Finding your nature with Luke Funnell

Damien Pestell, from Be Your Business meets Luke Funnell from Project Rewild and finds out how he found his true nature.

I grew up in the 1980’s in the heart of the Sussex countryside. My early childhood memories were of carefree times with long summer days spent outside exploring and cosy winter nights curled up next to an open fire.

The countryside was my childhood and I can vividly recall the feeling of complete wonder when lifting rocks in our back garden to unveil a microcosm of thriving life.

Later, I ventured beyond our garden into the local woods and played for hours on end with my friends - Engineering camps or building fires to warm our hands and feed our hungry bellies.

As I grew up I spent less time outside, but I always had that foundation of nature. Returning throughout my life for peace and connection when I needed it most.

Project Rewild is a local organisation which connects local people with the natural world and their own inner nature. I arranged to meet founder Luke Funnel in the woods where the project is based.

Luke playing with rewilded children.

Churchwood, is an oasis hidden in the heart of Hollington. As I crossed the pedestrian bridge into the woods I sensed a change in the space around me as the dense cover of trees enveloped me, I wasn’t in Hastings anymore.

I found Luke in a clearing in the woods and sat down to wait for him while he finished with a group of happy looking, rewilded children. I settled on a tree stump and slowly felt my body start to ease.

Luke sat down on the tree stump next to mine and he started to tell me his story. He grew up in a council estate just a few hundred yards from where we sat and it was in these woods that he spent his childhood, in much the same way I spent mine.

“The childhood I had was wonderful and without knowing it, I built this relationship with the natural world - the smells, the feelings and the ability to light fires and make dens. My favourite memories were being outside and free, it was a wonderful time.”

Luke described an idyllic childhood where children were free to roam and communities gave a sense of belonging, he knew all his neighbours and was part of something.

But as he grew older the innocence of childhood faded and life began to feel more strained, “It was a confusing time, everything around me was telling me I should have. I got lost in that pressure that society brings.”

Luke described a point where he could have gone down a path that led to a bad place but fortunately at 17 he found work in a sports centre where one of his jobs was leading an under 5’s children group, “I was always drawn to working with children because it felt like i could be like a child, I particularly liked working with the naughty kids.”

He found that working with children helped him stay on the straight and narrow and he went on to train as a social worker and then a youth worker. “Luckily I always worked with kids, which I am very grateful for because being with children has always given me that anchor to an essence of joy and fun that children have.”

Being with and around children helped Luke stay centred in himself, but he still encountered a persistent sense of longing. “I felt like I was always searching for something to fill this endless hole, but it only ever felt filled when I returned to nature, I realised that there was never actually a hole there, but I just had to accept who I was.”

Luke did forest school training and began to realise he wanted to work with children in a more natural way. “The relationships you can build with young people in nature are so much more powerful than in environments like youth centres.”

Following his instincts Luke built a career working outdoors, working for various organisations including charities, forest schools and outdoor experience companies. Things were going better, he was earning good money in the place he felt most at peace and at home he had started a family and had two young children, but he still needed to go deeper.

He felt that what he was doing had just scratched the surface of what was possible and the companies he was working for were limited in their outlook. The charities didn’t have the money to deliver quality programmes and the outdoor companies only catered for people who could afford it.

Change came shortly after, “I went off and did two years of nature connection training with Rob Fallon, a trained Shaman from Wild Nature which culminated in being dropped off in rural Scotland with nothing but a knife to survive for seven days. The power of it was to feel what it meant to be part of nature on a very deep level.”

Luke found so much solace and peace through deepening his relationship with nature and himself. “I Discovered my own true wild nature. It changed my life and gave me a grounding that I never had before.”

Around this time Luke’s children were growing up fast and he saw first hand how they were missing out on the simple things that helped him so much. “My son who is eight can't go out and play because there is no one to play with. There are kids on our street but they aren’t allowed to come out of their houses. The rise in structured clubs for kids in the last 20 years has been massive, but that’s not the same.”

