Facing fears and taking risks Robert and Linda are classical pianists who have found a unique way to combine their music with comedy, stories, and improvisations. But the shows they devised had never been done before, and were very different to what was expected of concert pianists. So, as classical musicians, Linda and Robert were unsure of how their ideas would be received. The first time they tried out a new idea in front of an audience – including their mentor – they were nervous and afraid....
Feb 26, 2023•52 min•Ep. 69
Playing piano together (one piano, four hands) was an experimental idea for married couple Linda and Robert, one that taught them a lot about themselves and each other, which you can find out all about in the next, more usual episode of the podcast. In the meantime, enjoy their beautiful playing in this extract from their show called From Mistresses to Manhattan, whether you are listening while throwing pots in your studio in Canada, as Deborah Hughes Gahr likes to do, enjoying some alone time i...
Feb 19, 2023•10 min•Ep. 68
Maybe it's not the right time, but never say never. Natalie Smart loved working with textiles as a youngster, from hand knitting to making her own clothes. Unfortunately, Textiles as an A-Level subject was discontinued at her school just as she was about to join the sixth form. Natalie was quite academic, so she had other choices. Faced with the decision of whether or not to take out a loan to go to university, Natalie decided against it, and instead found a job in pensions. Knitting and making ...
Feb 05, 2023•35 min•Ep. 67
The science teacher who chose to break free from practicality, utility and patterns in textiles and paint. This week’s podcast guest, Claude Larson, has been sewing for years, while also teaching science classes to middle-school age teenagers in the US. A few years ago, Claude decided to throw out the patterns and instructions in favour of a new era of experimentation. She stopped making practical, utilitarian items for the home and family, and began making art quilts. She studied value, taking ...
Jan 22, 2023•43 min•Ep. 66
Overcoming concerns about your singing voice post-menopause. Suzanne Noble had concerns about the tone of her voice after not having used it for many years. However, as you’ll hear in the show, she needn’t have worried, and with the help of coaching, encouragement and an inquisitive personality, Suzanne now has an ever-evolving musical repertoire. Suzanne Noble began her university studies – in the US – majoring in Musical Theatre. However, as she considered what her future performing life might...
Jan 08, 2023•40 min•Ep. 65
Childhood memories inspire a self-publishing project in retirement. When Jill Phillips was growing up, creative pursuits such as painting and writing were not activities that her working-class community ever thought of doing, they were considered luxury pastimes for the more wealthy Londoners. That was in the mid 1960s. Fast forward to the 2020s and Jill has published a memoir of life on Lamlash Street back then, and found a whole new outlook on life to boot. Jill had a way with words as a young...
Dec 18, 2022•32 min•Ep. 64
How crafting can alleviate MS symptoms. To keep her hands busy and her mind calm, Helen Hill crochets blankets for orphaned baby rhinos, among other things. Her passions also help her to manage her MS symptoms, to sit still where usually her symptoms force her to be constantly active, to calm her restless legs, and generally to escape the everyday. Helen was good at her studies, at school and as an undergraduate studying graphics, but she lacked confidence, in her work, and more generally. Faced...
Nov 27, 2022•36 min•Ep. 63
The inventor of the revolutionary Chalk Paint believes that everyone is creative. Annie Sloan had a dreamy, independent young life, which continued into her business career, since without a dream and an independent attitude, Annie's world-renowned Chalk Paint may never had been made. Annie was 41 years old when she invented and manufactured Chalk Paint, while also painting for clients and writing books while her three sons were at school or in bed. What shines out most in this episode of the pod...
Nov 13, 2022•42 min•Ep. 62
Helping you find your unique writing voice. Just because you’ve got a solid background and experience in something that you are good at and successful in, doesn’t mean you have to stick with it if you no longer enjoy it. For this episode I’m speaking with Rowena Roberts, who became disheartened in her role as a sought-after copywriter so, with some guidance and courage, found a new channel for her writing and creativity If you found value in this episode and would like to show your appreciation,...
Oct 15, 2022•37 min•Ep. 61
Dance, books, drama and singing, and why making this podcast is so important to me. For this episode I’m speaking with . . . well, actually, for this episode my friend and fellow podcaster Rabiah Coon is speaking with me. Rabiah’s More Than Work podcast aligns brilliantly with Creativity Found, so please enjoy this episode and head over to More Than Work to find more great listening. In my own Creativity Found story, I talk about what the Creativity Found podcast means to me, and how it benefits...
