Starting Something New
A little over a year ago I started seeing lino prints pop up on my Instagram feed. I've been dreaming of a creative venture for as long as I can remember but I got totally lost in the part where I found my niche and put off by the naysayers that believe you can't make a living from art. I tried to find what I thought was a career route in art by studying Graphic Design and Illustration at university but the realities of finding myself sat at a computer all day and the fact I didn't hold the same values as the businesses I would probably end up designing logos for bugged me. After to-ing and frow-ing I decided to train as a primary school teacher instead.
Let's fast forward the next decade because you do not want to hear me drone on about my opinion of our education system. I'll just mention that during that decade of teaching, the creative urge never left me, but I still couldn't see a way to make it into my living. But something about these lino prints on Instagram was sticking.
I'd enjoyed lino printing at school, my teacher was super enthusiastic for it and something about it had stayed with me over the years. At some point I'd bought myself a little second hand printing press from Ebay and I had collected a few tools and bits of lino, but I'd never got round to using them. I started taking screen shots of my favourite prints online and my mind pondered further. I liked the outcome, I already had the tools to start, the fact you can print several copies of a print made it more financially feasible to my mind. As we tend to do, I also started a list of reasons not to try it: I might not be good enough, no one would want to buy my prints, my small press would limit my print size and large presses cost a lot of money. Then I saw the wooden spoon.
The fact several artists I admired online were using nothing more than a wooden spoon to press their prints blew my mind and opened up my imagination to an endless scale of print size. I was, however, still terrified to start having a go. I literally made my partner sit and carve his own lino beside me in support. It worked, I had started carving, and I'm so pleased that I haven't stopped since.
Fast forward a few more months and here I am making my own website live, opening my own little online shop and posting my first blog post. It’s still totally scary, but it’s happening.