From Stethoscope to Studio

Welcome to my first ever blog post!

I still work as a GP. I see patients every week. And somehow, in the spaces between consultations, I've built a life around paint and canvas and the quiet intensity of making something from nothing. People often ask how those two worlds fit together. The truth is, they're not as different as you might think.

A long, slow beginning

Creativity has been with me for a long time, quietly changing shape. As a teenager, I wrote and still do, words in poetry nourish my soul. I also started to draw (crudely).

As a young mum, I dabbled in watercolour and then picked up acrylics as well as textural elements. In my forties I found oils, and with them the depth and richness I'd been reaching for, all along.

What medicine taught me about seeing

Medicine teaches you to really see people. Behind every appointment is a whole life: joy and grief, courage and fear. Over the years I've sat with people on some of their best days and many of their hardest, and you learn to notice the small things that say the most.

That way of seeing has followed me into the studio. When I paint a whale moving through a forest, or a mother holding her child, I'm painting what I see in the consulting room every week: connection in our world, connection between each other, spirituality, tenderness, and the quiet strength people carry. I am also reaching to painting the beauty and grace I see in our natural world and how we belong in it.

Where the two worlds meet

Some of my paintings hang in my medical practice now, and patients often tell me they bring a sense of calm to the waiting room. I've also run art classes for patients using simple techniques including gelli printing and neurographic art, a simple, flowing style of drawing that can be surprisingly healing. Watching someone relax into the page, and leave a little lighter than they arrived, has been one of the great joys of my working life.

Taking it seriously

For years, painting was something I did around the edges of everything else. Slowly, I realised it had become more than a hobby. It had become the way I make sense of the world. Joining the Milan Art Mastery Progam and community was a turning point. Completing the Mastery Program and learning new techniques and being challenged to grow, changed how I paint and how I think about my work.

Two ways of caring

For twenty years I've helped people heal their bodies. Now I hope my paintings can help heal their souls. I don't think I'll ever have to choose between the two. Each one makes me better at the other: medicine keeps me close to what matters to people, and painting gives me a place to hold it.

If you'd like to see where that has led, you're welcome to wander through the collections. And if a painting speaks to you, I'd love to hear why.

Dr Trish.