Nitty Gritty

This week Flick and I are back in London with artist Alma Berrow. Self-taught, Alma calls herself an artist who works with clay rather than a ceramicist. Her sculptural installations turn everyday objects into something humorous, surreal and quietly loaded: ashtrays, oysters, Ritz crackers, pomegranates, a lone gherkin placed beside a bowl of them.We talk about how having no formal training became an advantage, why she still can’t make a vessel, and what she took from a three-month residency in Montana. We get into the point where her art career stopped feeling like play, her fear of becoming “Ashtray Girl,” and the stranger at a show who wondered aloud whether she’d turn out to be a one-trick pony.Alma also shares how she found her way back to joy in the studio and the gallery owner who brought gender into a negotiation. She explains how months of research into myth and folklore become a full tablescape, including the one she’s building for her first solo booth in Miami this December.It’s a conversation about making without an audience in mind, and about protecting the playful part of a creative practice once it becomes your job.See Alma's work here, and her Instagram here.

I’m back with illustrator, artist and curator Tabby Booth for round two! A year after her first Nitty Gritty episode, we caught up outside the Tate Modern for a chat I'm very excited to share.Since we last caught up, Tabby has launched her Substack, Cult of Create, where she shares more of the inner workings of her practice — money, motherhood and the truths of being a working artist. We talk about why she’s building more of her creative world away from the Instagram algorithm, why buyers can make the best sellers, and how to know when it’s time to stop saying yes.And yes, we get into the £83K month. Tabby breaks down her biggest month to date and the mix of paintings, art fairs, print-on-demand, licensing and other income streams behind it.If you haven’t listened to Tabby’s episode from last season, it's just as insightful as this one.Find Tabby's:~ Instagram here~ Substack here~ Website here~ Gallery here

Got a big following but no one's buying? I'm flying solo today to break down the difference between building an audience of peers and one of buyers, and why your approach to content makes all the difference when it comes to selling art online.I get into why attention doesn't equal intent, how "process content" can bring about students instead of collectors, and why clarity (not virality) is what actually sells your work. I also share the exact question I ask myself when I'm stuck on how to present my art online, and why confidence in your work matters just as much as the work itself.If your engagement's high but your sales aren't, this one's for you.

This week Flick joins me in Copenhagen for a chat with artist Arne Ohlsen.Arne started his art practice in Australia while working as a carpenter, painting on wooden offcuts because canvas was out of reach. He gained momentum quickly, exhibited at several shows, and moved into a full-time creative practice before returning to Europe, where the work turned darker, leaning into identity, isolation, power and struggle.We talk about the real differences between making art in Australia and Europe, whether struggle actually produces more emotionally powerful work, and what happens to a practice when the desire to sell starts shaping what gets made. We get into his decision to keep carpentry alongside his art career, the pull between experimentation and building a recognisable style, and why his version of success isn't commercial art stardom but a nice studio in a warm climate.Arne also opens up about his discomfort with being seen, how comparison in the art world knocked his confidence, and the challenge every working artist faces: promoting your work without becoming a version of yourself that doesn't feel real.Find Arne on Instagram here!

Should your work look like an extension of you? This week, I sit down in Lisbon with Ukrainian-born, Portugal-based textile artist Bombony. Best known for her geometric textile works, Bombony draws on her background in architecture to create intuitive compositions that balance structure and softness, allowing meaning to reveal itself over time.As a single mother and full-time artist, she's built a sustainable creative practice spanning painting, textiles and sculpture, finding the intersection between fine art and interior design as a way to create on her own terms.In this conversation, we explore the relationship between artist and artwork, the tension between image and identity in a male-dominated art world, how motherhood sharpened rather than limited her practice, and the role of cultural displacement in shaping an artistic voice.Find Bombony on Instagram here or visit her website here.

This week we’re getting a crash course in Marketing 101 with the person who markets me — Felicity “Flick” Brown, my marketing and brand strategist, plus basically 55 other jobs in one.For the past 18 months, Flick has helped me scale my art business, and now we’re finally sitting down to unpack exactly how we got here — from landing on my new marketing plan to all the trial and error attempts we made along the way.We get into the purchasing funnel and why selling high-value art is a much longer game than a simple impulse buy. We talk vanity metrics, why ‘how-to’ content might not be converting the way you think, and how world-building and storytelling can actually help you sell.Flick explains why the why behind a piece can matter more than the how, whether artists should embrace being elusive or build a front-facing persona, and why sometimes you just have to try on different content styles until you find what actually fits. If you're a working artist trying to figure out how to actually market your art career and sell your work, this one's for you.