Carol Douglas, 72, exhibits at Yorkshire Sculpture Park just six years after studying art at York College

“Actually I Can” was the sentiment Carol first felt at York College & University Centre when, half-a-century on from being told she should not study the subject at A Level, she decided to enrol on our Foundation Diploma in Art & Design at the age of 66. 

That course, now part of our York School of Art offering, instilled a quiet confidence in Carol that has resulted in her work being showcased at the renowned international centre for modern and contemporary sculpture on the Bretton Hall Estate near Wakefield.

Now 72, she also regularly sells paintings for between £200 and £1,500 and ships out her work as far afield as Denmark, the Netherlands and USA to a growing band of loyal customers.

“I made the ‘Actually I Can’ banner that I am using at Yorkshire Sculpture Park during my course at College because that’s how my time there made me feel,” Carol explained about the transformative impact of her studies at Sim Balk Lane six years ago. “When I went to school, I was told art was for Saturday mornings.

“That was the opinion of the headmaster and my parents, who said it would be better if I did Latin at A Level instead. That was a mistake and I should have stood my ground.

“There was a feeling back then that art wasn’t going to lead anywhere career wise, but that was so small-minded. There are so many art-related jobs out there and you should always do something you love. 

“I was still taking a risk committing to the course because, even though I was desperate to do it, I knew I might be rubbish, but the teachers were fantastic and the other students, who were mainly 18, 19 or 20, were great with me. The tuition was also fantastic and the resources were excellent.

“We had lots of paint to work with and you started at 9am and finished at 4pm, working all the way through, which I was very happy doing. It was a real joy for me, after all those years, just to be getting on a bus to go to College and do something I loved. 

“It was almost a gift to myself and, this time, nobody could stop me doing it. That’s why I did it – I wasn’t thinking about doing exhibitions or people wanting to buy my work.”

Rather modestly, Carol credits her unexpected metamorphosis into a working and exhibited artist to “luck” but her roller-applied, acrylic canvas paintings, depicting household objects and people in domestic settings, strike a chord with so many admirers.

Having studied a Sociology degree in the 1970s after being dissuaded from pursuing an art-related career, Carol still enjoyed a fulfilling working life in a variety of roles, including as a community worker, a vegetarian chef in an arts centre, a catering manager, a learning support mentor and a nursery teacher and manager in Thailand.

On her surprise new vocational pathway, she admitted: “I never intended for my art work to go anywhere. That all came about more by chance. 

“I was just doing something for myself after all those years and I was painting things for my own pleasure. I exhibited at the Partisan cafe in York just after I finished my College course because they are very supportive of local artists and that’s where I sold my first painting.

“I was then turned down when I first inquired about exhibiting at York Open Studios but got in the second time. Somebody from Sunny Bank Mills in Farsley then saw my work on Instagram and asked me to exhibit there and that’s where I met Amanda Peach from Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

“She liked my work and bought a painting from me, so the invitation to exhibit at Yorkshire Sculpture Park came from there. I think I’ve been a bit lucky in that I was in the right places at the right times and - even though I can’t paint hands, feet or faces - a lot of my paintings include figures, and people put their own stories on them.”

Among those to spot the story-telling potential of Carol’s art was fashion brand TOAST, which has resulted in an exciting collaboration.

“Somebody from TOAST bought three of my paintings and said that all of my figures looked like they were wearing TOAST clothes,” Carol explained. 

“That led to prints of those paintings being displayed in the shop window of the York store and, then, all the other 17 TOAST shops in the country. I was also commissioned by TOAST to provide them with paintings that illustrated clothes and products from a particular season and went on to do a workshop in the York store for about 10 people.”

Carol’s “Actually I Can” exhibition will be hosted by Yorkshire Sculpture Park until Sunday, October 27.

A total of 51 of her paintings are on display and small prints of her work are also on sale in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park shop for £12 each.

Photos by India Hobson, courtesy of Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

More of Carol’s work can be viewed on her Instagram page by clicking here

For more details on the Foundation Diploma in Art & Design that Carol studied at College please click here

Information on our full York School of Art provision, meanwhile, can be found here