The Reflection Board
How five months in a new house has turned my black and white into colour, and what my hands knew before I did
This week, I stood in my studio, tangled in uncertainty about where to begin with this essay. Then I glanced up at my reflection board and realised the answer had been patiently waiting for me all along.
Without a second thought, I’d pinned the black and white fineliner owl drawing to the left, and my new, vibrant mixed media cockatoo to the right. There they sat, side by side.
I felt a small catch in my chest when I noticed it, that quiet little drop when your body has already moved ahead, and you’re only just catching up.
Black and white
We moved house back in February this year. Out of Brighton to the lovely village of Hassocks. Only 10 minutes down the road in the car, but it feels like another place entirely.
In Brighton, we were living somewhere I came to hate.
Barking dogs echoed from every direction, never pausing for breath. Neighbours’ endless drilling and chainsaws turned home improvement into a relentless sport. Drunk people staggered home from the local pub, and it wasn’t unusual for kids from parties to throw up in the front garden.
Each bark, each slammed car door, each drunken curse word, landed deep in my gut before my mind could even register it. By the end, I loathed it there with every fibre of my being.
Before we moved, I was also mourning the version of myself from when we were a family of five, before the boys set off to build their own lives, as they should. Daisy was drifting toward her friends, as thirteen-year-olds do, and together we were learning to navigate her tidal wave of feelings alongside my own. My perimenopausal body was changing in ways no one ever warns you about.
The tension didn’t stop there. I was let go from my permanent job in 2025, but decided to freelance for them again because I genuinely missed helping people, even though I was still angry.
I felt like I was suffocating.
There was no room in any of that for colour.
Colour would have meant making choices, and I had nothing left to give. Those black-and-white drawings were pure survival. Black and white was all that remained when my emotional energy had run dry.
The Move
Then we moved.
I love our new house. Most of it feels calm and stylish, but the living room is a different story. It’s darker, quirkier, and just a little bit wild.
If it could speak, it would say, “We’re all mad here,” like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland.
Beetles and butterflies, touches of gold, and just a hint of glorious garishness fill the space. Our navy sofa, sumptuous and comfy, complete with electric footstools. Lush!
It’s the room where the framed work of my favourite artists hangs, maybe the only place I get to stand my own work beside theirs.
It’s also where I create in the evenings, relax, sip wine, draw, hang out with my husband, and feel unhurried, satisfied, happy. It’s a side of me that’s exuberant and extravagant, yet comfortable and calm in my own skin.
The pièce de résistance is the accent curtains: floor-to-ceiling, navy blue, covered in tropical fauna and flora. My daughter absolutely hates them, and in fact thinks they’re hideous. My husband takes that as proof they’re perfect, which always makes me giggle!
The living room isn’t finished yet; it’s hungry for more.
I wanted to create a piece of art to match the curtains. I used to scoff at living room art that matched the decor, but here I was, doing exactly that. Like how I always said I’d never go on a package holiday, then went last year and loved it.
This is where my art turned to colour.
Drawn to colour
The first piece I made for that room was the cockatoo, echoing the bright mustardy yellows in the curtains and cushions. I’ve since created a second bird, even brighter than the first.
Yellow was never my colour. I can’t wear it next to my pale English skin. Pinks, purples, and blues have always been my safe haven.
But lately, I’ve been drawn to yellow, and I think it’s because there’s a sunnier disposition blooming in me now. I feel inspired again. I love my new house. I love the new area we’re living in. I love the calmer, slower life we have here.
These new mixed media collage pieces feel like a relief, like pure joy.
I started using colour again because I felt free to and needed it.
I feel excited. There’s movement, butterflies in my stomach. It’s as if I’ve come home to colour, come home to this new life. That same unhurried, unpressured feeling the house gives me.
Yet there’s still a part of me that worries it could all be swept away by circumstance, and I’ll tumble back into black and white again.
For now I embrace the enthusiasm and potential. Like moving to Hassocks, I feel at home. No pressure. Lighter. My head fizzes when I look at these pieces, my heart skips, my stomach flutters with loveliness.
Back to the board…
I didn’t realise I’d changed until I saw it in my work. But standing in front of that board, I understood my instinct hadn’t just stayed on the page. It had wandered across the studio and quietly placed two versions of me side by side, and waited.
I trust my instincts completely when I’m making art. It’s the rest of my life where I think myself into a fog.
If someone else’s art had shifted in this way, I’d assume they’d had a life change too. I think of Picasso’s Blue and Pink periods, phases defined by deep shifts in his personal life and emotional state. Or Matisse turning to cutouts when his body failed him. Both artists work adapting to life changes.
Luckily for me, it’s for the better. Still, it’s hard for me to let happiness land. Even now, I habitually search for the caveats.
My art tells me that the colourful, quirky, exuberant version of me, the one who refuses to fit in a neat box, is OK.
Looking back at the many artistic versions of me, some of it, honestly, was quite bleak. But it reminds me I have to live through and with my creative output. It’s a second brain, a second heart, a second gut. Almost another version of me, moving alongside me through every stage.
She’s like an apparition beside me now. We’ve moved through life together.
Maybe that’s why there’s always a spare chair in the studio, quietly waiting for her to sit.
Wise, old, beautiful me. I step into her, she steps into me. We are separate, yet we are one.
A message to you
I used to think creativity was the thing you got to once everything else was done. A reward, if there was any time left over.
It took me years to work out I had it backwards. The making isn’t what’s left when life quietens down. It’s what quietens life down.
You don’t need permission from me or anyone else.
But if it helps to hear it, you have it.
Be more. Do less. Make things.
Have an inspired day 💕
My daughter and I say, "Yellow is the color of happy."