art as a window

As a little girl I loved to paint.

I loved everything creative. I could immerse myself for hours and hours in silent play time. Something that I can now see served as a perfect distraction from the dysfunctional life around me. A life that was painful. A life filled with anger, fear and coldness that my pure soul just couldn’t make any sense of.

I think I stopped painting when I was around 7 years old and didn’t pick up a brush again until I was 28. For some reason on one particular rainy day after uni lectures when I was delaying returning home, something guided me into a small, independent art shop.

It was reminiscent of being a little girl in the stationary shop I adored visiting as a child. Looking in awe at everything around me. Seeing it all with a reverence that was practically holy. Everything was so beautiful to me. And expensive.

My adult self indulged the little girl inside me that day. I found myself buying a small tin of watercolour paints, brushes and paper and journeying home with two opposing voices in my head. One that was small and quiet, encouraging me to create and have fun. The other was harsh and critical and sounded uncannily like the my parents.

You can’t paint. What are you wasting money on this crap for? You’re not a child anymore. You need to grow up, Kayleigh.

What? Do you think you’re going to just put brush to paper and be any good? Seriosuly? You’re an idiot. What a waste of time and money.

Do you realise you should be paying back credit cards? You should be spending your money on sensible, practical things. Or not at all.

But that voice was slowly losing its grip over me. Following what felt good was beginning to become my normal. I was growing in confidence in myself and in life and I could definitely attribute starting university and spending more time out of the atmosphere at home with much of this.

Fast forward a few years to 2020, following a traumatic divorce, homelessness and distressing CPTSD symptoms. During that summer when the world shut down, once again a paintbrush found its way into my hard.

My paintings were childlike and I was embarrassed by them. But somewhere deep, deep inside of me, I was slowly coming alive again. I enjoyed painting. It was soothing to focus only on the colours, water and paper. It was immensely calming for my mind to spend hours with a brush in my hand, wondering nothing more than what colour next?

Sometimes that did feel overwhelming. There were moments that I remember looking at the big sheet of white paper in front of me and realising my creative mind was equally as blank. Sometimes I would set up to paint and then just tidy out all away again, anxious and already defeated into believing it would be a waste of expensive paper.

But sometimes an idea or word would come to mind. I would look up an image or photo on google, try to copy the shapes and risk ruining the pristine white sheet. Sometimes I would watch a YouTube video on techniques and how to mix colour but back then my mind really couldn’t retain any new information and trying to learn was just stressful.

So I just kept putting brush to colour and colour to paper. And after some time I found that I had a folder filled with these paintings.

It really wasn’t until I looked back at these over the following year that I began to notice something I had missed at the time. My paintings contained messages to be deciphered.

It’s so easy and clear to see how my deepest fears and emotions were finding an outlet through that brush. A voice that they didn’t otherwise have. And not just one of them, but all of them. The emotions I was deeply repressing were all screaming through the paper

One of those paintings is above. As I was painting it I didn’t really have a plan as to what I would paint. I started out with a kind of practical approach thinking that I’m not overflowing with talent and need to make this as easy on myself as possible.

I started with the idea of drawing a woman. A very childlike outline of woman, keeping shapes simple and avoiding necklines, hands, face, feet and detail. Because let’s be honest, those are tough for the newbie painter.

It went fairly well. I remember thinking that skin colour is very hard to mix and that I should try YouTubing that later.

Next I needed a background and from my recollection I just wanted simple shapes and use black to make the pink colour of her dress pop.

That’s it, right?

Nothing too deep about any of that, is there?

Well at the time I didn’t think so. Now? It’s so obvious to me what that painting actually is. It’s me. And not just me. But the dancer in me. Sitting crying in a beautiful, colourful stage dress completely devastated at the black and white world she found herself trapped in.

It was showing the little girl in me who longed to be a ballerina and dance gracefully on stage. The little girl who was told by her mother she was too fat to dance and it would only be a waste of money to pay for lessons.

