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Portrait Of An Artist.
‘Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.’
– Kurt Vonnegut
Boundaries
10 March 2025
I sit down and breathe in deeply. I’m losing contact with myself. I’m out of my comfort zone, perched on the edge of a hospital bed, waiting for surgery. I’m trying to remember the words of a poem that I wanted to use as a mantra to calm myself down. I have them in my book in the bag across the room, but I want to use the act of memory to anchor me into the moment, put me back in control.
The words of the poem start to come back to me:
‘Defining myself is like confining myself
So I undefined myself
To find myself.’
Eight months of caution have led to this moment. Eight months of watching how I lift, how I carry my equipment. Eight months of negation - not able to ride my bike, not able to fully move through the world in the way I need to. My mental health has suffered.
And yet, here I am, finally at the threshold of resolution, of healing. But I don’t like hospitals. They make me extremely nervous. I had a plan to counteract this: to memorise a poem, to use it as a mantra - to give myself a spur to counteract my anxiety.
I feel like a failure when I reach for the book - but it’s no consolation as my eyes keep tumbling over and through the words. My anxiety is spiralling.
And whilst I sit and try to ground myself, consultants, nurses, assistants come and go.
I keep telling myself the worst: What will they find during surgery? What about all those risks they rattled off at the pre-op? Will I survive the general anaesthetic? Will I be in chronic pain forever? Will I ever ride or run again? Will I ever drive the van over long distances?
I’m sick of thinking this way. The old me - rigid, fearful - keeps creeping back, clinging to the impermeable boundaries I’ve spent years trying to dissolve. Boundaries that tell me that I’m not capable. That I am defined by limits that I have no control over.
A nurse clamps something to my arm and tells me that my blood pressure is high.
I sit back. Try to remember more of the words.
‘They say a goldfish will only get as big as its bowl.’
Then, instinctively, I reach into my bag. My fingers graze the edge of my sketchbook. It’s such a comforting feeling - that first touch tingles because of the depth of its meaning. Should I? Am I allowed to? I hesitate, afraid of looking foolish. But something in me kicks back. I pull it out, and I begin to sketch. It loosens up my memory…
‘But when you put it in a tank, the space can change the way it grows..’
Then something incredible happens. I forget myself entirely. My boundaries dissolve into the space around me. I am no longer a patient waiting for surgery - I am an artist, moving through form and shadow, capturing values, textures, lines. My mind is not trapped within anxious loops - it is wandering freely, tethered only to the act of seeing, of translating what I see into marks on a page. I am free.
The nurse returns. She straps the cuff around my arm again. My blood pressure is lower.
She smiles. I smile back.
“Looks like we’re ready, then.”
She walks out, I put my sketchbook back into my bag, put on my dressing gown, stand and face the door.
‘I ponder if it knows that it could grow beyond the bowl
That it could have a pond the size of an Olympic swimming pool
That the world is so much larger than the boundaries that it’s known
Somehow I empathize with this little golden soul..’
Sketchbook Tour
Watercolour Sketchbook Book One (Part Two)
I’ve finished the second phase of my watercolour sketchbook and I’d love to share it (and its impact it has had upon me) with you. It’s part two (the other side) of my concertina sketchbook - you can see part one here.
My sketchbooks are priceless- not in pounds or dollars, but in a currency that runs deeper. They sit within a value system that transcends the financial - beyond cost-benefit.
Sometimes, I marvel at them. In their greasy, smudged and pigmented pages lies a truth that could shake Wall Street to its core - a reminder that real wealth isn’t measured in ledgers. And I love that, for the price of a few pounds, they grant me awe and wonder in return.
My sketchbooks are a kind of tiller. They are helping me navigate. Alongside my artwork, I have been developing the idea of what it means to be creative - to put pen to paper, to sing, to dance, to write, to take photographs. I was under the misconception that my art was a kind of retreat. A way to insulate myself from the world, to carve out a small sanctuary where I could hide from its chaos and unpredictability.
But, as I sketch, I start to realise that every line I put down is not just a representation of what I see - it is an act of participation. A conversation with the world. My art is not passive. It is an engagement, a way of reaching beyond myself, beyond my own limitations, into something larger. A way of tapping into my unknown self.
