50 Shades of SLART
an unexpected introduction.
SLART NOTE: Fellow artist,
popped up in my comments (it’s the loveliest way to meet new people on ) I really enjoyed getting to know him, right off the bat, with his post. It differs from the usual ‘about me’ pages, as we want to show our best sides on those. This is more honest and I must say, more endearing.
This inspired me to tell you a bit more about me, SLART the artist and Steven Peter Light the persona of which my parents named me.
Before we do, we have an ad sponsored by SLART Enterprises PLC.
Let’s go…
My grandparents adopted me when I was 4 months old, I called them my mum and dad. As far as I was concerned, they were always my mum and dad. My birth name is Lee Anthony Woodward and my grandparents changed it to Steven Peter Light. Even though I had a cousin two years older called Stephen Light! :-)
My childhood best friend is Lee W. He’s the most loyal person you’d ever meet. Sadly when we hit secondary school we drifted apart as we socialised in different circles. However, when we meet now, it’s still the same as it ever was. He’s also my art hype man! Together we are yin and yang, he’s super extroverted and I am the opposite but we are two peas in a pod.
I wrote and self-published a book called Social Anxiety Inside Out in 2013, but took it down after a year I was embarrassed about it. It went back up in 2022 after I thought it was selfish of me to keep it hidden, even if my philosophy has ‘improved’ since.
I won a national cartoon competition at the age of 11. You can read more about this here. I was a bit gutted as the library books I won went to the school, and I received a sizeable amount of lined recycled paper as a prize LOL.
I have size 12/12.5 feet, they are a little bit wider than usual.
I’ve got 4 kidneys. You’ll know why in my posts.
My favourite colour is blue. We seem to pick a colour as kids, maybe we knew something about colour before we started overanalysing things as adults?
I used to create Nintendo game covers with my friends as a kid. We’d get very excited about a random game idea, discuss it at great length, then I’d draw the cover for it. I wished that I kept those drawings.
My favourite artist is Jean Dubuffet. He is an inspiration to many artists, including myself, Keith Haring and Jean Michel Basquiat to name a few. His vast range of work using a vast array of mediums inspires me to experiment further. He also started taking his art career later in life, at 41 years old. I am 42 now.
Both of my parents passed away within 18 months of each other, 2018-2020. I really miss them. My older brother Gary also died at age 51 in December 2023.
I once took a golf buggy out for a joy ride with friends after hours when the club was closed. It was a bit like Jackass before Jackass happened. We were bored and 15 years old. Years later, I gave the club a donation to say sorry!
My day job is Digital Optimisation Executive at Dyson, I have been here for nearly 8 years as of October 2024. My job, in short, is running AB tests to improve website conversion.
I previously struggled with overeating since childhood, food was a huge comfort for me. Gratefully, now my relationship with food is more relaxed.
Music sounds better with you is probably my all-time favourite song. It feels timeless.
When Gangsta’s Paradise by Coolio came out in 1995, my friends Lee and Matthew recorded the music video, then played it back for hours on end, writing down the lyrics by hand. This was before we had internet connections.
I don’t like how I look without a beard. I’ve had a beard since I was 24, with some interim moustaches. The only time I go clean-shaven is when I have a trimming mishap.
I don’t normally like watching recent films more than once, but the 2011 film, Limitless with Bradley Cooper, I’ve seen 15+ times. I think I love the idea of being limitless, especially the part when his shyness totally dissolved.
I’m not the most sporty person but Basketball is my sport, I started playing at 11 years old when one of my best friends, Simon saw that there were classes at the local leisure centre. New York Knicks was my chosen team as I loved the City from movies and later, Hip Hop groups like The Wu-Tang Clan and Mobb Deep.
I’m a deeply spiritual person and I like to think I am open-minded.
My favourite kid’s TV show was Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. I think they changed it to Hero for the UK audience, as Ninja was too edgy.
I was born in Royal Tunbridge Wells in Kent, moved to London for a bit, then grew up in Marlborough, Wiltshire. As an adult, I’ve lived in Bristol, Reading and London, and now back in Wiltshire living in Swindon.
I went to Ibiza 4 times between 2000 and 2005. The sunset and the music at Cafe Mambo moved me to tears, but felt like I had to hold it in.
One time I downed a pint of vodka at the end of the night out, it didn’t end well.
I got a B grade in my High School (GCSE) Art class. I was really pleased at the time, but why no A?!!!
German was a language I adored at school, I was at the very top of my class, higher than the boffins. This shows how much interest drives learning. I feel sad that I didn’t carry it on for GCSE and beyond, as I was told we had to study for a language to get into University, I wasn’t planning to go to Uni, I thought there was no point. Dumb logic!
I’ve been to Germany 4 times, my friend is 1/2 German and I have been with him each time. The last time we went in 2012, he drove me across the country and we got to see the beautiful black forest and Zugspitze!
Arnold Schwarzenegger is a childhood idol of mine, I think it’s because he was super fit and super confident, the total opposite of me as a kid.
The book I am reading right now is ‘The Essential Works of Henry Harrison Brown’ a spiritual classic, way before the huge wave of Law of attraction books such as The Secret. I love Victorian spirituality books!