Luke saw that it isn’t just time in nature which is important, but time alone in nature that is vital for children’s development. It gives them the space to find their independence and connect with the outside world.

Luke wanted to ensure opportunities for nature connection were available for his and other children and dreamt of starting a business that didn't have the limitations of other organisations.

Project Rewild was born to get people outside in nature more, to reconnect children, families and communities with the natural world and it was set up to be accessible for everyone in the Hastings community. “A lot of our work is free and funded because I want to make it accessible for everyone.”

Since 2018 Project Rewild has achieved much by creating a place for people to connect to nature and themselves. But that is only just part of it, it has also built a strong community place which is available to everyone.

“Some of the work is about teaching people about the natural world, but that is only one aspect, probably a more important side is the community part - Singing songs, telling stories, sharing food and drink together.”

Luke has sought throughout his life to live honestly, using a strong sense of integrity to guide his decision making and live a life which feels natural to him. In doing so he has created a space that gives people the same crucial opportunities that he had, of connection to nature, to self and to community.

Throughout our time together I could see that if something didn’t sit right with Luke he simply couldn’t do it. While that may make the journey uncomfortable at times I cannot help but admire his outlook.

I left feeling that I had met a kindred spirit and it enhanced my intention to return to my roots as Luke has done. Living in a way that is connected to nature, ourselves and each other can only create a better world and help us all to be healthier, happier humans.

By Damien Pestell from Be your Business.

Journey to Freedom with Tim B’Vard

Damien meets Tim from The Bavard Bar and finds out about his journey from the courtroom to the stage and his search for freedom.

Those who have been to see The Bavard Bar will know that it is a rather marvellous and unique blend of nonsense, audience participation and stories shared by members of the public who stand up and talk about a topic of their choosing.

Anything is possible apart from politics or religion and the lineup is a closely guarded secret, revealed to the audience at the start of the evening. It is an organic show where the acts don’t rehearse together beforehand and even Tim hasn’t seen it performed, “The whole point of the show is that it is live, anything can happen and that’s kind of the point.”

It has been charming local audiences at the Kino Teatr in St Leonards since its inception and has become a firm favourite, regularly selling out. I recently sat down with the founder and host Tim Crook to find out more about its creation and his journey. 

Tim grew up in leafy Surrey where his dad was a big fan of comedy, “I remember going to see him in various shows, often larking and messing about, taking off characters like ‘Pete & Dud.’”  

His dad introduced him to various shows on the radio which he would grow to love, “I’ve always liked nonsense and grew up on a diet of Radio 4 comedy shows. I would scour the Radio Times and tape them on the old TDK 90 tapes and then listen to them again and again.”

Tim is a naturally funny man, but as we sat down to chat I noticed he seemed more reserved away from the microphone, “it may surprise people to know that by nature I am actually an introvert.” I asked him how he found standing up and being funny in front of large crowds for a living, “Being a lawyer was actually the perfect training for being a Compere.”

“Being a lawyer was actually the perfect training for being a Compere.”

Since starting The Bar Tim has started to go by an alias, “I used to be called Tim Crook and I guess that is still my name, but I now go by the name of Tim B’vard”. His name change quite nicely bookending two very diverse parts of his adult life - Firstly as a Solicitor for 25 years and now as an MC. 

Tim began his training to be a lawyer in 1992 and instantly struggled with the restriction of the job. I asked him how quickly he realised the role wasn’t for him, “On the second day of training I knew [it wasn’t for me], but you could argue it was more like minute two!”

He turned 21 at about the same time as his training began and received a present from a mum of one of his friends, it was Edward Lear’s book of nonsense and inside the front cover was inscribed a personal note, “Always keep a bit of nonsense in your life!” 

“Always keep a bit of nonsense in your life!” 

The note would prove to be prophetic as Tim reflected on his legal career, “I lost my fun through being too serious.”

