A Life in Full Colour

A Life in Full Colour

From entrepreneurship to creativity, the journey continues — under one bright roof. There comes a time when the word retirement feels too heavy, too final. It suggests endings, but what I am contemplating is a beginning. A new phase under one roof, where I gather the things that matter most: art, writing, music, and conviviality. It’s called Y Segontiwm.

For decades I poured my entrepreneurial energy into building businesses and creating opportunities. That drive hasn’t faded; it has simply shifted. Now, I want to bring that same vision into my cultural life — into what I think of as The Next Studio. Not a corporate office, not a workplace as such, but a home for creativity. A space alive with colour, words, and music, where inspiration can flow freely into daily life.

When I imagine it, I see something like Van Gogh’s Yellow House in Arles. Painted in 1888, it was more than a corner building — it was Van Gogh’s dream of a shared studio, a place where artists could live, work, and inspire one another. The dream never fully materialised, yet the painting endures as a symbol of possibility: proof that we can create a sanctuary for imagination, wherever we are.

Doing more of what matters

This new chapter is not about doing less, but about doing more of what matters. Hemingway and Greene remind me that life lived fully does not need excess — it needs truth, precision, and depth. Semi-retirement, as I see it, is not about narrowing down but about distilling. It’s a way of paring back the noise and keeping only the essentials: the colour of paint, the shape of words, the music that lingers in a room, the conviviality of friends around a table.

What I want now is a life in full colour. Not just the colours found on a canvas, but the ones embedded in language, in memory, in imagination, and in human connection. My roof — my Next Studio — will be the place where those colours are gathered, where the pace slows but the spirit expands.

Not an ending. Not retirement. Just the next studio — a life in full colour.

Sara McKee FRSA

Y Segontiwm, 9 Segontium Terrace, Caernarfon LL55 2PN