I have an art studio in the town centre that was once the main post office, but artists took it over from the council in the early 2000s. Now around 15 artists are using the spaces there!
Despite many people moaning about England, I think it’s a great place to live. Social media has skewed our view of life and where we live.
I put my hand through a window when I was drunk at the age of 15, I did it out of frustration as I felt socially inadequate and had to drink to be even remotely social. I remember being in the back of the ambulance with my dad and I said “Please don’t hate me Dad” he replied in his kind voice “Of course, I don’t hate you, son”. I’m crying now, my parents did so much for me, it’s taken me 42 years to realise this, from becoming a parent myself. Now my parents are gone, I can’t tell them how much I love them for who they were in my life.
When I was struggling with social anxiety in my late teens and early twenties, I went on a 7-day course with Paul Mckenna, Michael Neill and Richard Bandler. I got up on stage twice and mingled with 299 other participants to face my fear of people.
I’ve recorded over 60 podcast episodes in several guises, the main idea was for me to overcome my fear of talking to people, so I contacted people like
to chat with (She was my favourite interview BTW, don’t tell her!) You can listen to a small selection of my podcasts that I put on Substack here.In 2006, I was really struggling with life, in an unhappy relationship and didn’t know what to do. Then something happened that changed the course of my life forever. I got a call from a job agency asking if I could come to London that very day for an interview at a French Design agency called Duke Interactive. I was shitting my pants, but I got myself ready, travelled to London and got the job.
I lost the job 6 months later due to crippling social anxiety. I had to go to Paris for a conference, I overslept and missed my lift with the client (I didn’t sleep much due to excessive worrying!) then I plucked up the courage to travel to Paris, but when I got there, it was too late. The main part of the conference had ended, so I headed straight home. I got fired on Monday, too embarrassed to share what was going on inside of my head. I told that manager years later via LinkedIn and he said “You should have told me”. It all worked out well, as I got the London bug and ended up living there for 10 years and meeting my wife there, the rest is history.
I founded the world’s largest mental health meetup. I didn’t know it would be this big, I just set it up as another way to get over my shyness and social anxiety, now others have been running it since I moved away from London in 2014.
I miss London a lot, but I think a lot of that is nostalgia, as in reality, I struggled a lot mentally there, I found it hard to work for someone so I scraped by doing freelance web work. I’m amazed that I managed to survive, I was very fortunate.
My favourite bar in London is on a boat called The Tattershall Castle. I get a warm fuzzy feeling when I go there, my wife and I had our first date there in 2007.
I’ve been married since 20th October 2017 but we’ve been together since 2007, I was dragging my heels a bit, only for monetary reasons, I just struggled to get the money together then.
I am 6’ 2” but I really wanted to be over 6’ 5” as I was really into basketball as a kid.
The care home said that my dad died of Covid, I never got to see him as the homes were in lockdown. They burned all of his belongings.
On more of an upbeat note. My favourite comedy series include Bottom, Father Ted, The Office (UK), Friday Night Dinner and IT Crowd. They all have somewhat similar humour.
I probably have ADHD, but I don’t ever want to go down a medication route. I need to learn how to focus again. A lot of us do these days, our attention is scattered.
My claim to fame is meeting Ruby Wax at one of my mental health events and later being invited back to her London home. It was stunning!
I like the idea of dressing up more smartly, but I live in jeans, t-shirts, hoodies and trainers mainly.
My brother Gary took me and 3 friends on an “Army Adventure” up Savernake Forest when we were 9. It was the coolest thing ever, all dressed up in army gear, walking through rivers and sharing one of his beers. I miss him loads.
I’ve probably had about 20 cars in my lifetime, I used to go through cars like underwear in my early twenties, as I’d buy a shit-heap for £400 and it would last 3 months max. One time my dad had to push my car up the hill from our house as it broke down.
Mexican had been my favourite food for a while, but in reality, I don’t eat it that much. Carribean food is my favourite, we have it at least once a week, influenced by my wife’s Caribbean grandparents.
My wife and I have a dog called Bruno, he definately helped us prepare for a baby. We rescued him from a home when he was 7, now he’s 16 1/2 and still going strong for his age. He’s my fur baby. His breed is miniature pincher and he weighs about 6 lbs.
I don’t know why but I find it hard to discuss films or programmes I’ve seen. Some people go into great detail and I just say “Yeah, it was good, really enjoyed it” Maybe I’m so present I forget the film? :-D
Bonus: Favourite childhood film. Oh, I have to pick 3:
Karate Kid
Short Circuit 2
The Goonies.
Thanks for staying until the end and getting to know me a bit more.
I nominate the following people to share 50 shades of themselves. The good, the bad and the ugly.
Comment below or write your own post! The choice is yours.
Best wishes and blessings to you, your friends and your family.
Wow, some really interesting, poignant and deep stuff in here SLART. You clearly have a complex sense of inner self and your personal narrative to be able to whip out 50 facts of such quality! Well done.
Layers man - so many layers.
I laughed, I cried.
And I got way too hung up on Teenage Mutant freaking HERO Turtles 😶