When does your passion become your profession? Can you take a love of making and creating and turn it into a successful business? This is the podcast where I t...
18: Creative entrepreneurship and multi-tasking with Emily Hadley
A glance at Emily Hadley’s website is enough to make the most accomplished of creative business owners feel (more than?) slightly inadequate. Not only has she and her husband renovated three homes, Emily took charge of the interiors - a service she has also developed professionally - she is also an Instagram influencer and content creator, a silversmith with a range of jewellery… and now runs a hugely successful art gallery from her home. And during much of this was also a primary school teacher championing art for future young creatives. In our lively and entertaining chat Emily shares how her love of teaching, and especially sharing and encouraging art in all its forms to her pupils, was gradually eroded by lack of resources and support. Giving up her much loved career she looked for an alternative that would give her the same satisfaction: she was already styling and photographing her home for social media when an artist friend encouraged her to include original art too. She embraced this wholeheartedly, and was soon representing a varied and exciting range of artists and selling their work all over the world. I love chatting to all creatives and creative business owners, but a conversation with a fellow gallerist is quite special as it’s also an opportunity to share the joys - as well as the frustrations - of our businesses and Emily is candid in our conversation about the highs and lows of running any creative business, and her aspirations for the future. You can visit Emily’s website at https://www.emilyhadley.co.uk/ and follow her on instagram @emuplops - during our chat she also reveals what inspired her rather unusual insta handle! This is last in the series of An Art to It, I will be back with more creative guests in 2025. If there is anyone you’d like to suggest as a guest for the new series please do let me know. You can follow me on instagram @elaine_dye_ and @thebyregallery - the website for the Byre Gallery is www.thebyregallery.co.uk where you can enjoy our winter exhibition and find out more about the courses and support I offer to artists and makers.
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17: Flower Power: the art of creative business juggling with Lucy Innes Williams
Lucy Innes Williams runs not one, but two creative businesses - her fine art practice and her printed goods and stationery business, Floradore. In our really interesting chat Lucy reveals how she manages to balance the two separate entities, both linked by her love of capturing all things floral. We also discuss the journey Lucy has taken: a graduate in Fine Art from Central St Martins College in London, after leaving college Lucy didn’t feel either inspired or ready to begin a career as an artist. Spending some time interning in the USA after graduation encouraged her to pursue further studies - this time at University College London - to take a Masters in Museum Studies. After that she held several posts in cataloguing and exhibition management including with the Arts Council of England and the National Portrait Gallery, before joining Bridgeman Images www.bridgemanimages.com to work in artist management. Liaising with artists and their work re-awakened her desire to start painting again, and she was able to use her valuable experience of image licensing when she launched Floredore. In our chat Lucy reveals her techniques for keeping the two businesses separate, and how having a studio away from home - where she also has to factor in the demands of her young family - has given her a much needed space to explore her creative practice. You can see Lucy’s work on instagram @lucyinneswilliams and her website is lucyinneswilliams.com where you can find links to all her upcoming exhibitions and ways to buy her gorgeous work, and for all her floral inspired printed goods, please visit floradore.co.uk
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16: The art of taking every opportunity, with Helen Wilde
Textile artist Helen Wilde, aka Ova Bloom has made a career of being in the right place at the right time and grasping every opportunity with both hands. From work experience, (with no less than artist Tom Phillips https://www.tomphillips.co.uk/ to art college, and her subsequent successful career, Helen has been fortunate at meeting the right people and the most opportune moment. But that shouldn’t detract from her achievements: her work features in numerous bedroom suites at London Dorchester Hotel, https://www.dorchestercollection.com/london/the-dorchester/rooms-suites/hyde-park-suite she counts several high profile American celebrities amongst her collectors… oh and as a 7 year old her art work won a coveted place on the gallery wall in BBC TV’s children’s art favourite, Take Hart. In our lively chat Helen reflects on her creative journey and how at various points her career may have taken a different path. Making friends with a young customer whilst working in skateboard shop during her college years, she then met his father who just happened to be (the now late) Daniel Hanson, www.danielhanson.co.uk - maker of exquisite gentlemen’s dressing gowns (Elton John is a serious fan) and he offered her a job. Several fun-filled years of working in fashion in New York - channeling Carrie Bradshaw - followed. Back in the UK Helen reveals how the urge for making took off and she was soon selling via Instagram and Etsy. Press coverage in the US citing her as ‘the next big thing’ launched her American following. And the rest, as they say is history. You can see Helen’s work on instagram @ovobloom and her website is ovobloom.com where you can find links to all her upcoming exhibitions and ways to buy her gorgeous work.