Tim knew being a lawyer wasn’t for him, but really the issue was the lack of freedom he found from being employed, he felt he had little choice, “Being sensible in a corporate law firm didn’t really suit me, but I didn't have any money.”

He has been seeking freedom in his life and career ever since, rather than leave his job for another with similar restrictions he pragmatically chose to make his career work for him and continuously sought areas which could give him more autonomy.

He gradually found liberation in the form of standing up and speaking, first as a trainer to graduates embarking on a legal career and then opting to spend more time in the courtroom instead of the office. 

It was there that he had to really master the art of speaking publicly “Being in court so often with very grumpy, surly judges does keep you on your toes. It couldn’t have been better training.”

Creating his own business was a further release: “I set up my own [law] firm in 2003 which I really started to enjoy. It was a little bit more demanding but somehow running your own business is actually more rewarding.”

In 2017 Tim set up The Bavard Bar, he began with searching for space above pubs with his daughter when he realised he didn’t even have a name or a pitch, his daughter suggested the name and he scribbled the idea down on a bit of paper - He confessed he had no business plan or idea of what the business was “I just did it!” 

The Bavard has become a strong reflection of Tim’s energy, he has developed many interactive and nonsensical games such as Oojah Kapivy and KP nuts where audience members can enter his nonsense world and join in with the fun. When I was with him he introduced me to an alter-ego called Cicely Sponge who writes him nonsensical fanmail.

I have been to The Bavard many times and it feels like a community and a refreshing antidote to an often overly polished and curated world that we sometimes live in, the last time I went I actually left feeling better about myself.

It was lovely to meet Tim and hear about his journey to creating The Bavard Bar and a life with more freedom, filled with nonsense, a life that is truly his. Creating it has meant being more himself, that takes bravery and I think what he has created makes St Leonards and maybe the world a slightly better place.  

If you are a local business owner (or know one) and have a story to tell please get in touch with Damien at damien.pestell@gmail.com 

The Return of Provenance with Vedat Demiralp

Vedat Demiralp crafting a flat weave rug.

Damien Pestell, owner and founder of Be Your Business, reflects on the return of provenance and meets Vedat from Coban rugs, perhaps a role model for future businesses.

When I was much, much younger I remember my mother being excited by the arrival of a supermarket in our local town, “I can get everything in one place now”, she gleefully exclaimed at the convenience of it all.

The supermarkets were making big changes to our shopping habits in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I can still just about recall the closure of the farm shop in my village, it sold fruit and vegetables straight from the farm, always fresh and always seasonal.

Whilst at primary school I noticed these changes taking place, although of course I didn’t understand the significance then, but with hindsight I now see that I was on the cusp of a shift. I saw the old ways leave and I lived with the new.

Fast-forward over three decades and I have a feeling of travelling full circle. Provenance is again held in high regard and story matters once more.

I feel fortunate to call St Leonards my home, from the first day I moved here I was struck by the prominence of local enterprise at the heart of the town helping to give that strong, independent identity. The artists and the makers that reside here inspire me and contribute so much.

When I shop here, I feel I am supporting an ecosystem and participating in something I hold value in. In my own small way I am also contributing towards future change.

I do nearly all my shopping five minutes walk from where I live, I know the shopkeepers, and buying from people feels right, everything from my furniture to my food is local and has a story.

I cycled to West St Leonards to meet a man called Vedat who runs a local company called Coban Rugs. Vedat is a lovely man of gentle disposition, his workshop is in the Electro Studios right on the edge of West St Leonards. It is here that he produces traditional Turkish rugs from his homeland, which have an intimate story to tell.

Vedat grew up in the Black Sea region of north Turkey. Unlike the south, the north has a rugged coastline, an aura of the sea, and a summer that only lasts a few months each year. Vedat found living in St Leonards so familiar due to the similarity of the place he grew up in.

His home town is a place called Samsun, which in legend has another name, Amizos named after the mythical island of Amazon where the fabled Amazonian women lived and fought in the 16th century.

