Artwork
copyright Alison Hale
I remember being in year 3 at school and daydreaming about becoming a scientist, preferably an astrophysicist. On this particular occasion it dawned on me that this would be impossible for someone like me whose literacy and maths skills were virtually non-existent. At this point I resolved, given my good drawing skills, to become an artist. My reasoning was that an artist would never, at any time, need to read, write or do maths!
Throughout my childhood and teenage years my escape from the traumas of everyday life was drawing, designing/building things and solving logic/maths puzzles. I was free to create whatever I liked and was pretty good at it! In this creative headspace I found freedom and a deep sense peace. Somehow it enabled me to bring some focus to my chaotic, daydreaming and overly imaginative mind.
These days I have little time to draw or paint; it is something I have not done since becoming a scientist! I do not even draw cartoon characters anymore - such as the scared fish! Yet as part of my science research I often need to design websites to display information in a pictorial manner to aid interpretation of data/results; for this graphic design work my artistic eye is extremely helpful. So, in this sense I managed to combine both of my ambitions!
Maybe one day I will sketch and paint again? In the meantime here are a few samples of my paintings and drawings.
...the owls are in reverse chronological order: far left, recent doodle on my tablet; far right, sketched when I was a young teenager.