Oct 02, 2022•48 min•Ep. 60
Sally Ward's experiences as a finalist on Sky TV's Portrait Artist of the Year competition Sally Ward had to decline her well-earned place in Sky’s Portrait Artist of the Year competition in 2019, but in 2020 she entered again and to her utter surprise made it all the way to the final. Sally painted Melanie Sykes, Bernadine Evaristo and Eddie Izzard, and was very relieved that she didn’t trip over any cables. Find out all about her experience in this second part of a double-bill podcast episode....
Sep 20, 2022•17 min•Ep. 59
Why being an artist DOESN'T mean you have to do it full time Career-wise, Sally Ward balances her roles as a civil servant and as a portrait artist, and finds fulfilment, enjoyment and challenges in each. She was a prolific artist as a youngster, and was allowed by her secondary school to go to the local sixth-form college to take life-drawing classes at the age of 14. She was very interested in her other studies and went on to study music at Cambridge University, before working as an advisor fo...
Sep 18, 2022•42 min•Ep. 58
Escaping the horrors of 9/11 on foot, and coming to temrs with the experiences through poetry. Andrea Carter Brown fell in love with reading poetry as an angsty teenager, but couldn’t bring herself to try writing it because she was put off by the high standard of the works she read. ‘If I couldn’t write like the greats, I wasn’t going to try.’ Many years later Andrea’s friend took her to a New York poetry reading and, in that darkened room, Andrea began writing her own poetry on the only paper s...
Sep 04, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 57
For this short and sweet bonus episode (while I'm on summer hols) I caught up with Gerry Coles (episode 3) to find out what's new in her world of linocut printmaking. If you found value in this episode and would like to show your appreciation, consider supporting the podcast through the Support the Show link, or by sending a boostagram , for example in the Fountain app . CreativityFound.co.uk Gerry Coles Prints at Creativity Found Instagram: @creativityfoundpodcast Facebook: @creativityfoundpodc...
Aug 21, 2022•8 min•Ep. 56
In this short and sweet bonus episode (while I'm on summer hols) I caught up with Cass Sabo (episodes 3 and 22) to find out what's new in her world of weaving. If you found value in this episode and would like to show your appreciation, consider supporting the podcast through the Support the Show link, or by sending a boostagram , for example in the Fountain app . CreativityFound.co.uk Oxford Weaving Studio at Creativity Found Instagram: @creativityfoundpodcast Facebook: @creativityfoundpodcast ...
Aug 14, 2022•7 min•Ep. 55
Ella Orr’s parents came to the UK from Mauritius in the 1960s and, understandably, they wanted Ella to do well academically. But they also wanted her and her sister to have a wider outlook and sent them to dancing and music lessons, which Ella loved, so much so that she choose to do a creative arts degree. But once thoughts turned to earning a living, musical theatre didn’t seem like a lucrative or sensible path, so Ella was encouraged to go into teaching. More than a decade into her primary edu...
Aug 07, 2022•37 min•Ep. 54
Fiona Myles grew up in a small town in Scotland, always aware that she was different from her siblings because she was adopted. As a teenager, she became increasingly isolated and began to rebel. She moved to London to work as a nanny, but quickly got caught up in a world of drugs and alcohol, ending up homeless and sleeping rough in Victoria Station. She even had a brush with death when she tried to commit suicide, but failed. She realized that she needed to make a change. She eventually found ...
Jul 31, 2022•40 min•Ep. 53
Aged 18 Jennifer Baker packed her bags and moved from Florida to New York City to study at the School of Visual Arts, one of the best art schools in the US. It was the 1980s and she says that the school and the experience moulded her as an artist and as a person, but she couldn’t live there forever. After graduating Jennifer had no clue of how to make art her profession, although she did try. She loved to travel and moved to Italy with her husband, where she ran a successful translating business...
Jul 17, 2022•43 min•Ep. 52
Jo Watson fell into teaching after being told she wasn’t clever enough to study law and that to get into journalism she needed a different degree to the one she had. She loved her first - year placement, and did really well, but at her second school her experience was not so good. She was stifled in her teaching freedom and because of that lost her enthusiasm for the job. When she left that school with no new job to go to, she once again fell into a placement, this time at a football club, where...
Jul 03, 2022•45 min•Ep. 51
Have you ever wondered how I find my creativity? Probably not, but let's just say that podcasting has been a revelation to me, and gives me loads of creative 'feels'. So when I was invited to the Podcast Show in London to record in a pop-up studio on the Shure stand, I decided I would use the opportunity to discuss the creativity of podcasting, and invited along fellow podcaster, and Creativity Found guest too, Rabiah Coon. We talk about the processes that surround the act of producing a podcast...
