Rita
Rita is a retired probation officer.
She took up watercolour painting after her husband Dave died in May 2018.
“One of things I miss most is that there’s nobody to do nothing with.
That’s really important in a long relationship.
A few months after Dave died, my friend introduced me to her art class. I went for something to do – a reason to get up, a reason to see my friend.
The people fascinated me as much as anything; women who are more middle class, unlike me and my friend. It wasn’t my natural social environment, so I had to be getting something out of it for myself which I started to do very quickly.
The teacher was very kind. She started at my level with a colour wheel and sketching with pencil and I really enjoyed it. I got nice feedback - that hooked me in.
I bought a small stack of pads, brushes, paints, pencils, and each week I would practice what I’d done in the class – sometimes successfully sometimes not.
For me it’s never been about producing something marvellous – though it’s wonderful if that happens – it’s much more about the process and how I feel when I’m doing it; it’s the time I can spend on it - that’s probably more important than producing a work of art.
It fills time in a way that feels productive. It’s not the same as sitting on the sofa with a bottle of wine watching Escape to the Country – that might be nice in the moment but then you feel shit about yourself!
“It relaxes me, I just focus on what I’m doing so am just being in the moment.”
It relaxes me, I just focus on what I’m doing so am just being in the moment.
I’ve got into painting small postcards. Very simple. And now whenever I need a card for a friend, I send them one of my homemade ones. People have got a lot of pleasure from them so that gives me a lot of satisfaction.
I’m aware of how much I’ve learned – not just from going to the class but doing it on my own and making mistakes and learning from other people as well. I’m impressed by how much I’ve improved.
I’ve tried to do a couple of portraits but they were absolutely shite – people are not my strong point. That’s not to say I couldn’t do something that relates to Dave - I think I just need to feel a bit more confident and express real emotion. Hopefully I’ll get there.
There’s a traditional view about the five stages of grief - the denial, anger, etc – like it’s a linear thing that everybody goes through – that has not been my experience. I heard someone say that model might be good for some people, but it’s far from this process that you go through and magically come out of the other end. I really identify with that.
People do stop talking about loss with you, which is fine - you can’t talk about it all the time and it wouldn’t do me any good to, but it’s interesting for me to revisit it at this stage in terms of making me think about where I’m at.
Now I’m talking about it I didn’t realise how much I do get out of it to be honest – it’s good.
Art is something I can do that I’m really proud of, but it also helps me fill that gap – that nobody to do nothing with gap.
To a certain extent.”
Written by Faye Dawson