In more modern timesTurkey has been famous for its traditional rug making culture. From a young age Vedat found himself surrounded by rugs, filling every room of every home. When he was just ten he did a school project where he made his own rug, enlisting the help of his neighbour who had a large loom, he learnt the craft in a traditional way.

Some years later Vedat left Turkey to study IT and electronics at Kent University where he later worked. His IT career eventually brought him to reside in Hastings.

Vedat remained in touch with friends from the rural area where his grandparents lived and on a visit home he happened to overhear them talking about the decline of rural rug making, “they complained that there were only a handful of weavers left in the village when there used to be so many”, he said. The tradition was largely affected by more modern industrial techniques which made the handmade craft feel obsolete and many abandoned it.

It was at this point, about 15 years ago that Vedat started to think about how he might help. He said. “After working in IT for 13 years, I think perhaps I was searching for something else”.

The first thing Vedat did was to speak with some interior designers. They then helped him to shape the design to have the simple, contemporary look which has been so successful.

Traditionally rug making culture is very rich with the designs of rugs being regional with hundreds of variations of patterns and styles from Bosnia in the west to Mongolia in the east.

Vedat now makes his own designs which have their own style and are unique to his company, he said “This design process really gives me great joy. Look at these pictures, these are over-stitched. The flat weave has to be linear, either lines or vertical panels. These kinds of non-linear shapes are my great joy, people with adventurous spirits do not like uniformity, do not like symmetry. In all my life I am in the pursuit of the asymmetrical”

When we met at his workshop Vedat showed me the special flat-weave goats hair rugs which he now makes in collaboration with craftspeople from the rural black sea region where he grew up.

As Vedat carefully laid out the rugs on the table in front of us, I noticed a subtle change in his energy, he started to become more animated, his passion clear as he started to talk more about his work. “When you look at this texture, I have seen this texture for decades. I have seen this a thousand times but everytime I see this I am fascinated by this weaving texture.”

“Cognitive science says that the brain takes joy when it sees something that needs to be categorised. Because the weave is handwoven, it is not uniform. Look at the yarn, some bits are thicker, some a slightly darker hue and the weaving, some is compressed more, others less. It is ever so slightly imperfect. All these subtle differences, which are not so easily seen, but the eyes see them, there are so many differences to categorise which gives the brain enormous joy.”

“Secondly, I created them. They are my simple, contemporary designs.”

As our conversation came to a close Vedat said of his work, “I found something which I love. It satisfies my adventurous spirit which I inherited from my grandfather, my love for patiently doing things which I inherited from my mother and using my intellect to come up with designs which I inherited from my father. This is me actually, all my inherited qualities are reflected in these rugs - I love what I do.”

As I cycled back from west St Leonards, I reflected on my time with Vedat, I saw how his work goes much deeper than being just a business, it is far deeper than that. The story he told me was infectious, I found that I too now loved these rugs, the stories and myths they hold with the power to enchant.

For me this is the future of business and a shining role model of how business can bring people together and produce something extraordinary and far greater than the sum of its parts, a rich story woven from history, craft, culture, time and space. As I walked in my front door I only had left to decide where I was going to put one and how I was going to explain this to my partner.

• Be Your Business works with new and existing businesses to create their successful business! Live your life, not someone else’s! – Beyourbusiness.co.uk

Inspiring Business #1 - Hiut Denim

This is the first in a new series of articles where I focus on an inspiring business, discovering what makes them special and how they stand out from the crowd. I focus on the elements of business that I think are the most important and which can help to create a successful business in your image.

This week’s inspiring business is a particular favourite of mine and a company which really inspires me and gives me a lot of joy and happiness, Hiut Denim! Formed in 2011 by David Hieatt with the vision of making world-class jeans from west Wales.

I first came across Hiut quite recently in lockdown. It was the story that got my attention and then the product sealed the deal.

I am very passionate about story and quality and feel that both are essential factors to any progressive business. It may seem obvious to some, but I see a lot of businesses not valuing themselves in these areas.