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15: Colours and Lines, a Glass Act with Ruth Shelley
Colour is at the very heart of Ruth Shelley’s creative life. Growing up in rural Wales with limited external entertainment, making and domestic creativity were at the heart of her childhood, and inspired her move to study textiles at art college. Travel and finding inspiration in the colours and patterns of south east Asia continued to influence her textile work but stumbling on an evening class in stained glass opened up a whole new creative adventure for Ruth. In our chat Ruth reflects on her creative path as well as her travels and inspirations - both overseas and closer to home; discusses how experimenting with glass is a source of endless fascination for her - and that a tip from her Physicist brother made all the difference to finessing her work; and how being an award winner at the 2015 Glass Biennale in Stourbridge made a huge difference to her career. Ruth’s work can be seen this winter at: London Glass Blowing Gallery https://londonglassblowing.co.uk/ Contemporary Applied Arts https://www.caagallery.org.uk/ And other venues, please check Ruth’s website for stockists and events: https://www.ruthshelley.co.uk/
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14: Mapping a career in ceramics with Loraine Rutt
A love of making - and of maps - has taken ceramic artist Loraine Rutt on an unusual but very successful creative journey. Loraine began her career as a cartographer at London’s Birkbeck College https://www.bbk.ac.uk/ but when digitalisation of maps meant that she would be using a computer rather than the more physical approach of a pencil and tracing paper, she decided to pursue her earlier dream of going to art college. A degree in ceramics from London’s Central School for Art and Design (later Central St Martins https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/central-saint-martins) began her creative career which now sees her specialising in ceramic maps and globes with her own art-lead practice and her pocket globes which she produces limited editions of via her Little Globe co. In our chat Loraine shares her journey from her Kent and London childhood, through her cartography career and joy at finally attending art college and getting to ‘play with clay.’ Her work mapping our world in ceramic form has recently won Loraine recognition from the Royal Geographical Society where she is now a Fellow. You can read about her recent exhibition here: The Royal Geographical Society https://www.rgs.org/about-us/our-work/latest-news/pocket-globes-and-porcelain-maps-new-exhibition-combines-cartography-and-ceramics In our chat Loraine also shares her chat about her connection with a real life space man: Apollo 15 Astronaut Col Al Worden - her work in homage and some recordings of her talking to Al Worden about the view of Earth from space can be heard here: http://www.lorainerutt.com/portal Loraine also recently took part in an exhibition in Venice with the prestigious Homo Faber organisation - you can see the catalogue here: https://2024.homofaber.com/ecatalogue For all Loraine’s other work please visit her website: www.lorainerutt.com
When does your passion become your profession? Can you take a love of making and creating and turn it into a successful business? This is the podcast where I talk to artists and makers who, whatever their discipline, are all fortunate to have turned their passion for creating into their occupation. As we discuss their journey to being professional artists and makers we explore inspirations, imposter syndrome, what success really means and of course, if there IS an art to running a flourishing creative business.
I’m Elaine Dye, I’m the owner and curator of Cornwall’s Byre Gallery, I’m also a creative business mentor and coach, and the creator of the course, ‘An Insider’s Guide to Gallery Success.’ As the Byre Gallery celebrates its 10th anniversary I thought it was the ideal opportunity to chat to some of the fascinating creatives I’ve got to know over the past decade and to explore what it means to be in the business of doing something you really love.
New Zealand