I never thought beer would be where I’d end up. I doubt many of us do, initially. During my first part-time pub job, it did dawn on me that there was something intriguing about it—standing behind the bar, I remember looking up at the colorful beer boards, marveling at the breadth of flavor and number of breweries on display. But even then, I never seriously entertained working in the industry full-time, or making beer my career.
Instead, from the age of about 10, I knew I was going to be an artist. I’d always been creative, and enjoyed painting and drawing more than any other activity. Throughout secondary school, my aim was true: I would leave school, go to art college, and then make a living and a career as a painter. While this motivated my art practice, it came at the expense of other subjects: I’d sometimes skip lessons to be in the studio, and every free hour was spent painting or printmaking. In my mind, there was no possibility of doing anything else.
My practice was focused heavily on portraiture. Something drew me to the process, to the potential for expression and the drive to really, truly represent someone through the alchemical process of paint on canvas. In hindsight, it was also a way for me to vicariously express my own questions of identity. I explored androgyny in the male form, and subtly—or not—played with gender through photorealistic portraiture.
The first big curveball thrown my way came after I had moved to London to study painting at Camberwell College of Arts. An instructor in an early tutorial asked me to consider the point of photorealism: Why bother to aim for a complete, perfect depiction when a photograph does the same thing? Why was I trying to replicate something that already existed? If realism served to represent people, or places, or a bunch of fruit on a table long before cameras existed, was there any need to continue with the supposedly obsolete practice once photography had advanced to a certain point?
If I had had the benefit of hindsight and seven years to consider the question, I might have responded by acknowledging the way that the medium elevates and honors the subject, the technical challenge inherent in near-perfect representation using only paint and a brush, and even just the fact that I enjoyed and saw value in it. The fact that I did it because I wanted to. Still, my confidence was knocked. The certainty that I would spend my working life painting portraits crumbled. I haven’t painted a portrait since.
Instead, I spent the next few months playing with pseudo-abstract expressionism, painting broad, gestural landscapes on circular boards in pinks and purples. Again, I began to explore gender through painting via the use of color, which would continue into my later work—building installations of lurid, pink-sprayed tree trunks and rubble, positioned alongside ethereal landscapes in the same hue, creating both real and imagined dreamlike utopias where I’d exist as myself.
After I “officially” came out (this came as no surprise to my coursemates—university was where I began to figure myself out), my work began to more overtly explore issues of gender and transphobia. In my final year it flourished, and my contribution to our degree show—an exhibition serving as the culmination of our studies—was my most ambitious and impressive: an installation of a burned-out funeral pyre surrounded by floodlights, accompanied by a slab of handprinted, disposable poetry and the sound of fire burning. The work was commenting on the violence trans people (especially trans women) confront the world over, our hyper-visibility and the scrutiny we face, as well as the ever-present threat of harm, and how much of that goes unnoticed.
Only months after my degree show and graduation, the worry set in. I knew I could never have sustained myself solely through art—“making it” as an artist requires years of hard work and dedication, as well as the privilege of good connections and good fortune. I needed a job. My interest in beer had bloomed thanks to the part-time work I did to earn extra money at college. After graduation, beer was right there.
What I didn’t expect, however, was that full-time work would be tiring, and would deprive me of the energy I needed to go to the studio. That factor, combined with the lack of support, space, and access to facilities and materials that I had enjoyed while studying—as well as the loss of my creative peer network—left me unsure of where to go next. There was no way I could make work on the scale of what I’d done previously, and painting held little appeal. I missed feedback from other artists, those equipped with the critical eye I needed, and the validation of their opinions. The work paled in comparison to the intellectual and visual caliber of my degree show piece.
I found myself in an existential crisis. For years, my entire identity had been wrapped up in being an artist. It wasn’t just my main interest—it was everything I aspired to be, and what I was convinced made me interesting. With no feedback loop to provide personal and professional affirmation, and a creeping stagnation—after all, what kind of good, impactful artist makes shit work?—I began to lose touch with my practice, and faith in myself.
I had gone to a secondary school focused primarily on grades: A and A* was the goal, B was just about acceptable, and if you got a C (despite being the national average and still very much a good grade), you should’ve tried harder. While the drive behind this perfectionism, which was drilled into children aged 11 to 18, was ostensibly a good education, the school’s motives were also its position in examination league tables. It regularly charted near the top, and was occasionally ranked the best grammar school in the country, based on exam results.