The two are inseparable, a good story is not going to do you much good with an average product and the best product in the world is not going to get recognised or valued without a strong story.

Storytelling and narrative are such potent forces and the reason can be found in our shared past. If you have read Sapiens you may know where I am going with this, we are (to a certain extent) products of our evolution.

The modern world layers onto our evolutionary traits, and believe it or not, how we lived for many eons is actually highly relevant to running a business. How we behave, what we make, who we like it can all be traced to our lineage as human beings.

Let me give you an example, why has social media become so important, addictive in many cases, because it is a community space, we evolved to live in communities, the issues only come when this artificial world only gives us a part of what we need.

These traits are inherited because at some point in the evolutionary process it had a benefit and nature selected it. They may not be overly relevant to the modern world we have found ourselves in but they are the wheels that drive everything.

We were storytellers, we were tool makers and we still are.

We may not always know it but we live in an intricate world of stories, everything from our work, our family and who we are, they all have very strong stories attached, sometimes we know about them and sometimes we do not.

Story also goes by other names such as marketing, brand, marcoms, advertising and so on. But simply put it is the science & art of story.

The Hiut story began in Cardigan, Wales, the town was the largest Jeans manufacturer in the UK employing 400 people in a town of 4,000. They made Jeans for Marks & Spencer amongst other clients but in 2002 the manufacturing was moved to Morocco to save costs.

The closure of the business meant that 400 skilled craftspeople lost their jobs overnight, it had a devastating effect on the town and put 10% of the population on the dole overnight.

David is from Cardigan and so it seemed almost pre-ordained that he would create a new denim brand built on the historical foundations of home town, which he clearly cares so much about.

Hiut started small, employing 8 or so makers of the old denim factory and they are growing the business and the workforce as the company expands, utilising the existing skill base of the town.

They call the experienced makers of the jeans ‘Grand-Masters’, a master stroke which elevates the craft and product giving it a higher regard. Hiut have harnessed mythology and legend to make high-end jeans which they sell from £200 a pair upwards.

The owner's motto is ‘Do one thing well’, and I really love this part of the story. It is reminiscent of the master craftspeople of Japanese culture, Shokunin.

Shokunin simply translates as craftsman or artisan, but there is a little more to it.Famed Japanese artist, sculptor, teacher and woodcrafting expert Tasio Odate says “the Japanese apprentice is taught that shokunin means not only having technical skills, but also implies an attitude and social consciousness. … The shokunin has a social obligation to work his/her best for the general welfare of the people”.

Shokunin is about continual improvement to create the most beauty individually possible, created with time, care and skill. The reward is simply the satisfaction derived from the work, nothing more.

It feels though Hiut have embraced Japanese culture and the concept of shokunin with their grandmasters and pursuit of perfection, just like in Japan where shokunin are the custodians of tradition, in Cardigan it is just so.

Layer on top the storytelling of the people, place and culture of Cardigan and you have some formidable business alchemy.

Hiut’s story feels like it has spread like wildfire on social media by advocates including celebrity customers such as HRH Megan Markle. But not necessarily all their advocates are wearing their jeans. Just take me as an example, I have never bought or even tried on a pair of Hiut jeans but here I am telling you how much I love them.

I am mostly excited by Hiut because it is built on simple principles of integrity, they care about what they are doing and it shines through, it is built on shared human experiences as they strive to employ 400 makers in Cardigan once again and who would bet against them.

Even if we strip away everything Hiut have used in the creation of their business; story, culture, people, craft. I believe there is another more important factor in their success.

I think David Hieatt is following his energy. It looks like he uses his intuition to guide him and his sharp intellect and experience to create. He has learnt and reflected on his journey and created something he loves, a reflection of his energy.

This is a company that you cannot help but love. It is intelligent business design and the motivation was never to make money, it was to make a difference.

The money is a useful way to create more with. It is energy and if you love what you are doing and you believe in it, I think you will succeed, how can you not.

