Sheenagh Baxter-Martin

My Journey

I started painting again during the pandemic.

I needed a release.

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I am a proud mother of three grown-up children, who are all happy and well.

I had been a business woman in media, events and publishing for more than 25 years,  and set up businesses in three continents, but I had got to that stage in my life where the corporate circus no longer held appeal.

I wanted to return to a more holistic and personal way of life, one closer to my core values and quite simply ME!

I also strongly desired to give back more to society. As serendipity would have it, the universe and everything, around the same time, my mother fell ill and I was dramatically reminded of the importance of quality medical care and specifically quality nursing care. We, my beautiful family and I, and a great team of professionals, nursed my mother back to health.

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This was the answer.

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Having trained as a nurse so many years before, I made the decision, which seemed crazy at the time, to return to the nursing profession. Though the journey has been long and hard, I do really enjoy it, and have got great satisfaction from the same.

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However, that said, nothing prepared me for the pandemic!

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In the first wave I found myself working in A&E and on the Acute Respiratory Ward in St Mary’s, where they were treating the COVID 19 Cases… it was so overwhelming, it was visually shocking and mentally and physically exhausting.

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At home, with my family away and no possibility of travel to see them, or anyone else anytime soon,  I needed an outlet, I turned to an old friend … the paintbrush.

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So, on long walks around my home in Fulham, I took photographs of the flowers in fresh bloom in early Spring and then tried to reproduce them on canvas. It was so calming and therapeutic that I have not stopped since.

When I am in front of a canvas, I forget everything except trying to channel the object I am trying to paint, it is the most engrossing experience.

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Now on our 3rd wave in the UK and currently re-deployed in ICU in Charing Cross, which is so full on, I have continued (needed) to use painting as my outlet. My subject matter varies and I am experimenting with different styles, I am loving it. It relieves my stress, allows me dream and helps me to create beauty.

In truth I cannot envisage a life without both now, they seem to blend somehow.

My maternal grandmother always said I had good hands. I am trying to put them to good use, healing and creating.

I am still on a steep learning curve, but I hope I can give just a little joy and happiness to the world through my interpretations.

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Sheenagh Baxter-Martin