Jun 19, 2022•37 min•Ep. 50
Mary Broddle wanted to be an engineer from the age of 5, and has had a very successful career in mechanical engineering – in a typically male-dominated environment. She worked hard and really enjoyed her work in the corporate sphere, but in the background her health was deteriorating, until eventually she had to make the difficult decision to quit it all and focus on her physical, emotional and mental wellbeing. It was round about this time that she re-discovered a pastime she enjoyed as a young...
Jun 05, 2022•41 min•Ep. 49
Anna Lovind learned to read and write when she was very young, and used writing as a survival mechanism for a while, helping her through, although not understand, things that were happening to her in her young life. It was much later that she realized that writing could be an enjoyable form of expression and a way to explore her voice. Because of past traumas she had to rebuild her life before she could get to that point. She became a very successful editor and had a busy urban lifestyle, but ci...
May 22, 2022•43 min•Ep. 48
How to learn a vintage embroidery technique If you are inspired by my guests' stories of finding their creative passions as adults, and want to tap onto your own creativity, then I'm here to help, with the Creativity Found directory of arts and crafts workshops, courses and kits. For this episode I am so excited to be able to introduce you to Natalie Smart and Bargello a GoGo. Natalie fell in love with Bargello embroidery after she spotted some examples in her vintage magazines, and she now help...
May 15, 2022•14 min•Ep. 47
Anna Lussenburg’s boarding school was sometimes unusual, for example when the staff purposefully put out NOT enough breakfast places for the amount of students, and while Anna wasn’t a shining star academically, she did enjoy literature, and relished being able to study the works of Shakespeare. She had a love of words, something which is apparent in the creative activity she has embraced in more recent times. Anna’s nanny training involved a lot of observation, something that has stood her in g...
May 08, 2022•35 min•Ep. 46
Juliet Sargeant was an academic child who loved the sciences, and at a young age decided she wanted to be a doctor, and in particular a psychiatrist. She successfully studied and practised medicine, and was on the cusp of specializing, when she took a break to try something different, just for a few years. So how is it that nowadays you can hear her giving advice on the BBC Radio show Gardener’s Question Time rather than giving medical advice to patients? In this episode we find out the differen...
Apr 10, 2022•34 min•Ep. 45
Tetyana Denford is a Ukranian-American author who lived for some years in the UK. Becoming a mother meant that writing was put to the back of the queue of things she should be doing, but a dinner-time planning chat with her husband sent Tetyana on a soul search about her future life and future self. CreativityFound.co.uk Instagram: @creativityfoundpodcast Facebook: @creativityfoundpodcast and Creativity Found group YouTube @creativityfoundpodcast Pinterest: @creativityfound Twitter: @creativityf...
Apr 03, 2022•44 min•Ep. 42
If you are a printmaker apparently you will be very surprised to learn that Laura Boswell turned down the offer of a free Albion printing press. ‘How stupid she was’ (her words, not mine). Although the press did still make it into her possession and encouraged (forced?!) her into revisiting an artform she had embraced at university. Laura’s artistic journey from that point onward is literal and metaphorical, taking her to Japan, Cumbria and Aylesbury(!), taking on changes in direction regarding ...
Mar 27, 2022•56 min•Ep. 43
Working in the creature fabrication department on films such as Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Star Wars The Force Awakens is great fun, but full-on, with long hours that meant Emma Brassfield had very limited time to spend with her young children. Things needed to change, but Emma didn’t want to lose her passion for sewing and making. She made a success of making hand-sewn children’s toys, although felt a bit like a one-woman production line at times. Her childhood desire to be a ...
Mar 13, 2022•34 min•Ep. 42
Anupa Roper has always been on the smaller side, and from a young age experienced shaming just for being a skinny person. While grown-up Anupa was busy being a teacher and raising a family, she knew she wanted to help young people to NOT feel bad about their bodies. Writing Sparrowlegs was not how she initially envisaged doing that, but as we hear all the time on this podcast, the path is rarely straight and clear. In this episode we find out how Anupa found her voice and about her continu...
Feb 27, 2022•30 min•Ep. 41
As much as she loved art at school, Sam Kimberle wasn’t the ‘art kid’. The material she most liked to work with was considered a craft material with no fine art usage, and so not valued within her art education. Sam was a good academic student and studied Easter n philosophy and then law, and worked as a lawyer for a number of years. Inspired by the Don’t Keep Your Day Job podcast, Sam did leave her day job, and returned to creating art with that same material she had loved as a child. Creativit...
Feb 13, 2022•41 min•Ep. 40
