It's Movember

It’s November. And it’s Movember.

Movember raises awareness and research funds for various health issues which affect men, including testicular cancer and prostate cancer.

But it also supports men who are experiencing mental health issues, and this is the area where I have a bit of experience.

In the few years I’ve been making art, a few pieces of advice stick out:

Tell your story

Make art about what fascinates you

Step outside your comfort zone

Don’t wait until you’re ready

Embrace imperfection

Make art even if it’s bad

Be honest

Do what scares you

This is all of those things.

This is about me and my Dad. I lived with him for the first 16 years of my life, but barely knew him. He had mental health issues and his way of coping was to withdraw from family life and lose himself in alcohol.

This had a massive impact on the whole family, but all I can do is try to tell my story. And art seems a good a way as any to do it. It will be difficult and long and emotional and messy, but after 30 years of putting it off, I think it’s time to try.

I’m probably going to go on about it a lot for a long time and repeat myself, so apologies in advance. But if you’d like to see what happens, please do stick around. If I can help somebody in a similar situation know they’re not alone, it will all be worthwhile.

And of course as it’s Movember, I’m going to try and grow a mo. If you want to support me in this daring endeavour and donate, I believe there is a link in my bio, or just hop on over to the Movember website, search for my name, and I should come up.

I’ll stop babbling on for now, but before I go, I should leave some art behind. Weirdly, this is one of the most difficult bits for me as a realist painter who is lost without a reference. But here’s one of my first fumbling attempts to paint my Dad as I imagine he spent most of his days - in a pub with a beer and a book.