The Two Patricias.
We didn’t pick the name off a list. Both our mums are called Patricia, both artists at heart, both the reason we paint. Motion.
We didn’t pick the name off a list. We share it. Both our mums are called Patricia, and both are why we paint. Two creative women, two families, one name over the door.
The First Patricia.
My mum, Patricia, is the original spark. A small Irish lady who packs a punch: tough as old boots, gorgeous smile, freckles, and enough stories to talk for England (and Ireland). She won’t be the one shouting across the room, but once she gets going, she’s a force. Artistic, confident, beautiful inside and out. She’s the reason I paint at all.
She was the driving force from the very start: handing me colouring books, drawing pads and doodling books, getting me everything she could, pushing me towards groups and never once making a restless kid feel daft for filling a page. When friends and family said you can’t make a career out of art, there’s no money in it, get another job, she quietly backed me and said there is. She was right.
My mum has also had a complex journey with her mental health. She’s been through the worst of the worst and somehow always found a way to come back stronger. That resilience, the ability to keep going when life knocks you down, has inspired me like nothing else. It taught me that strength isn’t about never struggling. It’s about carrying on anyway.
I paint, more than anything, to make her proud. The company carries her name. And what I want most is to get her into one of our workshops one day, brush in her hand, music on, the room buzzing, and watch her light up doing the very thing she gave me all those years ago.
I love you, Mum. My best friend. This one is for you.
The Second Patricia.
Niamh’s mum, Patricia, is the reason she’s creative at all. A genuinely good artist who poured it into a sketchbook instead of a career. She was born and raised in France and painted all through her teens. Niamh’s grandmother still keeps the sketchbook from back then, page after page of paintings she did as a girl.
Back in her day, being an artist wasn’t seen as a serious job, so she became a teacher instead. She has taught French in secondary schools for over thirty-five years. But she never let it dim Niamh’s. She backed her from the start, always turned up with the good materials, and kept her telling stories and making things.
And here’s the bit we love: only in the last few weeks she’s picked up a paintbrush again. Every now and then a WhatsApp lands from her, a photo of something new in her sketchbook. The timing, with the whole brand opening up, is just brilliant. It’s the kind of quiet faith that makes you want to prove it right. Niamh has, over and over, and one day soon we’ll get her in a room full of colour too, so she can feel the energy and let it lift her.
Three Generations, One Thread.
There’s a line that runs through all of this. Patricia was a creative who never pursued it. Niamh is the creative who is. And then there’s Jacques, Niamh’s little boy, who’ll grow up watching his mum do the thing everyone else called impossible.
Niamh will tell you straight: she’d never have found this fire in her belly without him. She’s always been an artist, but she’s never chased it as hard as she has since becoming a mum. It stopped being about proving things to herself and became about being someone he can look up to, so that from a very early age he knows he can chase his own dreams, and go further than any of us ever could.
That’s the line, right the way through: her mum backed her through some really dark years, she’s chasing it now, and her little boy is the reason the talent finally has somewhere to go.
And That’s Why We’re Patricia Studios.
Two women named Patricia. Two families who taught us to back each other and to make the things that are hard to say out loud. Between them, our mums gave their working lives to other people, teaching, caring, showing up, so the dream we keep coming back to is simple: a workshop where both Patricias roll their sleeves up alongside us, helping us run the room. That would be a core memory. That would be everything.
That’s what walks into every room with us. And one day soon, we’ll get both our Patricias in front of a canvas to paint the name themselves.
Partners in crime, named after both our mums.