‘Cause I, too have unexplored and unexpressed goals
That were suppressed by an environment that I couldn’t control
Am I still playing small because it’s all that I’ve known?
When there’s a giant in my bones that I’m not sure I’ve ever shown.’
This sketchbook is not just a collection of drawings - it is a lifeline, a map of my evolving self. With each stroke, I find new ways to engage with the world, to understand it, to shape-shift and adapt. It returns me to that childhood curiosity I thought had been gutted by personal struggles, by the weight of the times we live in. But to my utter disbelief, it grew back.
Like a starfish.
‘I ask myself this question when I’m purposely alone
When my body grows to take up all the rooms inside my home
I expand in all directions
Every single inch consumed..’
We are all artists. And in a world that is constantly shifting, we must give ourselves permission to flourish, to thrive.
I don’t mean flourish and thrive in the sense of becoming super rich - but in the sense of finding wellbeing, purpose, compassion and agency in this world.
Flourishing through creativity, curiosity and re-connecting with the world is not just an indulgence - it is a way of equipping ourselves for change. It is how we prepare for uncertainty, how we navigate life’s difficulties, how we hold our loved ones close and, in doing so, reshape the world for the better.
Flourishing provides us with the tools and the armour to navigate our world.
‘It’s crazy how I stuff the universe into the tiniest amounts
How I keep the solar system in the corner of my mouth
How I speak into existence but forget what I’m about.’
These sketches are a reflection of my journey - of dissolving boundaries, of understanding myself in a world that is constantly shifting.
In many ways my sketches reveal my inner self - my first sketch in the book is of an -in-between place - a snicket, a ginnel - something that might represent a journey - of mystery - into the unknown.
I seem to move between the ancient church and the market place, the old cottage and the pub. At first glance, these scenes might seem like opposites - silence and sound, solitude and community - but together, they reveal something deeper about how I navigate the world.
These are the spaces where I feel most alive, where I can step beyond my anxieties and simply be. The sacred spaces remind me to slow down, to find peace in stillness. The convivial places remind me to embrace life in all its messy, unpredictable beauty.
In drawing them, I realise that I am not choosing one over the other. I am moving between them, learning to balance reflection with engagement, solitude with connection.
On one page, the silence of sacred a interior, empty of people yet brimming with presence, a vaulted ceiling and worn stone whispering of time, continuity, and contemplation.
On another, the lively hum of markets, cafés, and pubs - spaces filled with laughter, movement, and the warmth of human connection.
Sometimes I see both solitude and connection - that's how messy things are...
My sketchbooks are helping me map this process - to understand that in a world of uncertainty, we are not meant to remain static.
We are meant to move, to adapt, to shape-shift.
And in doing so, we don’t just survive change - we learn to thrive within it.
There's something that is deeply invigorating about heading out into the world after listening to all the hype and observing what is actually there.
Seeing the joy of fibonnaci in the mundanity of a cluttered bedroom...
...and finding poetry in the opennes of the human form
Sometimes I don't need to add any pigment at all to see how vibrant our world still is.
'It’s nature and it’s nurture twisting into jungle life
Fighting the competition, branching out to reach the light
I tried to listen but could only hear my ancient heart
It screamed at me to make my life into my greatest art...'
Gold Fish - I-NQ
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If you're looking for a new direction, a bit of validation - here is the Gold Fish poem in full by the talented IN-Q.
Reaching for my camera, I pause, feeling something profound at play. This building is pure atmosphere, and I feel emotionally connected to it. I set the camera aside and reach for my sketchbook, determined to capture the spirit of this place, to convey how it makes me feel.
And so, in a café in Howden, through the portal of the final page of my little black sketchbook, I begin to see the world as it truly is.
As I apply the first wash of colour, fragmented words come to mind. Slowly they form sentences, and as I remember them and paint, this Middletonian, this anxious imposter is deeply woven into the warp and weft of the building:
Andy Marshall
Andy Marshall
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Photographs and words by Andy Marshall (unless otherwise stated). Most photographs are taken with Iphone 14 Pro and DJI Mini 3 Pro.
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