How I got here

I get asked a lot how I got to where I am, with the subtext of "how do I get to where you are?". The short answer to that is spend 46 years being me! What they mean of course is "what are the steps I need to follow" which also isn't a very easy to answer.

I started my working life in the museum sector. I did a Masters Degree in Museum Studies (after a first degree in Medieval Studies) and worked in a variety of museums in my 20s. I then, quite simply, quit my job and rented a studio and became a maker. It wasn't as easy as that of course, but that's the basics. I learned on the job. It's been enormously hard work but I wouldn't be the artist or the person I am if I hadn't done it that way. Also my mum was self employed throughout my teens (and still is at 76!) so I had a role model for running your own business and creating a life that works for you.

I loved working in museums but I also craved creativity and autonomy, being able to make decisions myself about what I was going to do. And not have a manager! As I approached 30 I was contemplating either doing a PhD in textile history, or setting up my own creative business running workshops, teaching textile history and making things for a living. I still yearn after the research life sometimes but I know I am better off doing what I do. I saved up, I set up some freelance work, I worked out how to live very cheaply and I just started making. I've gone through a whole load of different variations on being an artist / freelancer / tutor / studio owner. Some of them worked out and some of them didn't but all of them helped me to get to where I am now. I have written books, I have exhibited, I have had commissions from arts organisations, I have won prizes, I have applied for and got funding. I have also failed at all of those things many more times than I have been successful. What you see is the tip of the iceberg. I don't particularly recommend following the same steps as I've done as so many of them have been cul-de-sacs and even sheer cliffs!

What is really most important is that you be yourself, not try to follow my creative path. What was right for me won't necessarily be right for you. You have to find your own path and this membership is designed to help you uncover and follow your path and walk along it with your own footsteps. Is this metaphor getting a bit too stretched? Maybe.

Anyway, there are lessons I have learned through getting things wrong, getting things right (often by accident) and from learning from others, both in my mentoring and support roles and from seeing friends work things through themselves.

Working out who / what you want to be as a creative person isn't a simple task. It takes time. It changes all the time. I don't have the same ambitions or goals as I did pre-pandemic because the world, and I, have changed.

Rest is part of the work. You can't be creative when you are exhausted. This applies to pandemic life as well as more day-to-day times.

Other peoples' successes might not be yours. And yours will be yours alone. External markers of success are generally not what really fulfils us. It's vital to work out what is most important to you in your creative practice. Making an income from your work doesn't have to be the main goal unless you absolutely need it to be.

Your creativity needs to be nurtured. You need to give it time, space, food and water to grow. This membership is some fertiliser for your creativity.

You are an artist. You have a story to tell through making and you are in the process of uncovering that story and sharing it with the people who matter. 

I hope you will join me in Maker Membership to explore and discover.