You’re built like a baby elephant, Kayleigh. Ballerinas are thin.

Her mocking laugh still rings in my ears as does the sound of my heart breaking in that same moment. How those words, her lack of love and that laughter burned into me. And the older I grew the more I was convinced by those around me that if you didn’t start dancing when you were a child you would never be able to.

I remember at age 12, I had saved up my money from working hours after school and at weekends in my Dad’s very own hell’s kitchen - which at the time was a stingy £5 or on the rarest occasions £10 per week. I looked up the yellow pages and found a school called The Dance Bank.

Surely they must offer ballet lessons?

I was forbidden to use the telephone so instead I pulled out the map of the city (this is all before google maps or even internet phones were a thing, kids!) and spent hours trying to find the street name that was listed. I had only lived here for the past two years and I didn’t know many street names, except for those on the way to school and into the city centre, so this was a bit of a needle in a haystack.

But as with all things we truly want and pursue from the heart, I found it. And it was actually close to my high school, albeit in the opposite direction from home. It was right at the end of Fairies Road. Which all sounded rather magical to me.

So I cycled there. It wasn’t too far, just a 2.5 mile round trip. I wanted to ask how much lessons would cost me and when I could start. I was nervous as I had never done anything like this before. Going alone felt scary but I also knew I had no other option. My parents had made it clear they would only crush this dream of mine so if I was going to do this, I had to get a little Matilda about it.

Only, when I got to where the map said it should be I could only see a street filled with houses. I walked up and down that street over and over looking for this magical place called The Dance Bank. I guess I had expected a big beautiful sign with swirling letters. A place with a grand entrance and lots of beautiful dancers coming and going.

I did not see that.

What found me instead was an elderly couple who had watched me push my bike up and down that street for the past half hour or so. They came out of their house to ask if I was okay. I explained I was looking for a dancing school and they said they didn’t know of one but did point to this dark building with no windows and said there were often people coming and going from there during the week and that maybe this was why.

My heart sank. This couldn’t be my dance school, surely? I was looking at a grey concrete building that looked like it was boarded up from being smashed in by local thugs. There was even remnants of grafitti on the side and peeling paint on the wood. It felt like this street was a border between the nicer part of town and the scary part.

I turned back the way I came from and pushed my bike up the hill, feeling completly crushed with disappointment. It seemed I would never become a ballerina. How stupid of me to ever think that could happen.

Fast forward to my telling a friend about trying to find this dance school. They told me of a girl in our year who did ballet classes and that I should ask her. So I did. I still remember being terrified to approach her as this was a girl I had never spoken to before and in my experience people, especially girls, were mean. But my desire to dance was more powerful than my fear.

Long story short, she was a student at The Dance Bank and told me she was going after school to class. After looking at me in total disbelief that I wanted to learn ballet (which I hated, it made me feel stupid), she invited me to walk with them and speak to the teacher. So I did.

And yes it was the boarded up building I had found previously. And it was freezing cold inside and damp smelling. But I ignored that.

I still remember how the teacher looked at me in disbelief just as the girl from school had. She seemed irritated by my presence and said that usually parents called to ask about lessons. I froze. I wasn’t sure whether to lie or tell the truth.

I gambled on the latter and explained how I had always dreamed of being a dancer. Of how I had begged my mum to send me to classes only to be told I was too young, then after waiting past my 6th birthday I was told we were too poor (although they could afford gymnastics and swimming classes for my sister 💁‍♀️). I left out the baby elephant comment as I was too ashamed to repeat it.

I explained how I was made to work after school and at weekends and I had been saving up and thought I had enough money now. The woman told me that most of the girls in the class my age weren’t serious dancers but they just went because their parents paid for them to do something after school. None of them really wanted to be there.

This still brings me such distaste. Here I was desperate to learn and my parents wouldn’t risk spending a penny investing in me and yet these girls had parents who paid for their classes even when they didn’t want to go. How very unfair this seemed to my 12 year old self. How I wished these parents would have paid for me to learn and let their kids stay home.