If you have enjoyed what you have read and would like to create a business that is as successful as Hiut then why not get in touch.

Cheers, Damien :-)

NB. This article is based on opinion and is by no means a representation of the facts.

References:

1. Kylie Fennel, October 16 2018, https://www.kyliefennell.com/be-an-expert-embrace-shokunin-expert/

What if?

It is 5:49am on Sunday 12th September 2021.

I drank red wine last night. Whenever I drink red wine the strangest thing happens.

I wake up at 4:30am. And I mean wide awake

Not only awake but full of beans.

I can hear the waves crashing on the shore metronomically.

The sea is about 250 metre away and I can rarely hear it from my bedroom, but right now it is clear as day.

The birds have just started to stir and chirp their morning chorus. I feel very happy to be awake at this special time of day.

I saw a light on in the ground floor of the flat opposite.

It made me very happy to see the yellow light shining out like a beacon in the dawn light.

I felt compelled to get up and write something.

Writing is so much to me - a deeply personal thing, a conversation with you, wherever you are and whoever you are, whatever time-space you reside in, I talk to you.

It feels intimate and important.

I am at my most creative when lying in bed. Add red wine into the mix and at about now I may be at my peak.

So I just wanted to say something about life.

I wanted to say, what if?

What if we had no boundaries?

What if instead of a defined persona we are an expanding mass of energy without limit.

I mainly was thinking about running a business when I had this thought and I wanted to say what if your business had no limits, no edges. But it was just a space for you, not just a part of you, but a space for all of you.

Now imagine if we all created these types of businesses or just led these kinds of lives.

What kind of a world do you think that would create?

I get ever so excited when I see somebody doing something they love.

Being themselves.

It fills me with joy, and you know what? It is clear as day when someone is doing this, it shines out like a lighthouse in the midst of a bleak winter on the edge of a stormy atlantic.

I do a lot of podcasts, I speak to a lot of business owners and when you meet someone who is being themself they have a luminous quality to them and a sparkle in their eye.

My skin tingles with goosebumps as I think about this, it feels akin to a spiritual experience for me.

The dawn is breaking fast now.

It’s 6:04am now and the sky is blue, stirring awake.

What time is it where you are? What colour is the sky?

I must draw our chat to a close now as I have a date with the sea before full light and it is an appointment that I surely must keep.

Especially after she called me so clearly from my sleep.

But anyway, I just wanted to share this glimpse, this crack through the door and say, what if?

With love,

Damien x

An Invitation

Life is all about invitations. And choices.

Everyday we receive invitations, to meet, to eat, to work, to play, to be.

Whether we recognise these invitations or not is neither here nor there.

They come.

And guess what the best thing is?

We can and do create these invitations.

In fact we create the invitations everyday, they are our creations whether we are aware of it or not.

A chance meeting can only look like a chance meeting. But on some level that’s what we wanted more than anything.

We are constantly choosing the invitations we receive. We choose everyday what life we will have, who it will involve, how much money we deserve to earn, everything.

We even choose the bad things.

Why? Because they help us in some way.

We are the architects of our own successes and failures.

If we are met with failure, it is merely an invitation to look more closely and grow.

Each time we mend, we mend stronger, but we mesh differently, more healed. different.

Ever heard the expression, “I felt different”.

How often is it the beginning of a wonderful story?

A failure is never a failure.

A success is never really a success.

Just a choice.

We can be there at the centre of it, eager to learn, the ready student.

Try not to get seduced by your own story. No matter how compelling it seems.

The soul reveals itself in glimpses, invitations.

Be aware of these and always know it is a chance to go deeper.

Maybe a chance to start a business.

Learn a new trade or just do something because we fancy it and don’t really know why.

We can always learn from everything and everyone.

There is no such thing as a wrong turn.

And it is never too late or too early.

If you are ready, you are ready.

Give life a chance and see what can happen.

Create an invitation, make a choice.

With Love.

Damien x

What’s the story?

