INSPIRE: The Road Less Travelled...Kate Bowles

This week, we meet the delightful Kate Bowles, someone I have known personally for a couple of years. She is unfailingly enthusiastic, wonderfully talented and has a wicked sense of humour - the banking world's loss is most definitely our gain! Read on to find out how she made the leap from cooking the books to making them.

Tell us about yourself

I am a forty-something artist/crafts person with a passion for reusing fabrics and papers. My main focus currently is making open spine hand-bound recycled books. I have always felt the need to make stuff - using recycled materials appeases some of my guilt about using resources for what is essentially my obsession. Around three years ago I had the great pleasure to attend a book making work shop with the incredibly talented artist and bookbinder Sarah Brown. I had never seen open spine bookbinding before and my emotional response was “I want to be able to do that!”

Making books seems to tap into all the artistic areas that interest me. I have always been interested in embroidery, decoration, reclamation of female arts and above all, function. I spent a lot of my time at college chewing over the “Art vs Craft” debate and obsessively read ‘The subversive stitch’ by Rozsika Parker. I love exposing the construction/sewing, predominantly done by women in the bindaries, and making it loud and blousy. I particularly enjoy the idea that my books have a more important purpose when they leave me, to be filled with another person’s ideas, lists and drawings. I always urge people to fill them; the tattier they get the better. The thought of one of my books sitting on a shelf as a decorative item, empty and pristine, makes me a little sad.

Give a brief description of your career path up to before you started your creative business.
I completed an Art degree focusing on sculpture in the late 80s followed by a year of faffing and being cold and hungry. This led me to do a PGCE, then onto the graduate scheme for a Building Society – working for the last six years as a project manager (well a girl’s got to eat). Sixteen years and two children later it all got a bit too tough. An aggressive working environment, long hours often away from home at the last minute, over half my income spent on childcare, missing my children and, to be honest, although stressed out of my head, I was bored.

What prompted you to pursue a creative career?
After a lot of soul searching and bank book analysis with my partner, I took the plunge and left work… oh and learnt to eat beans again. My main reason to leave was so that I could spend time with my children, being able to use the hours in between to make was an added bonus. I am fortunate that I have a supportive partner with a reliable, if modest, income doing a job he loves. If we did not have this I would never have left work and continued making in rare snatched moments.

What was the most difficult thing about this decision? And what was the easiest?

Leaving a reliable and pretty well paid job was pretty scary. Even now I feel the need to pop my fingers in my ears and sing “La La La” whenever I hear phrases such as “Final Salary Pension” or “Sick Pay”, please don’t mention the increase in university fees as that is the one thing that will send me into a complete spiral. But on the upside I can now work flexibly and for myself, I no longer panic when I get the school holiday dates and my children can take priority. Oh, and the huge bonus is that I am now paid to do something I love.

How supportive of your decision were your family, friends and (former) colleagues?
The decision to leave full time work was one that took me a number of years to make and throughout that time I canvassed all sorts of people for their opinions. These varied wildly and at the end of the day it was my decision. 

How has pursuing a creative career been compared with your previous career? What are the challenges, and what are the highlights?
The development of my creative career has been pretty organic. I registered as self-employed almost straight away and started out making a few quid making soft furnishings for friends and their friends.  I also ran a children’s art workshop at a local arts centre and sold the odd painting here and there.

I had a bit of an epiphany with regards to ‘networking’, an activity that always felt pretty pushy and a bit fake for me, “Ah! It’s about meeting people, being pleasant and positive about what I do”. I have become pretty open to opportunities and it’s amazing how many present themselves when you look out for them. For example, by chance I met the incredible Jane Greenoff (http://www.thecrossstitchguild.com/) at the Harrogate Knit and Stitch show. It was a flying visit to say “Hi” to a friend and whilst trying to find her stall some rather delicious linen tape caught my eye. I got chatting with Jane who was keen to know what I was going to do with the tape and so started an exciting collaboration.

Selling at Makers fairs has been such an amazing opportunity too; meeting like-minded people who are generally very generous with their advice and support, and it’s a great way to showcase your work and most importantly to get valuable feedback from potential customers.

Opening a Folksy shop has also been a huge positive. I knew that I needed to have an online presence, and as I am a bit of a Luddite, Folksy provided a cheap and simple solution. The unexpected outcome is that I have met so many incredibly creative and supportive people via the site and sold a few books too.

Have you had any regrets about choosing a creative career?
Only the University thing, I didn’t see that one coming and unlike Americans who have had years to save up for their child’s education we, like the rest of our generation, haven’t. On the upside if I had continued with my previous career I still wouldn’t have had the money put aside, but I might have saddled myself with a larger mortgage. 

What has been the best thing about your decision to pursue a creative career?
It feels right. I’m having fun and it still doesn’t feel like work.  We got a dog!

If you could give one piece of advice to someone considering taking up a creative career, what would that be?
Make something that you enjoy making and make well, then be realistic about how much money you will make initially – can you support yourself? Use all the skills and experience you have gathered along your way. Think about pricing, time, value what you do, but be realistic about how much you can expect someone to pay for it. Make sure you have a contingency plan (once a project manager, always a project manager). Keep records of everything, get insurance and register as self-employed straight away. Oh, and for goodness sake make copies of all your photos and documents, don’t make the mistake I did of storing them all on your laptop only for the thing to die on me earlier this week.

I saw a wonderful quote recently in a Sunday supplement: “no one is too creative to understand a balance sheet”.

What are your plans for the future?
Oh Lordy, I am still working on that, but I know there will be more books …. lots and lots of books

Kate’s books can be found at:

The Masham Gallery – North Yorkshire
HOME OH! - Hebdon Bridge
Cake Walk - Ilkley
Folksy http://www.folksy.com/shops/KateBowles

If you fancy having a go at bookbinding Kate, is running a workshop at Inc Creative in Keighley on March 3rd 2012 - see http://kafgallery.blogspot.com/2012/01/get-creative-with-our-saturday.html for more information.