What this left me and many school friends with, however, was a deep and all-consuming sense of inadequacy. In a recent wine and spirits exam I received a mark of 96%; I’m still kicking myself for not getting 100%. Once I left university, this translated into a need for every piece of art to be perfect, pristine in its execution and groundbreaking in its concept. Obviously, nothing I made came close.
The pressure to create the ideologically perfect work grew until I was frozen. In my lonely, fruitless studio, I felt a sense of deep shame, to the point where I could no longer even enter the space. Of course, this furthered my sense of failure, which in turn furthered my hatred of myself for abandoning the career I’d dreamed of for as long as I could remember.
And so I threw myself into the beer world as a distraction from my ongoing failings, desperate to find something that could be a worthy replacement for the glittering art career I couldn’t have. While beer seemed a frivolous pastime in comparison to the heady and intellectual world of contemporary art, I reckoned that if I could make something of myself within the industry, my failure might not sting so keenly.
Perhaps that’s why I quickly sought a public-facing role within beer, through my early blog, Craft Queer, and on beer social media—I wanted to find some validation in this apparent frivolity. Plus, I figured that if I found a way to be creative in the industry, I could ease the pressure off myself to make art. As my career as a beer writer and photographer has progressed, over these last four years or so, it has all become a little easier—easier to shift my identity as an artist and painter to that of a writer and maker, and easier to leave behind something I loved so dearly but which brought me so much difficulty.
I called myself an artist for some time after leaving university. Though it was a word that never quite fit when I was an art student—back then, I thought I hadn’t yet earned the title—I felt that if I could hold onto the word, I’d work my way back around to making art. It served as a placeholder when I couldn’t find anything else that fit, and when I wasn’t yet ready to let go of it.
In truth, though I’ve dabbled with printmaking and drawing, I’ve only made one painting since I left that lonely studio two years ago. It came about in early lockdown, on a day when I had little else to do. I set up a canvas, placed a simple still life scene in front of me, and set to work. The result isn’t particularly noteworthy, nor is it a great and meaningful masterpiece. But it was enjoyable enough, even if it now serves as a reminder of a talent that’s on pause.
Today, I no longer see myself as an artist, and find discomfort in the word’s application to my creativity. “Maker” feels like the better fit: As well as writing and photography, pottery and ceramics—specifically functional tableware—make up a large part of my creative output. To call myself an artist, though, feels like fraud, an opportunity or window passed.
I’m at a point where I feel comfortable with this, though for some time it was a source of great difficulty. It’s taken time to accept that one of the most significant parts of who I am has shifted, and that the very rigid goals I set for myself proved unattainable.
I still collect source material for paintings, though. I earmark landscape shots—particularly ethereal, quasi-mystical ones—and my Instagram saves are full of paintings I admire or wish to emulate some element of, whether a brushstroke, underpainting, or composition. I have a cupboard full of oils ready to be squeezed onto a palette, and paintbrushes that need cleaning. I still feel avoidant when thinking much about painting, and truth be told, I’m busy enough spinning oh-so-many plates. But even if I don’t sell work, or exhibit in a prestigious gallery, I have no doubt that I’ll find a way back.
I no longer need the praise and validation of others to simply feel OK. Nor do I need to be perfect. Sure, those old habits of thought still creep in, especially when the things I make don’t live up to the idealized versions in my head, and especially when what I make seems to let down my ideal self—Lily the excellent cook, Lily the brilliant writer, Lily the talented maker. It may still take a word from my rational brain to remind myself that, while that lasagne may have been slightly overdone, it still tasted good—even if my gut reaction was to hurl it in the bin. That’s progress, baby.
Through revisiting these patterns over and over in therapy and, surprisingly, through pottery, I learned over time that my self-worth isn’t tied to my output. My value as an individual hinges not on my creativity, my skill, or how highly polished and perfect a facade I can outwardly present, but on the fact that I have inherent worth as a person, as we all do. Learning a new, complex craft such as pottery showed me that despite failing repeatedly, and making weird and wonky pots, I still retained as much value as I always have. And crucially, despite now potting professionally, I still don’t mind wonky pots.
