It’s Official: I’m a Full-Time Artist!

Today is September 1st.

For eighteen years, this date has meant coming back from the summer holidays, the beginning of a new school year, the first staff meeting where we would try — at least we tried — to set the rules, principles and atmosphere for the journey teachers and students would share over the following nine months.

Not this year.

This year, it’s official: I have finally left the world of school behind to dedicate myself entirely to watercolour.

If someone had told me this a few years ago, I would probably have laughed.

And yet here I am, turning my passion into my work once again.

I say “once again” because mathematics was also a passion of mine. Yes, I taught mathematics and physics at school, and for as long as it lasted, it was a job I loved — something that felt like both work and play at the same time.

Confucius said: “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

I don’t know if that is really true.

I do know that when I stopped loving my days at school, I chose a different path. I started nurturing something else, slowly, over the years, with patience and perhaps a little recklessness, until it became something that could stand on its own.

I have no idea where it will take me.

Today, I’m celebrating by spending the day drawing, looking back at the road I’ve travelled, and feeling grateful for everything that has arrived — and for everything that is still to come.

Most of all, I’m grateful for the people who have supported me, for those who challenged me, and even for those who didn’t believe it was possible.

Each of them, in their own way, has helped make my project of living through watercolour a little stronger.

Looking back, I realise that the part of me that spent so many years teaching could never have given up the exchange that happens when you share something you love.

Those moments when you see someone, right in front of you, discover that they have learned something new — and you can see the surprise, the curiosity, the quiet satisfaction on their face.

So I started teaching watercolour.

And somehow, along the way, I found myself sharing the magic of colour and the unpredictability of water with hundreds of people.

A beautiful community has grown around it, both here in my city and online, and I am deeply grateful for it.

And yet, as I celebrate this new chapter, there are other thoughts quietly making their way in. The thoughts of someone who doesn’t know how the month will end. Will there be enough people signing up for my courses? Will another commission come along? Will I manage all the administrative work that is necessary to support the creative work?

For eighteen years, I had a calendar in front of me that was already written.

Not anymore.

Now there are many more questions than answers.

And I keep thinking of a line attributed to Bukowski:

“If you’re trying to create something, you have to risk failure. If you don’t risk it, you create nothing. Regret is the worst poison in life.”

I still don’t know where this choice will take me.

But I do know that today, September 1st, I’m happy I made it.