New blog by Kirsteen Lyons, Feel. Create. Repeat.

If you like what you see on this blog, you can find more current work and ideas by Kirsteen Lyons at:

https://feelcreaterepeat.blogspot.co.uk

Dear Single Parents,

Dear Single Parents and those who criticise them,

I have been meaning to write something about being a single mum for some time and today a thing happened to crystallise the intention. I ordered breakfast for me and my kids and my card got declined – twice. I paid cash and went back to the table a bit worried. This is my point just a bit worried, no hart stopping fear that my imperfectly balanced world was crashing down, no suppressed tears in a public place, no colour draining from my face.

You are going to say I am too dramatic but I never thought I would be one of those single mums you read about, you know the evil host who are bringing the nation to its knees. I’m nice, I’m sensible; once upon a time I had loved my husband. Well it happens to lots of people, and it’s not really the poverty that gets to you it’s the fear. I couldn’t shake the idea I was £200 away from the street...£200 away from the street...£200 away from the street... like an anti-mantra playing in my head.

This would be about the time Her Majesties Inland Revenue and Customs (HMRC) decided I was lying about my ex-husband having moved out and I should pay back more than £7,000. I can tell you that my terror was absolute. Because I was committing “fraud” they stopped all my help and I ran up an overdraught of £2,000 paying rent and living while I could at least prove we did not live together now. I never managed to pay off the overdraught because while money you owe HMRC can be backdated years, money they owe you can only be backdated 6 weeks. I continued to pay £32 pounds on overdraught interest for the remainder to the time I was a single parent.

But what of the £7,000? I fought it for three years and had to borrow the money from my ex-in-laws (thank heavens my divorce was amicable) to prevent bailiffs coming for our stuff before the appeal was completed then the appeal finally found that I was telling the truth all along and I got the money back. I was unlucky I hear you say, well then how come I don’t know any single parent who has NOT had their help suddenly reduced or stopped for complicated and often false reasons?

I should have worked I hear you say, well I was 16 hours a week and my daughter was not yet school age, but believe me I ran the maths on working more 7,000 times! I could have got a local job but with child care I would have been about £15 a week better off, and seen little of my child. Use your degree and get a well paid job you say, well that means London and more child care and the cost of the commute.... there is a reason they call it the poverty TRAP.

I was very lucky, friends and family helped me to an extent I found astonishing and I am forever grateful. Even so it’s not quite the same as another parent, someone else fully responsible for your child who may be coming home late, but they will be coming home eventually, the stress on single parents fees like it is just you between your child and a hostile and critical world, perhaps forever! Rest is scarce, and because of finance guilt free rest is nonexistent, illness simply not an option (some of you thought being ill was not voluntary didn’t you?).

So my point is this, if you are currently a single parent I think you might possibly still be a worthwhile person, it is possible you are not be a waster lolling about in your benefit luxury. It is even possible that you are not one of the main reasons my taxes are so high, or my sense of national identity is being eroded. Basically, hang in there seven, ten or twenty years you will get through it.

Love and respect, Kirsteen

Exhibitions, community art protects, Markets, Fairs and studios with Kitty Atkinson-Guy and Kirsteen Benson

I had to go through a lot of old DVDs of artwork today, and I was really struck by how many projects I have done over the years with my Mum: Kitty Atkinson-Guy.
Exhibitions, fairs, businesses, studios, community art projects, children's human rights education using art and more.... Here is a taster. Thank you Kitty you are a brilliant artist. :)

Kirsteen Benson BA (Hons)
www.enchantedtextiledesign.com

Human Rights Education:

A few Exhibitions (by no means all):

Pottery, ceramics:

Markets and fairs (by no means all):

Other community art projects (by no means all):

Thank-you. Kirsteen

www.enchantedtextiledesign.com

 

Award Winning Designer Launches Enchanted Textile Design

Information Release: For immediate use

Award Winning Designer Launches Enchanted Textile Design

Enchanted Textile Design Launched in Sussex

Enchanted Textile Design Making a Mark in Sussex

Award-winning Sussex-based textile designer, Kirsteen Benson BA (Hons) is now launching her new Spring & Summer collection. Exciting, sensual and delicate could be some of the adjectives that best describe her latest collection. As Director and founder of Sussex-based Enchanted Textile Design, Kirsteen is busy making her mark with her new range of joyful florals.

