HotWalls Studios
In February me and my class took a trip down to the HotWalls Studios here in Portsmouth to check out other professional Illustrators and Artists and to see how they make their living.
HotWalls is a a collection of 15 cosy studios by the sea in Portsmouth where artists work and sell their art, which is open to the public daily. Although when we went down there not many of the studios where open, however we did get to speak to the artists who were and then meander round the pretty location. I spoke to an Artist called Kim Edith who specialised in fabric collage, Kim offered many interesting and personalised gifts, personalised textile memory books, fabric mood boards of different songs and little prints of her work on cards (which i bought one of).
She is also the creator of an embroidered book called ‘Into the woods’, which she uses to experiment with different textile techniques, she has now turned this into a printed book as it became so popular online last year.
You can see a flip through of this on her YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrhJXRY28dg
Kim told me that there were upsides and downsides to working in the hotwalls studio, that it was nice to have all her work in one place in such a lovely studio by the sea where she could also sell her work, however it was sometimes quite difficult to work and interact with customers at the same time. She also noted that part of making her living was much more than just working in the studio and selling her work there, she also offered workshops, online commissions and visiting fairs to sell her work there too.
Visiting the HotWalls studios was helpful in giving me a better perspective on life as an artist after University, it reminded me that doing what I want to do for a living will be hard work but very worthwhile. :)