Meet the former solicitor who now runs life drawing classes in Leeds

She enjoyed a legal career spanning nearly four decades, yet Kim Coley admits she’s not entirely sure what led her down the path. “The legal profession did not come naturally to me at first,” she reflects. “I was a round peg in a very square hole...I was naturally good at art, but I probably realised that making a living from it is not easy.”

It was in late 1970s Britain when Coley began studying a law degree, shaped by a backdrop of grammar school education and a rising wave of feminism across the UK. “In those days, especially because I went to a state grammar school where you had to pass your 11 plus, they were much-more orientated towards the academic,” 61-year-old Coley says. “Art wasn’t really considered to be an important subject in the 70s at grammar school.

“I think I was persuaded that it wasn’t a good idea to go to art school, which is a shame, because I think an art education is a wonderful thing. In a way I made the mistake of doing too well in my O-Levels. I remember my careers master saying why don’t you do something where you can earn your living? I think I was quite keen to be financially independent.

“Feminism was on the rise and we girls were thinking of being independent and not relying on a man. That was part of it, that I wanted to make my own living. I decided to do a law degree because I remember being advised it was actually a very versatile degree to have.”

After then training as a solicitor, Coley, who lives in the village of Kirkby Overblow on the outskirts of Harrogate, had a legal career spanning from the 1980s right through to 2019, and one that saw her specialise for many years in cases involving domestic abuse.

It was a profession that brought her fulfilment - “lots changed in how we tackled domestic abuse and I was involved in that” - but throughout it all, art remained her creative outlet and a practice she has continued to hone.

Now, for the first time, it has her undivided attention. “I ended up with an interesting legal career, which allowed me to earn a living and keep me connected to the real world,” Coley explains. “I was able to work part time, so that I could develop an art practice, at my own pace, alongside it.”

“Now that’s what I do,” she adds. “I make and sell my own work. But I don’t have to make a lot of money from it... I’ve always created and sold art alongside my legal career but now it’s just that and I’m very happy.”

Born in Glasgow, but raised in Harrogate, Coley is from a family of creatives. Her mother was a fashion designer, who attended Glasgow School of Art, and her maternal great-grandfather was a stonemason and sculptor by trade. “My mum was always sewing and I learnt to make my own clothes,” Coley recalls. “She’s actually a very good designer as well and I think probably some of that has rubbed off on me. Certainly design is an aspect of my work.”

It seems her own creativity has rubbed off on her children too. Her oldest son, 33-year-old Alex, produces digital art, whilst 30-year-old Laurie is a graphic designer. “I think they picked up vibes from me that the legal profession wasn’t easy. I didn’t try and make them do anything but I think they realised mum would rather have been an artist.

“They’re both naturally creative as well. They saw me messing about with paint whilst they were younger. We had exhibitions in my flat in Harrogate when they were growing up so they were used to a load of bonkers artists being around and having fun. I suppose that must have had an influence on them.”

Though it was Harrogate High School and then the University of Sheffield where Coley received her formal education, when the boys were growing up, she also enrolled on a variety of art courses including at Oldham and Harrogate colleges.

“But probably the best tutors I had are the ones I went to privately,” she says. Coley counts landscape and figure painter John McCombs among her tutors and she became friends with Bingley-born musician and artist Herbert Whone in his later years. “I don’t feel I’ve missed out by not having a formal art education, I just think things have probably happened a bit more slowly for me,” she says.

For seven years, Coley has been running life drawing classes at Sunnybank Mills in Farsley, Leeds with her friend Mel Davies. The pair have taken the sessions online during the coronavirus pandemic. “I think there was a time when drawing and painting seemed to go out of fashion a bit,” Coley reflects, “I suppose when the conceptual art movement really got a grip. But now it’s come back into fashion and people want to learn to draw.

“The nude body is a wonderful subject for drawing and the nude life class used to be very much a traditional staple of art education. We’ve had a real variety of different models come along and pose for us. It’s a good way to learn to draw.”

Coley produces - and exhibits - the bulk of her work from her studio, a lean-to at the side of the home she shares with husband Jonathan. Painting and drawing is her key focus but for six years, a kiln has also sat in her garage for a series of tile mural projects.

Almost every year since 2007, Coley has taken part in the North Yorkshire Open Studios event. Her major art projects have included a commission from Farrow and Ball to make a painting using their household emulsion, which was auctioned off to raise funds for Harrogate’s St Michael’s Hospice, and more recently she has painted a mural at a bus shelter in Kirkby Overblow to cheer up villagers during lockdown.

“I really enjoyed that, it was great,” she says. The project was completed in a day and inspired by wildflowers growing nearby. “I started it at five in the morning and by 7am people started to walk by and talk to me and give me suggestions. The postman came by and Eddie Gray the footballer came by and said he liked the bee. That was really good fun.”

For Coley and her husband, lockdown has provided ample opportunity for rural walks with puppy Biddy, a Dachshund, Whippet and Bedlington Terrier cross, who they welcomed into the family in December. It has also brought her new direction for her work, as she marks a year since leaving the legal profession and prepares to exhibit as part of an Art for Youth North event in North Yorkshire later this year.

“I’m really looking forward to creating more work and I think now I’m starting to feel that the natural world is where my inspiration is going to come from,” Coley says. “I’ve dabbled in figure drawing, landscapes, the tile murals but I think now I’m starting to find a direction for myself...The environment is very relevant and I hope post-lockdown it’s going to be one of the most important issues to us all.”

- Visit www.kimcoley.co.uk

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