Cate McFarland
In the Beginning
I have been drawing for as long as I can remember. I was never one for stick figures. Even as a small child I wanted to try and draw things as they really were. I once went to one of my mum’s art classes. The teacher presented me with a chicken in a mesh cage and invited me to draw it. At the end of the lesson, I presented her with my chicken drawing, complete with mesh cage. I was around six or seven. She was impressed I had endeavoured to capture the actual chicken she showed me rather than just drawing any old chicken. To me it seemed odd that I would have drawn it any other way.
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I did art all throughout school. My pictures were chosen to be the cover of the school play’s program (plays I made a concerted effort to never be in), or the cover of the biology workbook. I was called upon for open nights to sit and paint or draw while perspective parents walked by. Having taken A-level art everyone assumed I would go on to do an Art degree at university, but I wasn’t sure. At that time I couldn’t see how I could make a living as an artist unless I took an office job where someone would give me a spec I had to fill. After, what was by then, four years of studying art in school and having to produce work based on an assigned title or topic I was burnt out. The thought of more academic years of prescribed work only to end up in a career of the same was too much. So, to everyone’s surprise I did a degree in IT (it was the 90s and IT was really taking off), and I entered the tech world, largely leaving art behind.
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The Speedbump that Knocked the Wheels Off
While I did produce the odd drawing or portrait for a friend over the next few years, ultimately the pressure of work and then family relegated my art supplies to sealed boxes in the roof space. When we moved into our now family home several years ago I set up an art studio for myself which I then never used. Multiple failed attempts ensued. I’d lost my artistic mojo. Even worse, I’d lost ALL of my artistic confidence! As a teenager I could pick up any medium, any subject and produce something. Now even a simple sketch broke me out in a cold sweat. In my mind, I couldn’t do it anymore. I oscillated between fearing I’d never be as good as I once was, to believing I had never been that good to begin with!
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My artistic endeavours had been reduced to themed birthday cakes for my sons and helping them with school craft projects. I couldn’t even doodle for fun! If it wasn’t perfect, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t face it. I was drained at the very thought.
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That Moment
My mum was an artist and she had encouraged me over the years to start up again. Even taking me to an arts fair and tempting me with new acrylics. I tried anything: paint by numbers and colouring in books, but it seemed a lost cause.
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Finally one day I decided to try yet again. The trick was, I reasoned, to aim to do nothing significant. Make it as vague as possible then I couldn’t critique it. I started with a lump of charcoal and smeared it across the page. Then I started to blend it with my fingers and a figure appeared! Ah-ha! I tried it again and got another form. I then dugout some black paper and lifted a blue pastel. And this was the moment. THAT moment. From the first sweep of the pastel, I knew it was a woman’s shoulder. Out of absolutely nowhere I drew my first lad. And that was it. Something in the soft pastel rendering of the female form in all her sensual power just gripped me.
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I won’t pretend it was all smooth sailing from there. It took months and months to get into any kind of rhythm, but it came.
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The Precipice
My work was progressing. Initially every time I produced something good, instead of bolstering it, my confidence worsened as I feared I’d never be able to do it again. And then I’d do it again! Slowly, I gained some faith in myself and found I wanted to experiment with technique and medium.
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And then my world shifted on its axis.
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My mum called me to take her to A&E with a racing heart rate. A week later we were told she had terminal cancer. I week after that I took her home to care for her. Painting my ladies became something I did to take my mind off losing my mum. I’d work on a piece and then take it upstairs for her critique. I could always rely on her to be encouraging but honest.
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As the weeks passed and she deteriorated, she began to encourage me to get my work out there. She joked she wanted me to be a world-famous artist before she died. She was absolute that my work was good enough to be exhibited and sold. With her pushing I began building an Etsy shop and thinking about future drawings and this website.
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Then she took a serious downturn. That last week we barely slept, and all work was pushed aside. With no warning her heart gave out just two and a half months after her diagnosis. My mum, my mentor, my inspiration, my coach and my greatest encouragement was gone.
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Don’t You Quit
For weeks afterwards I couldn’t work at all. When I did eventually try, I managed a bit but it felt like the light had gone out of me. The work was fine but there was no love in it. Then a few weeks after mum died, I held a memorial for her in my house. One of my oldest friends came and when it was over, she sat me down. She’d been looking at my paintings in the front room and she told me, in no uncertain terms, to not let grief stop me. I was to keep going, open the Etsy shop and give it my all. She sounded so much like mum how could I not heed her?
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It is therefore with thanks to my lovely mum, my dearest friend (you know who you are), and a few very supportive souls in-between that you are reading this and that I am now able to call myself, for better or worse, an artist.
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But why the Naked Ladies?
Now that is a question. I was actually asked to “explain myself” at my mum’s memorial, when one of her neighbours spotted all the naked lovelies gracing the walls (said in jest of course). The truth is I have no idea where it came from initially. Nudes were not something I did in school (obviously), and nothing I was drawn to thereafter. I was probably best known for drawing horses and even produced a few horse portraits for friends.
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What I can tell you is that once I started them, I couldn’t stop. I admired their curves, the smooth line of muscle. The power it suggested while veiled in feminine sensuality. I drew the body I wished I had. The muscle I knew lay under my own skin, evoking the power I knew it contained.
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Ice Viking
I have been fit my whole life. Be it running, cycling, swimming, horse riding, hiking, weight training or anything in between I have always stayed active and have always been strong for my size. It was always something I was proud of. I may not have been lean, but I was toned and strong.
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With the passing of the years, the burden of old injuries and aging hormones, I found I could no longer push myself physically the way I would like to. In seeking out a new adventure I came across winter swimming, and that led me to ice swimming. I am pretty slim for an ice swimmer but I’m not after any medals in the water. There is an almost indescribable thrill in getting into sub 5C water. It’s as if you can actually feel your body shifting gears. Sloughing off its humanity and digging into its depths for the primordial survival skills that lie so dormant in most of us. Becoming pure organism. It makes me feel powerful at a time in my life when my physical power is waning. I feel like a Viking. I’m reminded that strength comes in many forms. My strength is in my mind, in my biology.
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I used my ice swims to keep myself going through mum’s illness. It forces everything away. It reminds you; you are alive. Not only alive but living and fighting to stay so. It kept me sane. Reinforced me mentally. Gave me an inner power to be strong for my mum and my family.
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Perhaps I put some of that into my ladies? A little touch of the ice Viking. A reminder that while women are smaller, we have a strength too, that often belies our appearance. Strong, fluid, graceful, sensual and feminine. All it is to be a woman. If I can capture a thimbleful of that, I’ll be happy.
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