In 2017, when Carol Douglas got the news she would be going to art school aged 66, she couldn’t have been happier. “I felt I had been given the biggest gift on the planet,” she says.
Throughout her adult life, Douglas had regretted giving up art at school when she was 16. “Art is for Saturday mornings,” her parents told her, and she listened, dropping the subject for Latin and then pursuing a sociology degree. “Ever since then, I had a general underlying feeling that I hadn’t done something I should have done and I never would,” she says.
She went on to have various jobs – a community worker, a chef in a vegetarian restaurant, a catering manager and a pupil support worker. It wasn’t until her 50s that she tapped into her creativity while working as a kindergarten teacher in an international school, after moving to Thailand for her then husband’s job. “I was working with four- and five-year-olds, encouraging children’s creativity through school art projects – it was the most fulfilled I had been,” she says.
When Douglas returned to the UK and retired, aged 62, she knew she wanted to dedicate her time to creating her own art. She dabbled with a few part-time art adult education courses but craved more. “I wanted to do an art degree but couldn’t afford to go to university for three years,” she says. A chance encounter with an artist in his 50s at York Open Studios – a community project that allows local artists to show their work to the public – changed everything. “He said he got a student loan for an art foundation course and I immediately knew I had to do the same.”
She applied for an art foundation course at York College and was thrilled when she was accepted. “It was just me and over a hundred 18- to 20-year-olds. I could have been their grandma,” she says. On the one-year course, Douglas chose to specialise in painting and soon found her style, capturing still lifes and figures in a muted colour palette. After the course finished, she quickly found an affordable studio space in York and started experimenting with cheap acrylic paint and secondhand canvases bought at car boot sales. “I was going nearly every day. Nothing was stopping me,” she says.
After two years of hard work, her art started to gain some recognition. “The second year I applied to be shown at York Open Studios I got in and this led to some small exhibitions in local cafes,” she says. Douglas also started sharing her work on Instagram and began getting commissions.
Since then, she has sold hundreds of paintings. “I have lost count,” she says. This summer – six years after completing the art foundation course – Douglas opened her biggest exhibition to date, Actually I Can, at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, which features 51 of her paintings. “The first time I saw the paintings in the gallery it was mind-boggling. Seeing your work in a really professional and beautiful space is quite something. I am unbelievably proud,” she says.
Douglas has had many messages of support about the exhibition, many praising her bravery for embarking on something new later in life – but she doesn’t see it that way. “If I was younger, I would have to be much more organised professionally and work harder on things like social media. But when you get older and are reasonably financially comfortable, you can take more risks and it doesn’t matter.”
Douglas now wants to push herself to try other creative endeavours. “It has opened up other doors in my mind. I like the idea of incorporating my imagery on ceramics,” she says. Most importantly, though, she wants to prioritise creating for her own enjoyment. “It is lovely what’s happened with the sales and exhibitions. But if I’d just sold a few paintings, I would enjoy it just as much.”
Looking back on her life, she no longer has regrets. “I always wondered what would have happened if I had gone to art school, but now I think things come together when they are supposed to. I don’t feel disappointed any more.”
Carol Douglas: Actually I Can is at Yorkshire Sculpture Park till 27 October
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