Kirsteen Benson's passion for design is intrinsically interwoven with her artistic background: born and raised in the Scottish highlands in an artisan family craft pottery business run by her father, Alastair Hodgson MA Hons (Etching) and Kitty Atkinson MA Hons (Stainglass & Murals.) Kirsteen is a doubly gifted designer: where inherent artistic ability meets a driving self-determinism to strive professionally for the best one can create. So often, our backgrounds help to forge our own career paths and Kirsteen's exceptional educational journey is one of not only overcoming personal barriers to studying - she was diagnosed with dyslexia from a young age – and went on to surpass at academic A Levels and then acceptance into one of the finest Scottish Textile & Design Schools at Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University.

Kirsteen Benson won 2 awards as an undergraduate: joint first prize-winner of an industrial competition for Muraspec Wallcoverings UK, (one of the Hilton Hotel chain's preferred wallcoverings design company) and 1^st Prize-winner of an industrial competition for Morton Yong & Borland. This was a prize for the best of Madras lace design and was added to their collection. Muraspec judges noted the excellence of Kirsteen's work which had been so highly placed due to its relevance and applicability of her response to the brief,

“There are people out there making good livings with far inferior products”. Kirsteen was then offered the coveted position of New Product Development Coordinator Muraspec, which she undertook in style.

The pioneering attitude fostered at Heriot-Watt – they welcomed women students as early as 1869, 20 years ahead of most others – was no doubt the perfect environment for Kirsteen's artistic abilities to shine and shine she did. Kirsteen distinguished herself at University by being one of only a few students in the country to have work exhibited at Scotland's most well-known centre for Design and Architecture: Glasgow’s flagship “Lighthouse Design Centre”.

Since leaving university, Kirsteen has since exhibited in an impressive array of galleries and venues from Scotland to East Sussex: the Islington Exhibition Centre: London, Birmingham's Gallery of Contemporary Art and City Theatre, Tilgate Park in Crawley and many others. Yet the exhibition at the Lighthouse Design Centre remains her most prized.

More recently, Kirsteen was the brains behind the Crawley Craft Fair – with over 300 artists and small business owners and has now teamed up with Jenny Frank BA Hons Woven Textile Design, and is busy preparing the Paris launch of “Enchanted Textile Design” with a team of professional designers, sales and administrative personnel freelancing under Kirsteen’s management. Kirsteen's aim is to continue the rich heritage of British florals, isolating the importance of colour and vibrancy which is a trademark of her textiles. 'I want to enhance the too often grey backcloth of the city with colourful floral designs.' Kirsteen lives & works in East Grinstead with her totally creative, source of inspiration daughter, Jasmine.

Kirsteen Benson is available for media interviews and is contactable by e-mail: kirsteenbenson@yahoo.co.uk

or mobile: 07799201417

Links:

www.enchantedtextiledesign.com

www.crawleycraftfair.co.uk

School of Textile & Design, Heriot Watt University:

http://www.tex.hw.ac.uk/index.htm

Gallery of Contemporary Art, Birmingham

http://www.artsbma.org/collection/contemporary-art

http://craftpottery.blogspot.com.au/

Lovely Printed Textile Design

www.enchantedtextiledesign.com

Crawley Craft Fair is for Sale.

Crawley Craft Fair consists of three or four fairs a year making approximately £1,000 per fair but only taking 10 to 15 hours work per fair.

It has just finished  its fourth successful year and is very well loved in its community.
What you get: A fair established in Queens Square, Crawley’s busiest shopping location.
A fair with a list of over 300 artists and small business owners who have enquired about stalls or attended.

