The Studio is on the move again....
If you are currently or have ever run your own business you will know how tricky it can be to know which direction you need to be heading in to be successful. Jim and I have always tried to go with what feels right to us and hope that the financial rewards will follow.
When we took on the venue at 48a we were all set to create a school for jewellery in Glastonbury, we threw everything we had at making it a success. We shut the shop after running the 2 businesses for a year together because we realised that the teaching and learning was more important and we needed to focus on that. The feedback from our first events and workshops was fantastic and we thought this is what we wanted to do.
But then we realised that trying to get anything organised in Glastonbury is near impossible. I had multiple meetings with local designers and makers to try to create a series of workshops but its like herding cats, lovely cats, but cats none-the-less. I even employed a young jewellery designer to help me get the place up and running but she failed to come back to work after Christmas! (I did check that she was still alive I am not sure what happened or why, the stress of working for Jim and me must have been too much!). Anyway with the amount of work needed just to keep the place running it was more than the 2 of us could get done with our loosing our minds.
So in December came the release of Lonely Soldier's first book, In the Studio 01. It was a big success and something that Lonely Soldier enjoyed doing. So we formulated a plan.... what if that was Lonely's main focus? Lots of books? How would that work as a business model? Something that Jim and I do very well is work together towards a goal and once we both are on board thats all we think about.
Success in business comes down to a few simple factors - the ability to adapt and the drive to create money. I know that sounds a bit mercenary, it doesn't have to be the drive to create millions, it just has to be the drive to create a living, no matter how big or small. Jim and I probably have 1 of these sorted and the other...well we are working on it...life is more important...a balance between working hard and enjoying the benefits. Otherwise why would we do this? If money was the most important thing then we wouldn't have gone into the craft business!
So things are about to change again and this is me giving notice that the venue at 48a will be vacated by the 9th of Sept, by then Lonely will have his 2nd book finished and in the editing stage ready for the workshop on the 18th. Then it will be printed and ready for sale at the launch at the Big Bead Show in Oct.
What this is not is the end of the Studio, we still have 2 Autumn Special workshops for this Sept at Middlewick, we have a nearly fully booked Retreat in Spring with Nicole Hanna and Oksana Trukan. We will also have Iza rejoining us in the Spring too to teach an asymmetric design- more details will follow soon!
And we have a plan afoot for an autumn Retreat in Sept/Oct 2018 with Imnium and Lonely Soldier possibly teaching a collaboration piece- more details will follow very soon too.
If you are currently or have ever run your own business you will know how tricky it can be to know which direction you need to be heading in to be successful. Jim and I have always tried to go with what feels right to us and hope that the financial rewards will follow.
When we took on the venue at 48a we were all set to create a school for jewellery in Glastonbury, we threw everything we had at making it a success. We shut the shop after running the 2 businesses for a year together because we realised that the teaching and learning was more important and we needed to focus on that. The feedback from our first events and workshops was fantastic and we thought this is what we wanted to do.
But then we realised that trying to get anything organised in Glastonbury is near impossible. I had multiple meetings with local designers and makers to try to create a series of workshops but its like herding cats, lovely cats, but cats none-the-less. I even employed a young jewellery designer to help me get the place up and running but she failed to come back to work after Christmas! (I did check that she was still alive I am not sure what happened or why, the stress of working for Jim and me must have been too much!). Anyway with the amount of work needed just to keep the place running it was more than the 2 of us could get done with our loosing our minds.
So in December came the release of Lonely Soldier's first book, In the Studio 01. It was a big success and something that Lonely Soldier enjoyed doing. So we formulated a plan.... what if that was Lonely's main focus? Lots of books? How would that work as a business model? Something that Jim and I do very well is work together towards a goal and once we both are on board thats all we think about.
Success in business comes down to a few simple factors - the ability to adapt and the drive to create money. I know that sounds a bit mercenary, it doesn't have to be the drive to create millions, it just has to be the drive to create a living, no matter how big or small. Jim and I probably have 1 of these sorted and the other...well we are working on it...life is more important...a balance between working hard and enjoying the benefits. Otherwise why would we do this? If money was the most important thing then we wouldn't have gone into the craft business!
So things are about to change again and this is me giving notice that the venue at 48a will be vacated by the 9th of Sept, by then Lonely will have his 2nd book finished and in the editing stage ready for the workshop on the 18th. Then it will be printed and ready for sale at the launch at the Big Bead Show in Oct.
What this is not is the end of the Studio, we still have 2 Autumn Special workshops for this Sept at Middlewick, we have a nearly fully booked Retreat in Spring with Nicole Hanna and Oksana Trukan. We will also have Iza rejoining us in the Spring too to teach an asymmetric design- more details will follow soon!
And we have a plan afoot for an autumn Retreat in Sept/Oct 2018 with Imnium and Lonely Soldier possibly teaching a collaboration piece- more details will follow very soon too.
