A life on the road with colours more than ours
Jo Richardson, someone who made me stop by to listen to her life and art.
On a busy road, Cornmarket Street, filled with people moving from one place to another, she stood still.
Her artwork hung around her like fragments of colour against the grey rhythm of the city. People passed by without looking for long. Some glanced. Some smiled politely. Most kept walking.
Then I stopped.
‘My name’s Jo Richardson anyway,’ she told me with a grin. ‘I’m an artist from Brighton, based in Brighton really. But I’m having a tour of the UK with my art at the moment.’
Jo is 65 years old. Five years ago, she gave up her home, her possessions, and what many would consider a conventional life. Since then, she has lived outdoors, travelling, creating art, and surviving largely through the kindness of strangers and the sale of her work.
Now, she is on an 11-week journey across the UK, a spiritual and an artistic pilgrimage she plans to end at the summer solstice near Stonehenge.
‘I live in the universe,’ she said simply.
There was something different about the way Jo spoke, like she had lived but never enough to see the world colourful. She spoke about ‘energy’ the way some people speak about weather: something constantly moving between people, shaping encounters, invisible but undeniable.
‘To bring colour to the universe,’ she said, describing her purpose, ‘and to all these beautiful people.’
Jo believes modern society has disconnected people from themselves. Throughout our conversation, she returned repeatedly to the idea that people are trapped in routines they never chose.
‘We’re hardwired to do that when we’re born, aren’t we?’ she said. ‘You go, get a job, get married, have children, do all that society crap.’
To her, much of society resembles ‘a herd of sheep,’ people moving in the same direction without questioning why. She sees herself as someone who stepped outside that system after decades of conventional work.
‘I worked for the man for 40 years,’ she told me. ‘Paid all my taxes. And after lockdown, I thought, you know what? I just can’t be oscillating this.’
The pandemic became a turning point. Jo described spending months in a communal camp creating ‘peace trees,’ artwork, and music with friends. The experience transformed her understanding of freedom and inspired the life she now lives.
Her philosophy centres around one phrase: follow your joy.
‘If it’s not your joy, don’t do it,’ she said. ‘And if it is your joy, then do it.’
The idea sounds almost deceptively simple, but Jo speaks about it with the conviction of someone who has already tested it against reality. She told me stories of days when she had no food or water, only for strangers to unexpectedly appear with something she needed.
‘Once you accept that lack,’ she said, ‘the universe will always provide.’
At times, her beliefs drift into spiritual mysticism. She described encounters as ‘messages from the universe,’ and spoke about positive and negative energy as forces that shape daily life. Yet beneath the spiritual language was something profoundly human: a longing for connection.
Several times during our conversation, Jo thanked me simply for stopping.
‘Hundreds of people walked past before,’ she said. ‘And not one really stopped.’
She told me about a pair of birds she had spent over an hour watching in silence earlier that day. Their stillness inspired a drawing she later created. The tenderness with which she described them felt almost symbolic of how she sees the world, attentive to small moments most people overlook.
Jo also spoke passionately about truth, perspective, and journalism when I told her I wanted to pursue travel journalism.
‘What you see is different to what I see,’ she explained, gesturing to the mug she held. ‘But when you put all those perspectives together, that’s where the truth is.’
‘I have this Giraffe I am yet to complete.’ She showed me an incompletely coloured giraffe, ‘I think they see things that lot of people don’t see.’
That conversation left me wondering, ‘Will the way we think change over age?’ Maybe not, maybe with experience it will. She also said, ;Maybe I’ll reach those heights one day. But now, I’m sort of a donkey level.’ If she is at a donkey level, what level are we all at?
In an era shaped by algorithms, outrage, and constant noise, Jo’s worldview feels both deeply idealistic and quietly rebellious. She rejects material success, distrusts mainstream narratives, and believes modern life has distanced people from joy, creativity, and genuine connection.
Some may dismiss her ideas as naive. Others may call them radical. But standing there listening to her speak, it became clear that Jo is not trying to convince the world to become her. She is simply trying to live honestly according to what she believes.
Before we parted, she smiled warmly and said she hoped to one day see me ‘speaking truth’ somewhere in the future.
Then she picked up her artwork and continued to paint, one more bright streak of colour moving through an increasingly grey world.