Sketch Book Journey – 9

The Road Less Travelled

Leading on from yesterday’s sketch ‘which route would you choose?’ I find my unconventional choices in life have led to a colourful life.

I think that was what I was expressing here. Sometimes when times get hard we wonder if we have made the right choice – it only when we step back that we can see the big picture and the convoluting route we might have taken makes sense.

I’ve always worked in the creative industries. I started my working life as a dancer and choreographer working in film, TV and theatre. I was also privileged to work around the world to places as far afield as India and Japan. It was an amazing life, often you didn’t know where you would be from one week to the next or who you would be working with but that made it all the more interesting.

My first job was dancing in nightclubs around Finland in order to get my Equity Card (British actor’s union). In those days we had to find non-equity work wherever we could to prove that we were working in the industry even if we had trained at a stage or drama school. After so many months (I can’t remember how many but if my memory serves me right it was about a year- ah good old google says 50 weeks- no need for a memory these days! ) gathering official contracts as proof we submitted them to the Actors Union and waited with fingers crossed and bated breath to see if we would be given the precious card. I say precious because it was like gold dust -it was hard enough to get work in the business but if you didn’t have an Equity card you couldn’t work in film, TV and theatre.

I was going to submit a photo here but I have moved so many times that when I went to look for one I could only find the one of me on Top of the Pops with Jimmy Saville! ( That’s a story for another time….)

In the meantime you can have a picture of Giles Terera and Dame Helen Mirren with their equity cards although I must say mine was slightly smaller and conveniently fitted in my wallet at the time…..

I think that is enough of my ramblings for one day so I will sign off for now!

You can find my work on my website jshdesigns.uk and my instagram

Materials used: Lamy pen, black ink, Sketchbook-Seawhite of Brighton, Professional watercolour paint – Schmincke, Winsor & Newton

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