Studio Notes

On becoming a painter

19.08.26

I wonder what it means to be a creative. What is the difference between being creative and being a painter. I don’t need to philosophise this. But I want to know when I’ve crossed the threshold. When am I, A Painter. When I stop making illustrations or films or bread on the weekend? Or can I be a painter who can also does other things. Its unclear.

I did begin painting in Winter. I continued into spring. Spring into Summer, and now Autumn looms on the horizon and I continue to paint. I, therefore, am willing to call myself a painter.

So now I’ve established that. I am Sophie May. I am a painter. I paint in oils and I am endlessly transfixed by taps and sinks and baths. Tiles and striped dishcloths. Old worn things. Stories in objects. Peoples spaces without the people. I want to see the good in the world. I want to focus on the beauty in the mundane and I want to be grateful for it all. I know I will never be finished and that’s wonderful. Wonderful because there will always be new moments to cherish. I’ll paint and paint and paint and try to capture it all and I really hope it continues to run away and illude me and challenge me. Life will have moments of darkness and the search will be harder or the vision clouded. But that is life. Even then I hope I can document and remember through image and tone. Memories in colour and paint are physical. What a gift to make something in a moment that can transcend time and be held in years to come. A physical relic of a time gone by.

I am so lucky to paint. I feel lucky. I wonder why it has taken me so long to find my voice in paint and pigment. Perhaps the permeance, perhaps the slightly regal gravitas that oil paintings hold. Perhaps. It is a challenge I am keen to live up to. To paint up to. To know the feeling of the painters before me and why they couldn’t stop. It’s clearly a way of life and a life I am just at the threshold of. I think of Vanessa Bell and David Hockney and Georgia O’Keefe and know I can share in the magic with them if I paint. So I will continue to paint.