Dede Gold, artist, and life after law

Dawn Behan with artist and author Dede Gold this morning, with publicist Tamso Doyle and the Woodbine Books team Paula, Abigail and Abbey.

The artist isolating in their studio or garret is not the way to a fulfilling career as a creative of any kind, writes Brian Byrne.

That's one of the key takeaways from the experiences of renowned dog portrait artist Dede Gold, who was in Woodbine Books this morning to showcase her new book, The Creative, Covered.

The book is a distillation of essential stuff about the creative life which she learned the hard way, and which she hopes will allow others beginning the same journey to 'short-circuit', at least in part.

Which brings us to the second key piece of knowledge imparted in The Creative, Covered. "You have to put in the work," Dede told the Diary. "It's said you have to do 10,000 hours before you're king of your craft  ... and I certainly have done that. But you also have to be playful. My wonderful portrait teacher, Nick Bashall, would say 'when you're not painting, you are painting'. The point he was making was get out there, live life, laugh with friends, go to galleries, read books. That's the bit that matters when you get back to the studio, then get playful, and see what happens."

Dede had been a corporate lawyer in London for two years when, very early on a morning in April 1998 she rang her father in Waterford and told him "I can't do this any more". Long days and very late nights had taken their toll, on top of feeling 'crumpled' following the ending of her marriage.

That last also triggered building on her interest in art, which she had always loved, when she enrolled in a week-long art course as a form of therapy — "I just needed to take myself away from myself for a little while." She did the week and then went back to law. "But law didn't fit any more. I found it very stressful. I was working for a gorgeous firm, a fabulous firm, but I just knew that I was a different person. So I just had this calling to go back to what was really me."

She trained in fine art portraiture in London, in the atelier system where established artists bring on newer people in their studios. But when doing portraits of people, she found that for some reason she wasn't happy with the results. "They were awful," she says, "they were dead on my canvas." While trying to deal with this, on her regular route home she got into the habit of visiting the Battersea Dogs Home. "There was this incredible Dalmatian, and there was just so much energy in him that I knew that was what I wanted on my canvas, to get that life into my art."

Dede began bringing her easel into Battersea Park and painting the dogs. "That's when it started to feel I was really coming home to my art." She recalls it as a time when 'I was feeling a little bit crumpled in life', and visiting the Dogs Home helped. "I would just stop and have a chat with the dogs, and the people who were looking after them were just really good people, it just felt lovely hanging out with them, having a laugh and a giggle." It also was the seeds of her artistic speciality of portraits of dogs. "I suppose I was having my 'crooked ear' days and so were the dogs. There was a soulful thing about them, and they captured my heart."

Back to the book, it's a response to her original thoughts that becoming an artist would be a 'wonderful, la la la creative fun expedition into a new chapter'. Which it wasn't, as she found out. "I learned that there is much more to the creative life than just being creative. You've got to be able to think with a business head as well as a creative head. I have learned so much in the last ten years, when I really went professional, that I needed to know when I was just starting out. I made mistakes, and the reason that I wrote this was to give the benefit of my ups and downs, which I could have short-circuited if I had been aware of what I really needed to know."

Her Woodbine Books appearance this week is part of a tour of Irish bookshops, which Dede says she is really enjoying. "It's the best. It can be a very solitary career, and I have always had a huge fear of public speaking, even when I was a lawyer. But going into these amazing bookshops in Ireland, I'm just meeting gorgeous people, and I'm just sharing what makes me tick or excited, that other people may connect with it too, and in that way you can have a bit of a laugh and a bit of fun."

The Creative, Covered, is available in all good bookshops. Which naturally includes Woodbine Books in Kilcullen.

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