29th October 2020

This is the thirteenth in a series of interviews with creative and inspiring people, chatting all things human and what it takes to ‘be’. The aim being not only to promote their work but to uncover their journey, learn about technique and pass on tips and advice. I’m hoping these conversations will inspire others to be unique, take risks and understand the beauty in failure …… We have but one life, lets make it creative !

Wow … this was a conversation.

Today more than ever creatives and those in the arts need support .. we need to open up the conversation around mental health. I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to a good friend, incredible artist and mental health activist @sarahgraham_art about living and painting through dark times. Sarah’s work leads you into a world of vibrant colour, childhood memories and fantastical sweets... on the outside she’s a whole lot of energetic fun but has lived with and now openly talks about her journey with poor mental health over the past decade.

Sarah Graham has been described as a photorealist, her work is incredibly realistic and yes she works from a photo but her painting has an abstraction sweeping through like the ‘White Witch’ spreading magic with a gentle tap of her wand…..

Sarah & I have been friends for over 8 years now, we come from the same town which has a cool creative vibe. In 2014 we collaborated on a project called ‘Cherry Bomb’ using Sarah’s painting and printing onto garments which were exhibited at London Fashion Week … very cool.

Over the years Sarah has dipped in and out of poor mental health, with a history of Bipolar in her family she was relieved to finally receive a diagnosis, but that was after times of mania and depression. Not knowing when they would begin or indeed end the darkness took her to extreme places. All the while she painted and created a magical world of kitsch wonderment.

This is just a bite size snippet of our conversation , I seriously advise anyone who is interested in learning more about depression and bipolar to check out the full chat on IGTV .. its insightful and honest, raw and a real real privilege being offered an insight into such an incredibly creative mind.

TOP TAKE AWAYS

So difficult to choose a Top Take Away, around 40 mins into the conversation is invaluable .. I lost my words tbh, stumbling to find the right way to say ‘we need to learn how to help’.

“For me now suicide is the furthest thing from my mind because my mind is healthy, my goodness how can someone feel so bad that they have to end their life … but this is the thing and its the biggest killer in young men, it’s tragic. It’s tragic that people loose their life to something that they can recover from. This is the message I’m trying to get across. It’s like I’m living proof that you can recover and lead a happy life.”

All conversation typed verbatim

Sam - We were chatting the other day about, and this leads onto what we want to talk about with mental health, that at one point you were working everyday and literally travelling around the country, do you think there was a burn out there, like that lead to something .. like how’s your journey as an artist and your mental wellbeing .. how’s that been ?

Sarah - So my art career started in like 2001, I had my first bipolar episode in 2005 and that’s , my career started to really take off in 2008, I mean it was , I was living an working as an artist all through those early years but i was really like, I was properly struggling. Like I was , when , the amount of times when I though, ah I need to get a proper job, oh no t I need to get a proper job and I’d just manage to sell something, just enough o keep me ticking over. So 2008 and I got my publishing deal and suddenly , and that when I started working prolifically . So it been, so my bipolar has been there through the best part of my career, and there has been times, like i thought at some point in 2008, that was the year I was talking about that I did 18 paintings this size ( Sarah pointed behind her to a painting that’s 1,2 cm wide and around 80 high) and I was like touring the country every weekend going to different cities every Saturday and Sunday, different places , it was a mad time and I don’t think its that surprising in 2009 I had another quite severe episode because I think 2008 I pushed myself to my limit… I mean yeah , its a funny one because it has kind of shaped, how can i put it, it has had a massive impact on my career but my career has saved me and given me a focus when I am well… erm to make the best of everything. I feel very fortunate that I’ve got this career with this condition. It is something that if I go quiet for a period people might just think I’m working and then I can pick up the pieces and carry on. I mean that makes it sound easy , it hasn’t been easy, there’s been times when I would never paint again because I’ve been so ill. I’ve been hospitalised 3 times , I got sectioned erm yeah , its been dramatic .. like thats an understatement …. it really has been very turbulent.

Can I just ask how, in 2005 , what was it that kind of like made you think that theres something going on here, I need to go .. was it an episode ?

Yeah , it was one of my worse episodes, my Dad passed away in 2004 and then … my boyfriend.. erm … at the time who I lived with ..

You don’t need to talk, you don’t need to explain

It’s ok … we split up, lets just say that. erm , yeah , and then , so two major things. We’d been together 7 years so it was a big blow to me and having just lost Dad.. I didn’t grieve for my Dad in months after he passed away and I think that was the biggest problem so a year later I just erm … I snapped, I mean , no it was more like an implosion like my world just caved in, in my head. I stopped sleeping, and when I say I stopped sleeping I really didn’t sleep. I’d literally snatch an hour here and there, I didn’t sleep for a month , not for longer than an hour at a time and I quickly went into psychosis. So I really did loose my mind and by November I was in hospital… so it was pretty serious……

If you feel like this has been cut too short … listen to the interview here

You can purchase Sarah’s art on her website or contact her directly for originals and commissions. Or follow her journey @sarahgraham_art