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So this is most definitely not the end of the Studio we are in fact making a future for ourselves in a different format. We really enjoy the group workshops and we REALLY enjoy the retreats so why not focus on making those the best events we can? Lonely really enjoys writing the books and it turns out he's quite good at it! We are also going to add some vlogs, video tutorials and more to our repertoire- join our Youtube channel to see what we are up to - Glastonbury Wire Studio YouTube. Its a bit basic at the moment but come Sept we will start to add more to it in the mean time you can watch the amazing retreat videos that Iza's husband Pawel made for us at this years Retreat.
Lonely has enjoyed teaching 1 to 1, being part of our students wire journey and we will still be offering this service but the price will increase as we are looking at ways of making Lonely's work and teaching more accessible in other ways- more books, videos and small group workshops. But do get in touch if you want a 1 to 1 with Jim we just need a bit of warning on the dates.
Lonely will also be more mobile to travel to other parts of the country (world?) to teach other groups and we will be putting some packages together to launch that service. What we are aiming for is to make it as easy as possible for people to work with us from where ever you are in the world!
Lonely has enjoyed teaching 1 to 1, being part of our students wire journey and we will still be offering this service but the price will increase as we are looking at ways of making Lonely's work and teaching more accessible in other ways- more books, videos and small group workshops. But do get in touch if you want a 1 to 1 with Jim we just need a bit of warning on the dates.
Lonely will also be more mobile to travel to other parts of the country (world?) to teach other groups and we will be putting some packages together to launch that service. What we are aiming for is to make it as easy as possible for people to work with us from where ever you are in the world!
Glastonbury is still our home, we did have a look around to see if we could rent a bigger space but it seemed that no matter where we went we just keep coming back to the crazy place that is Glastoland. This is a town where you never know what each day will bring whether it is the beautiful goddesses sweeping into town for their conference from all 4 corners of the globe the Glastonbury Dragons celebrating Beltane or a funeral so colourful and joyful that tourists stop to take pictures. It could be the sheep that break free from the wool festival and have a quick wander round boots, or it could be the colourful busking man who plays the recorder and has a box of instruments for you to join in as you walk past. It could be the festival causalities who roll in after the main event, drink cider first thing in the morning and never leave. It could be early morning walks up the Tor with the mists hanging over the moors or a quite walk around the Abbey Ruins or a dip in the White Springs. Glastonbury is a strange town that will chew you up and spit you out if you are not careful, come to be a a part of and accept the madness and you will be fine! Don't fight it.
Hang around long enough and you will meet time traveling yogis, white witches and water wizards, high priestesses of Avalon and green men. You will have conversations about how evil the moon is and be probed on your metaphysical beliefs outside the school gates at 8 in the morning. You will sit in a cafe withs ents, tree sprites and woodland faeries. You will have to develop opinions on subjects you didn't even know existed like the ability to live with out food, that David Icke is a man of sensible and insightful knowledge about the world, or whether or not eating phytoplankton will keep you balanced. You will go to mother and baby groups and be asked to chant for your baby, (I must have read 'singing group' wrong) and you will have to make sure that there are raw vegan options at a 5 year olds party.
When you leave the Glastonbury bubble and head to the 'real' world you will feel like an immigrant in an unfamiliar world, your clothes will jar with the neat suburban surroundings and you will not see a witch or green man for days. There will be no drumming or random procession and there will certainly be no "ancestral clapping day".
We are here to stay in the madness that is Glastonbury so if you are ever looking for an excuse to come and see for yourself how wonderfully bonkers this town is then make a date you won't regret it!
Hang around long enough and you will meet time traveling yogis, white witches and water wizards, high priestesses of Avalon and green men. You will have conversations about how evil the moon is and be probed on your metaphysical beliefs outside the school gates at 8 in the morning. You will sit in a cafe withs ents, tree sprites and woodland faeries. You will have to develop opinions on subjects you didn't even know existed like the ability to live with out food, that David Icke is a man of sensible and insightful knowledge about the world, or whether or not eating phytoplankton will keep you balanced. You will go to mother and baby groups and be asked to chant for your baby, (I must have read 'singing group' wrong) and you will have to make sure that there are raw vegan options at a 5 year olds party.
When you leave the Glastonbury bubble and head to the 'real' world you will feel like an immigrant in an unfamiliar world, your clothes will jar with the neat suburban surroundings and you will not see a witch or green man for days. There will be no drumming or random procession and there will certainly be no "ancestral clapping day".
We are here to stay in the madness that is Glastonbury so if you are ever looking for an excuse to come and see for yourself how wonderfully bonkers this town is then make a date you won't regret it!
 | Lonely Soldier and I finding out if there is such a thing as too many Tor shots, re-aquainting ourselves with social media and the website and hopefully getting some videos made, heck who knows maybe you will see me in them too...... |
So the Studio will continue and we will do everything we can to make sure that this year and the next are the best yet!
Come and see us at The Big Bead Show in April and October
Thank you to all who support us we are always so grateful and we looking forward to working with you in the future. If you have any suggestions or thought then please do share them with us we would love to hear from you!
Come and see us at The Big Bead Show in April and October
Thank you to all who support us we are always so grateful and we looking forward to working with you in the future. If you have any suggestions or thought then please do share them with us we would love to hear from you!
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