Why I Put Myself on Retainer

A few years ago I found myself commuting to London and staying away from my family several nights a week whilst freelancing with a technology startup.

The team was talented, the work was interesting and the pay was good, so from the outside it looked like a sensible move. Despite that, I felt increasingly trapped. I missed my family, I missed having control over my time and, although I couldn’t fully articulate it at the time, I felt disconnected from a part of myself that had always been important.

Looking back, I think I was experiencing a mid-career crisis — not a dramatic one, but a slow and quiet kind that crept up without announcing itself.

Not because I had fallen out of love with design or building websites. I’ve spent nearly twenty years helping businesses grow online and I still enjoy solving problems, improving customer experiences and helping founders build stronger brands.

What was missing was the act of making things for myself.

A career spent working digitally had gradually pulled me away from the satisfaction of creating something tangible.

Around that time I joined an online course with designer James Victore. His book, Feck Perfuction (the misspelling is intentional), arrived at exactly the right moment and challenged many of the assumptions I had built up around creativity, permission and the idea that everything needed a commercial purpose before it was worth pursuing.

Inspired by that, I bought a cheap gouge, a few lino blocks and a brayer and decided to revisit linocut printmaking, something I’d enjoyed at school but hadn’t touched for years.

My first print was an unusual view of St. Edmundsbury Cathedral, a place that held personal significance because my best friend lived nearby when we were teenagers and I spent countless hours around the town.

When I peeled the paper back from the block and saw the image appear for the first time, I felt an immediate sense of relief. The print had worked, but more importantly something inside me had stirred that I hadn’t realised had gone quiet.

On a whim, I posted the print in a local Facebook group. Within hours people were tagging friends and asking where to buy one, but my first reaction was to assume they were joking. Thankfully, I ignored that instinct, listed the edition for sale and watched the prints start to disappear.

The sales were encouraging, but what mattered far more was the confidence the experience gave me. Creating something personal, sharing it publicly and seeing people connect with it encouraged me to take more risks, trust my own judgement and bring more of myself into the work I was producing.

Creating something personal, sharing it publicly and seeing people connect with it encouraged me to take more risks and trust my own judgement.

Printmaking eventually led to painting. After discovering the work of Norman Ackroyd, I became fascinated by the way his prints captured atmosphere and landscape, often feeling closer to paintings than traditional printmaking. Before long I was experimenting with watercolours, abstract landscapes and seascapes of my own.

What appealed to me wasn’t Norman’s technical perfection. It was his expression.

The sea is constantly changing. The weather changes, the light changes and the horizon never quite looks the same twice. I’ve always found comfort in that, and many of my paintings became a way of exploring those ideas through colour, texture and mark making.

I never set out to become an artist. I simply rediscovered a part of myself that had always been there.

When I look back at school and university, some of my happiest memories involve making things. Designing project covers. Wandering around galleries. Painting skateboards. Experimenting without worrying whether the outcome would be commercially useful.

A career spent working digitally had gradually pulled me away from the satisfaction of creating something tangible. Printmaking brought that back.

Recently, finishing a run of client projects reminded me how easy it is to neglect your own creative practice when other work fills every available space.

For years I told myself I’d make more time when the finances were stronger, when work was quieter or when the timing felt right.

Then I realised I was asking the wrong question. The wrong question was when. The right one was how.

This isn’t time off. It’s part of the job.

The Rik Barwick Studio was never intended to be an agency. It was always meant to be a studio — a place where commercial work and creative practice could exist alongside one another.

The judgement I bring to client projects doesn’t come solely from Shopify, websites or commercial strategy. It comes from observation, experimentation, curiosity and the discipline of making things.

That’s why I’ve decided to put myself on retainer.

One day every fortnight is reserved for the studio.

Sometimes that will mean painting. Sometimes it will mean printmaking, writing, reading, walking or simply giving myself the space to explore an idea without knowing where it will lead.

The specific activity matters less than the principle behind it.

I’ve learnt what happens when I neglect that part of myself, and I’m not keen to make that mistake again.

For years I put my own creative practice last. Now I’ve scheduled it in. Not as a luxury, but as a discipline. Here’s why.

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