Hello, my name is Damien, I am 39 years of age, I live in St Leonards down on the south coast with my wonderful partner and I have a passion for business. 

I’m sometimes unsure if those two words go together, passion + business... They seem an odd pair, but let me explain.

I have a passion for good business and what I mean by good business is business with an authentic energy that connects people. Business with soul. 

My first business experience was watching my dad work for himself at my home in the East Sussex countryside where I grew up. My dad made signs like his dad and he loved his work, he was very capable with his hands and also loved designing - a perfect match. 

He loved his work so much that he could work as much as he wanted and it never tired him out. He cared about what he did and valued his craft, he was and still is a master craftsman.

Me and dad at the Rugby World Cup 2015 (not working)

That probably tells you a lot about where my passion began at least. Seeing my dad at work and making it look effortless seemed like the most natural thing in the world to me, he would have a 30-second commute to his workshop and I saw him all the time.

I would later work with my dad and help build his business to a size neither of us could have ever dreamed. But that's another story 

Back to this story and it wasn’t until I was 33 that I would follow in my fathers footsteps and start my own business. After working for many other businesses of all shapes and sizes and learning lots about how you run one I created a business that I absolutely loved and my passion went to a whole new level.

My business was called Community Oven and we made great food and brought people together to eat. It wasn’t until I sold the business 4 years later that I fully realised how much I loved the experience. It was one of the best things I have ever done.

The business came from a place deep within me, a very private and personal space which gave it great authenticity. Authenticity is an interesting quality, hard to describe but when you see it there is no mistaking it. 

This authenticity resonated with other people as well and because I was very connected to what I was doing it naturally connected them to my work. The story of my business spread like wildfire and before I knew what was going on  it was thriving with more work than I could do.

I realised that I loved my business because it was an expression of me and who I am. It represented what I wanted to see more of in the world and it gave me the excuse to have a lot of fun while making money. 

But most of all my focus was on what I cared about, the work became very important to me, I had no ambitions for it, I just valued what I was doing for the sake of doing it.

It was this that I realised was the secret ingredient in my business, my dad's business and so many other successful businesses. We were all doing something we loved doing, we saw the importance in it, and therefore it became fun and grew.  

I recognised that other people can tell the difference between a business which has this energy and a business which does not. People are attracted to this authentic energy. 

It is the law of attraction in effect. If you have fun with what you are doing and you care about it, you will be culturing an energy inside yourself that will manifest outside of you.  

I have seen it happen multiple times in my life, it is only now I recognise fully what it is. The old adage is true, do something you love and the money will follow. Simples.

So I now work with other people to create businesses that are fun, connected and have authenticity in their DNA. I choose this work because it is important to me, it is who I am and I am already having a lot of fun doing it. 

So that’s my story, thanks for reading it and let’s see what happens next.

The Creative Coast

Since I moved to Hastings I have been struck by two things, it’s abundance of Creativity & the Kindness of the people who live here.

People here are unusually welcoming and I admit initially I was a little suspicious, but I now see it as genuine enthusiasm for this town and a warmth for newcomers. For example, I actually know my neighbours! That has never happened to me before, I thought it was a thing they did up north or just in the past.

I have also been struck by the willingness of people who live here to create. Somebody I spoke to recently said Hastings is a town to reinvent yourself and it feels creativity is the output of this reinvention.

The combination of kindness and creativity seems to be the perfect conditions for new business ideas and creative projects. Creativity is a term I have not always been comfortable with as a student of logic in my early career but I have come to appreciate more and more that creativity is the fuel that drives so much that is good.

I am perpetually fascinated by the myriad forms in which people creatively express themselves, so it was with pleasure that I spoke to a number of local residents about their creative businesses to find out how and why they do what they do.

Penny Williams runs Blush Beauty and has had a varied career. I spoke with Penny about her journey to starting her own creative business and finding her raison d’etre.

When I asked her about why she does what she does, she said “I love making people feel good about themselves, beauty is seen as frivolous but it gives people such confidence”.

