How life can change – 24/11/2016 to 2020

This blog has focused on developing as an artist. There is sometimes some reference to what came before. Today on Facebook memories a post came up from four years ago which I can acknowledge shows just how far I have come in that time.

As a teacher for the last few years of my career when my mental health increasingly caused me more problems I became very open and honest and about it and blogged and shared my experiences with other sufferers and spoke at meetings / events too in order to make it less of a taboo and hidden subject.

This is that post:

In 2017 I made that decision to see if my art would sell because I had never tried to do that before. If you are a regular reader or seen the posts that mention my progress, the answer to that question was and is YES.

Yesterday the Prime Minister talked on television about what will be happening as we come out of our second lockdown in England. The key positive for me is that non essential shops in the tiers, we are likely to be in based on covid data, can reopen and not just that but from Wednesday 2nd December which means I can be back in the physical shop on that day meeting, greeting and …we will see. Yes covid regulations that we had before will still apply, but that’s fine. It is the being open again and in the lead up to the Christmas season that is most exciting.

Today is also day 2 of Indie Week for Just a Card. Today’s task was to do a design incorporating the Just for Card logo and also what “Shop independent” means to me as a ‘Sole Trader. So here are my design actually made in our first month of opening last year and my accompanying post on Instagram today.

So back to four years ago, am I in a better place mentally and life wise? Yes wholeheartedly.

Is my mental health solved as an issue? No, I still have dips sometimes for a variety of reasons and I even get to the point of feeling suicidal but I have friends I can talk to and I know which strategies help me to come out of it and my art for five years now has been one of those strategies.

Mental health is complex, I have suffered from depression since childhood in different forms, I have taken daily medication for almost 20 years. I live a much more positive life now and my art brings me therapy and pleasure, if that ever changed then I would have to consider whether I need to stop doing it, but I know that flexibility helps me.

If you have read the whole of this post, thank you. Not a topic that always makes happy reading.

Andy

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