My Artsy Musings: how YouTube brought purpose and perspective to my life.
Since I was a child I was artistic — I loved painting, drawing and colouring in, and during my junior primary years I was always taking artworks to school and receiving “Well Done” stamps on my wrists and gold stars on my artworks from the principal, Mrs Berry. Being a phenomenally creative man himself, my father taught me the basic principles of drawing, working with perspective, light, shade and form. At the high school I attended, art was unfortunately not a subject that was taught, however I always knew that I would one day end up in the creative spectrum. During my first year out of highschool, I studied interior design, which evidently wasn’t for me, although I was certainly on the right track within Natal Technikon’s Design Faculty. With that in mind, after my two years’ national service, I then studied graphic design and from there launched into a career in advertising, branding, design and marketing, spanning the subsequent two decades.
Aside from mediums, materials and classes at Tech in keeping with commercial art, however (and of course we worked with inks acrylics watercolors gouache and the like, as well as pencil and charcoal for figure drawing), I spent very little time during my career ‘making art’ per se. At a point I came to realise that I was little more than a glorified computer jockey — being creative, yes, most certainly, but using a digital interface rather than getting my hands messy!
After stepping out of the field of advertising, media etc. at the beginning of 2009, embarking on a journey into the realms of Metaphysics and Ontology aligned with my calling, I started to rediscover my innate creative essence, although aside from a few acrylic commissioned works, it wasn’t until 2016 that are really started to get into my art properly.
I found that what I enjoyed most was working with charcoal and chalk pastel. This particular mixed-media gave me a freedom to play: drawing, blending, smudging, and further down the line, introducing acrylics as well. For the first couple of years I was predominantly exploring the yin-yang juxtaposition of the ocean versus the man-made, and developed quite a thing for depicting piers and bridges, as well as tidal pools.
It all culminated really with the onset of the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown measures in 2020. I decided to start sharing my work on a YouTube channel, with daily hour-long sessions that I began calling “My Artsy Lockdown” (“My Artsy Musings” post-pandemic) that became a way of life for me. Not only was I never alone (aside from my beloved kitties of course), always knowing I had at least a handful of people following me and looking forward to the next session — in sharing my thoughts and ideas, as well as my processes and techniques, I began to discover my reason for being. This for me was profound!
Not only did my artistic abilities flourish as a result, but I also began to see a way forward for myself in terms of my career path and life. Although I’ve been somewhat remiss in uploading to my YouTube channel since the beginning of this year, I have to date accumulated just shy of three hundred uploads. Captivated by the ocean in motion, I was drawn more to depicting seascapes, although along the way I dabbled in numerous landscapes and portraits as well.
To the observer I was using the YouTube platform to share my work and ideas, whereas what it really meant for me was that the art became my teacher, realising that each piece was its own unique expression — I just had to allow it to be so. This discovery has led me towards assisting others in envisaging their own Inner Creator, and has opened up a host of coaching opportunities for me.
I am also most honoured to announce that I was recently asked to step up as president of the North Coast Artists Group here in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal and confirmed on February 10th at our AGM, a position that’ll afford me the opportunity to “pay it forward” for all of these wonderful opportunities that Life has presented me, and for the love and support I’ve received along the way!
Guy McGowan
WASA representative in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.