Penny first realised she wanted to be a makeup artist when she was 6 and her cousin gave her some makeup to try. She encountered resistance from her family though, “When I said to my parents that I wanted to do beauty, my dad turned around and said, that’s for thickos!”

Penny started her business after a prolonged period of stress working 70 hours a week as a primary school teacher, she said of her decision to change, “We are so conditioned to follow a path, not listen to our hearts and what makes our soul sing, but focus on wealth and career success, rather than internal feelings of fulfillment.”

In March 2020, Penny’s world was turned upside down as the wedding and events industry ground to a sudden halt due to the pandemic. But it was a catalyst for change “I didn’t know what to do because I had bills to pay and all my work was gone”.

After a short period of frustration Penny looked at other ways to create an income and started tutoring online and painting. “I hadn’t painted since I was 19 but I did some portraits of animals and they sold really well”

Penny said of her creative process “I see a mark in my head, like a swoosh of hot pink and then I do it”, “I don’t know what I am going to do, it is almost like, someone else is doing it through you”

Penny has been exhibiting on South East open studios from 7th June for 2 weeks and her art work is available via Instagram @pennywilliamsart

Alice Hull uses her creativity through the medium of silk screen printing and is the co-founder of 55 prints based in St Leonards. I was keen to meet Alice and explore the business as screen printing was part of my past, as I walked into the studio I was transported back to my childhood hanging around my fathers sign business after school and helping out in the holidays, the visceral smells of ink and the sight of the old machines was familiar and personal to me.

Alice almost stumbled into screen printing and met her co-founder Stephen whose dream was to create a studio. She liked the idea of the business but admitted that she didn’t really know what it was initially or why she decided to commit to starting it.

Alice later found out that she also had a family link to the trade “My grandad was a man called Tristram Hull and he set up a screen printing studio in the 60s and 70s in London and it became a real hub for local and international artists.”

55 prints now work with a range of businesses including corporates and artists making anything from purses to prints. The skill of the printer is in getting the right balance between ink and mesh to achieve a product which meets the expectations of the client, they collaborate with artists on their work and are very much a part of the creative process.

Alice is also intending to create her own work through the skills she has acquired helping others which has enabled her to express herself and increase her creative capacity “I had been wanting a creative business but I hadn’t anticipated how excited I would get by screen printing itself and how many ideas it has given me for other kinds of creativity”. For more details see @55prints on Facebook.

Filmmaker Dave Thomas runs Picnic Films and finds creativity & inspiration through the people he works with. He enjoys making films about how people are doing something new and redefining how to be in the world.

Dave is currently making a film about Roff Smith, a local travel photographer who has been featured by the New York Times. Unable to travel due to you know what, Roff did something else, “he basically invented a new way to travel!”.

Every morning he gets up before dawn and cycles about capturing the world in the dawn light. “I thought it was such a good story I knew I had to contact him, and we’ve been shooting for the last few weeks, the early mornings are killing me though”, “I think Roff is incredible because he has created a new way to do his work.”

Finally I spoke with the amazing Dee Haughney, founder of Anois Art. Anois is gaelic for now, but a more accurate translation is ‘right here, right now!’, which seems the perfect name for a business that celebrates female & non-binary artists giving them an online platform for selling their work.

Dee said the desire to create the business was born of two things ”I wanted to make art more accessible to people, because the art world can be quite closed and secondly I noticed that female & non-binary artists are under-represented and I wanted to give them a platform.

Dee is passionate about the power of art “as a way of understanding the world” and found her creativity through bringing artists together and being part of the artist’s journey.

The best businesses are elegant solutions and by connecting people with art and artists with people I feel Anois art is on to a winner.

From speaking to these local creatives and entrepreneurs I was able to see how creativity is represented in different ways through our local businesses. That it is something that is vitally important to our sense of self and fulfillment in our lives, that even when we don’t know we are creative we probably are and it is something that we will strive to find or perhaps, it will find us.