CALL OF THE WILD

Just three years ago, Pip McGarry gave up his secure job as deputy manager of a Jobcentre to venture into the jungle. His dream was to become a wildlife artist. Here he tells ANDREA WATSON what it's like to take the bold step of becoming self-employed.

AT a recent Christies sale of 20th-century paintings, Pip McGarry was the only wildlife artist selected for inclusion alongside the world-famous David Shepherd. And while he may not yet hang in the hall of fame, his astonishing success has proved that his decision to quit the safe shores of the civil service for an erratic and sometimes risky profession has been vindicated.

As a Jobcentre manager, Pip was used to putting people who wanted to become self-employed in touch with business advisers but after 20 or more years, he felt his own career was going nowhere.

"I remember one fellow who came into the Jobcentre who wanted to be a comedian. I gave him as much help as I could, partly because I thought I'd like to do something like that myself." he says.

There were many such encounters with people wanting to become self-employed but Pip was not quite ready to make the break himself. By the early Nineties, however, the employment figures had started to improve and Jobcentres were cutting back on staff and blocking promotions. Staff were being given the chance to work part-time so, to test the water, Pip asked to cut down his hours so that he could spend more time painting.

He was reluctant to give up a secure job and contract, partly because he had a wife, two children and a mortgage on their home in Andover. Hampshire. But it was not long before Pip made his first significant sales.

The problem that he now faced, and one that will be familiar to all those who have attempted start-ups while remaining employed, was that he found himself juggling two jobs. Pip had landed a contract to produce prints for a fine art publisher -- the setback was that he did not have enough time to paint the required pictures. He tried reducing his hours again, working at the Jobcentre three days a week.
The defining moment came when Pip, by now 42, approached his employer, the Department for Education and Employment (now Work and Pensions), to ask for a year's sabbatical. "It was all in the guidelines but when I actually approached them and asked for a year off, they said 'no'.

"I went home and spoke to my wife. Basically, after 20 years with the DfEE. I was going round in circles. The next day I handed my notice in. I was really apprehensive as I had less than three months worth of commissions ahead of me. But my wife was very encouraging and the fact that, at 42, you don't get a second chance spurred me on."

In spite of all this, Pip found it a "nerve-jangling" experience. Now his nerves are more likely to be tested by an approaching elephant. Last year he visited the remote wilderness areas of northern Botswana, camping in Chobe, Moremi and Savute.

"Having but a thin piece of canvas between you and lions, hyenas and elephants in the middle of the African bush late at night is a great way to focus the mind," he says.

Pip is planning another trip to Africa with fellow painters and photographers this autumn. Most of the time, though, he is based in the UK where he has forged a close association with Marwell Zoo in Hampshire. Shortly after giving his employer the sack, Pip suggested that the zoo would benefit from the services of an artist in residence.

It proved to be a masterstroke and he was duly chosen for the position that he had invented. Pip takes up the amusing story: "Having appointed me, they were not quite sure what my duties were supposed to be and I had to do a presentation showing what I thought I should do.

"One of the items I felt important was the creation of an art society at the zoo. I was given the green light, along with several other 'duties'."

Pip was duly appointed as the chairman of the Marwell Art Society -- membership nil -- which has since grown to be the second largest wildlife art society in the UK, with 40 professional artists in its ranks as well as many amateurs.

The society has also turned out to be a world first. "It has now dawned on us that, incredibly, we appear to be unique -- there does not appear to be any such zoo-based art society anywhere else in the world. We've checked the Internet, zoo indexes, magazines and so on," he says. The society has been of particular benefit to the zoo this year. Its summer exhibition provided a much?needed visitor attraction during the foot-and-mouth epidemic.

SHORTLY after becoming a full-time painter, more luck appeared to Pip in the form of a collector from Jersey, who almost immediately commissioned £8,000 worth of paintings. He has since become Pip's biggest customer.

"He contacted me because there was a scratch on the frame of the first picture he brought -- a tiny oil of a wild cat -- and he wanted it put right. So I had it reframed and he came back and bought another painting of tiger cubs straightaway. I guess the moral is that the customer is always right. Had I said, 'the scratch is included in the price', no further business would have come my way"

But earning a living as a wildlife artist has not been easy. Though one of a select band published by the major fine art publishers, Pip says that the genre is highly specialised and Christies has now ceased its specialist auctions.

Even though his work retails at more than £300 unframed, and with a September exhibition in the pipeline, he cannot afford to rest on his laurels.

Still, Pip has no regrets. I shocked a struggling young artist the other day by telling him that I'd rather go down doing what I am doing than bump along the bottom. There's no way I am going back to work for anyone."