The teacher told me it was unusual for someone my age to join and that either I could join the younger class (who were all 5-7 years old, or join my age group but they would be more advanced classes.

It would also cost £48.50 for 6 weeks.

And I needed a leotard, tights, slippers and pointe shoes.

I still remember the bill and it’s logo and paper of unusual texture. I still remember the months it took me to save up in exchange for it. I’m also quite certain that I still have it in a long forgotten dusty box somewhere. Along with my dance shoes.

I still remember walking the 3 mile round trip to the Arabesque dance shop to buy everything I needed. I was excited. I was so close to finally realising my dream and starting lessons. I had managed to find a school, save the money and this was the last step before I could begin classes. This was really happening! 7 years after I had first begged to be sent to classes I had made this happen despite my parents.

I remember the woman in the shop treating me with a coldness that I didn’t understand and made me turn inward. Years later when I watched Pretty Woman, the scene from Rodeo Drive reminded me to this experience.

Apparently it was unusual for an apparently too fat 12 year old child to come in to buy pointe shoes on her own. Which in all honesty, I guess it was, but it doesn’t explain her decision to make a young child feel so ashamed, rejected and worthless.

[I really feel I should try to find a photo of me at 12. I was not fat. Weight issues didn’t begin until I turned 14 and had mostly buried my hope of life improving any. And even then I never grew above a UK size 14 skirt and 12 top. Which I know is not relevant and I shouldn’t even be defending such an awful comment from anyone to a child. I could have been built like a whale and still should have been allowed the opportunity to pursue any dream. My 35 year old self knows this and yet I’m still typing a defence for an attack that is not justifiable 🙄]

I realise now, writing this, that so many moments growing up (such as the encounter with the shop assistant in Arabesque) are what led to me to really growing those seeds that my family planted in me. Seeds of belief like I was worthless. I didn’t matter. I shouldn’t try to do anything outside the box everyone had put me into. When adults outside your family start validating that there is something wrong with you rather than the situation you are in.

I did walk out of there with everything I needed after spending all of my hard saved money. I still remember the woman’s look of disgust at the many worn £5 notes and pound coins I gave to her in exchange.

Fast forward to my 6 lessons. I struggled. I struggled with the fact that classes started 10 minutes late and finished 5 minutes early when I had just given away all the money I worked so hard for in exchange. The whole class was only 50 minutes in total. I struggled with being the only one who didnt know anything. With feeling stupid. Feeling like I was an imposter there. Feeling like my mother was right.

But all of that I was actually coping with. And if that is all I had to cope with, I would have been dancing as long as I could continue to find the money somehow. How effortlessly I could stand and walk on pointe surprised everyone. A lifetime of walking on my tiptoes pretending to be a graceful ballerina had clearly paid off after all!

Only it wasn’t all I had to cope with. Every week I would walk home after class in the dark, in my thin shoes and jacket in freezing temperatures, gleefully happy that I was doing this. I wasn’t very good. I was scared I would never remember all the French names and their meaning. I was scared I was just putting myself through all of this for nothing. It certainly wasn’t the magical dance school of my dreams. But I was happy.

Right until I got home. And this time it was my father’s turn to mock me. As I walked into the kitchen I would get to hear his snide tone asking how my ballet class was. Show us your moves then. My sister would laugh along with him and I would go to my room and cry.

After 6 weeks of this and realising I didn’t have enough to pay for the next block, I just gave up. I gave in trying so hard to fight against the tide that was so intent on pulling me away from this dream. It was too strong.

No one believed in me.

So I stopped too.

This was a long way to getting to the point I initially set out to make. Which is that when we paint, or do anything creative, we can often think that it’s simple or meaningless, or just for practice. But just as all of our dreams offer a profound insight into our psyche, so does all of our art. Even the most basic of art.

We just have to look a little deeper.