A Fair with an established reputation which has been in all Crawley’s papers as well as favorably reviewed on craft fair sites and forums. A fair with a professional, web site, logo and leaflet design. Full training in how to run the fair by Kirsteen Benson.

Successful ways to sell at a fair

Successful ways to sell at a fair

Before running Crawley Craft Fair I did five years of selling my art at markets and fairs and in a small shop, I am still a self employed artist. I have collected some experience. I have also talked to a lot of people who make a living as artists or with small businesses. As I often find myself giving the same advice to new people (and even experienced ones who can always improve) I have decided to write it down. Please don’t be offended if you know everything on the list, it is intended as a gift to help.

Have clear signs. What you sell. What it costs and contact information on display.

Display things in a way that can be seen from a distance. If you put a photo, jewellery or a painting flat on a table the customer needs to come right over to your table and look down to “fall in love” and you only sell to the people who look carefully at every stall. If you get it standing up they can “fall in love” from across the fair or on their way to the loo! Some of the people who then come over may buy several other things. Once you have set up stand back and just look!

Price everything clearly. Mostly if something is not priced people don’t ask for fear of looking stupid if they can’t afford it.

Talk to the person about the thing they are interested in. Don’t go showing them all your other products. If they like the blue vase, talk and listen about the blue vase. They will buy usually buy thing they like not something else you show them and too much choice confuses things.

Collect contact information and send them stuff.  I find that people who take my card soon lose it or bin it and only a special kind of person keeps it all year till granny’s birthday or whatever. If you collect the customers contact information and send them offers and information about which fairs you are doing next or just pictures of new work you will build up a client list of people who like your work and will buy again. No one is more likely to buy a necklace from you than a woman who likes your work so much she already bought earrings. You can run a competition to win something if they sign up for your news letter and make a quiet fair into a good one with later sales. People may even attend fairs to see you again and chat about their next commission they want from you. My friend who runs the “Sussex Guild” and makes a good living as an artist says “cultivate your fans and repeat clients”.

Provide a list of where you are next. If you have booked fairs in the future list them on your web site and at this fair. Not only does this give the customer more chances to buy but it also makes them sure you are surviving and have a future, they think;  if they want a refund you will still be there to give it so it’s ok to buy from a stall.

Stay on your feet looking happy. I realise it can be cold and you have a long day but I guarantee if you lounge in a chair you have placed in the way of your stall staring into the distance and smoking no one will climb over you to look at your stuff and then interrupt your daydream to demand to buy it, no matter how lovely your stuff is. So do sit and take brakes (at my fair I can lend you someone to cover while you have brakes) but look interested as much as you can.

Don’t waste the afternoon being p***ed off about the morning. I once took £780 between 5.30 and 6.30 at Crawley Celtic Festival after a day of about £6 so far. I ran out of packaging material and had to give people art in their hands to take home. If I had been looking upset instead of enjoying the music and atmosphere I am sure this would not have happened.

Have some things that are cheaper too. Not everyone will agree with this but I think if you have some under £10 things to sell as well as big things you will do better.

Keep everything as pretty as possible. If the public leave litter on front of your stall clean up. Also stand back and make sure your display is lovely.

Try an event several times. My friend who has had two stalls at Portabello Market for more than 20 years has paid for his big house from it and all his kids went to private schools. He is so known there you can plan your Christmas shopping knowing he will be there and people do.

Prepare your kit and know how it works and what you need at every event. Just as no one will interrupt your smoke to buy they won’t interrupt you if you are holding on for dear life to a gazebo that is blowing away or a sign that keeps falling down. This means in the case of Crawley Craft Fair, which can be windy, bring lots and lots of heavy things for weights. But at other events you should know how your tables and gazebo go up before you arrive and what you will need to display stuff so you don’t spend money on events that you cannot make the most of.

I really hope this is helpful and that you are successful. There is room in the world for a lot more small businesses and plenty of public to go around so I think we can all help each other. More people come to a vibrant event and EVERYONE sells more!

Please contact me if I can help you I will try.

Very Best, Kirsteen

Kirsteen Benson BA (Hons)