was March 2020, a week before lockdown, so I waited anxiously to know if the course would run. I’d found what I really wanted, and suddenly it was in jeopardy. However, it did run and I found myself up in the Highlands for five months over a gloriously snowy but sunny Scottish winter.
The Portfolio course was transformational. Designed to provide a portfolio for subsequent applications to art schools, it taught me to draw, to paint and to carry out an individual project. I chose to focus on painting people. Back in Yorkshire, I applied to Harrogate College to their Foundation course in Art and Design. It was a stimulating year, fitting in with a class of 17-18 year olds, their education disrupted by Covid, and here I was, the only older student, a late-sixties someone who, as an ex-Professor was very used to academic work. I now had to keep a ‘reflective journal’, something I’d never done before but had inflicted on countless students myself. I was enthusiastic to go in each day to class just to see what the youngsters would get up to. They were fun; it gave me an insight into the challenges and issues facing that generation of budding creatives, and was the first time I’d been in a role with that age group that wasn’t as a tutor, parent or grandparent. My Final Major Project was an observational study in paint of how young people of that age sit…
Although it was a broadening experience, Foundation courses these days are not that concerned with ‘Fine Art” and painting. After a year off from courses, I decided to go to Edinburgh for a year and further my skills. Why Edinburgh, and not say, Leeds? Well, I couldn’t face the commute that I’d done for 25 years, and also I didn’t want an academic course. In Edinburgh there are lots of opportunities in small art schools and also I like the challenge of living temporarily in new places. I became a lodger for the first time in my 70th year, swapping a five bedroom family home for a tiny bedroom where I could sit with my back on one wall and touch the far wall with my outstretched legs. I did have the run of the whole house and I enjoyed being in a shared space. My landlady has become a friend and the other much younger lodgers were a delight.
Edinburgh was a novelty after our small village with no services except a train line. Two days a week I drove to a wonderful art school 11 miles along the coast, Paintbox Art in Cockenzie, one day a week I took a course in Figure work in Edinburgh and one day a week I travelled out to community farm run by the Cyrenians charity. I’d negotiated with them to be a kind of artist in residence. How it worked out was that when I was there, I’d do the work alongside everyone else – weeding, planting etc. It’s a market garden and Green Skills Centre, taking youngsters who should be in school but for various reasons aren’t. Then when I wasn’t there, all my art work was about the farm. The farm became my ‘happy place’, somewhere where all are accepted just as they are, many with difficult pasts, a green space to forget tough lives for a while.
At the weekends, I explored. I didn’t go home as much as I thought I would, instead falling in love with Edinburgh. After my year, I returned home but carried on travelling up to the farm once a month, which I did for over 18 months.
I drew the buildings, the flowers, the people. Hence my exhibition was called “People, Plants and Polytunnels: An Artist at the Cyrenians Farm”. Now that I’m a month or so on from the exhibition, I’m just beginning to relax. There were times when I knew I’d bitten off too much. It felt like a huge pressure to produce work that was good enough to satisfy the art community, the farm community, my family, friends… and also to raise money – it was a fund-raiser after all. In the end, it was more than fine; the exhibition is one of the highlights of my life. It went as well as I could ever have dared to hope. I sold 20 paintings and then some – prints, drawings, photographs. It’s given me a huge confidence boost and I do now feel I can call myself an artist. It’s funny that I only now feel I’ve found ‘my tribe’ – something I never really felt at work.
One of the reasons I wanted to pursue art in retirement was because I was firmly prevented from doing Art ‘A’ level all those years ago as it ‘doesn’t lead you anywhere’. The other, main, reason was that I wanted to make my life as rich as possible. You don’t know how many years you’ve got, what quantity of life lays ahead, so I wanted to stretch it out by increasing the quality, the depth of life. Learning to draw makes you look at things, really look. An artist’s gaze is forensic, and I can get huge enjoyment from sitting in the same spot for a very long time. I also did not want any responsibility in retirement; I wanted the freedom of being a beginner, to go from being at the top of my game in my profession to a blank sheet (literally!) where I knew little. I’m happy out of my comfort zone – it’s the only way to learn and grow.
Five years in I can no longer say I’m a novice. I’ve developed a lot of technical skills and understanding. People look at my work sometimes and say “ooh aren’t you talented!” And I want to say, well, I’ve put in a lot of hard work and I practice, practice, practice. Ten thousand hours, sticking at it. Treating it like work, not a hobby. Art has not only given me a ‘tribe’ but also a sense of purpose, intellectual stimulation – art history is an endless journey – and a sense of achievement. It’s not always easy – I had no idea that being creative was such an emotional rollercoaster – but when it goes well, it’s amazing. It’s so different from my profession (in public health) where you had to justify everything you did, back it up with evidence etc etc. Now I can operate at an emotional level, doing what I feel like: it’s given me a real insight into the lives of ‘creatives’. I’m happy. It’s what you should be in ‘retirement’