Extraordinary Creatives

How does a sixteen-year-old looking for beer money become one of the world’s leading dealers in rare maps, selling extraordinary objects for millions and occasionally outbidding the Library of Congress?

Today I’m talking to Daniel Crouch, founder of Daniel Crouch Rare Books, because I’ve always been fascinated by maps. They might look like records of the world, but they’re also records of how somebody wanted us to see it: who owns what, where borders lie, what gets included and what disappears.

Daniel has spent his entire working life learning how to look. We talk about a magnificent sixteenth-century world map that may have been made for political negotiations between kings; a 5,000-year-old clay map bearing its maker’s thumbprint; and the nineteenth-century map he bought for £100 at a car boot sale, only to discover his own house sitting right in the middle of it.

But beneath these extraordinary objects is a much bigger conversation about curiosity, storytelling, value, collecting and what happens when you spend a lifetime paying very close attention.

I loved this one. I think you will too.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

BEST MOMENTS

“Value doesn’t live in price alone. It grows when somebody can help us understand the history, labour, imagination, craft and human experience held inside an object.”

“That thing that you think actually is just a throwaway thing could go on to inspire generations to come.”

“As art dealers, particularly as rare map dealers, we don't sell objects and we don't sell beauty. We sell a story.”

ABOUT THE GUEST

https://crouchrarebooks.com/

HOST BIO

With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

**

Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? Join today!

https://cerihand.com/membership/

**

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course

Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities and thrive in the art world today.

https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

**

Book a Discovery Call Today

To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at [email protected]

**

Discover Your Extraordinary Creativity

Visit www.cerihand.com to learn how we can help you become an extraordinary creative.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

What if the thing that you keep calling procrastination, lack of confidence or self-sabotage isn’t quite what you think it is? What if one part of you desperately wants the exhibition, the opportunity, or success, while another part is trying just as hard to keep you safe? And what happens to our creativity when we’re also carrying grief, uncertainty, difficult relationships, and everything that’s happened to us before, as well as everything happening in the world around us right now?

I recently spent four days in Oxford thinking exactly about these questions at a conference on trauma, healing the mind, the body, and the spirit. I came home thinking how much of this connects to the challenges that I see creatives wrestling with every single day. 

So, in this episode, I want to talk about agency - the different parts of ourselves that can want completely contradictory things; grief and trust; how we protect our attention without turning away from the world; why spirituality is still a dirty word in the art world; and why the problem that you think you might need to solve might only be the visible part of something much bigger.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

BEST MOMENTS

"The bit of you that's frightened doesn't disappear because you tell it to be quiet. It just keeps tapping you on the shoulder, and sometimes it gets even louder.”

“Sometimes, what we're grieving is a version of ourselves.”

“Maybe confidence is I don't know what's going to happen, but I trust myself enough to find out.”

HOST BIO

With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

**

Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? Join today!

https://cerihand.com/membership/

**

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course

Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities and thrive in the art world today.

https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

**

Book a Discovery Call Today

To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at [email protected]

**

Discover Your Extraordinary Creativity

Visit www.cerihand.com to learn how we can help you become an extraordinary creative.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

What do you do when an artwork you’ve been quietly developing for years suddenly goes stratospheric? And how do you turn a hit into a career-changing opportunity without sacrificing your health, your family, or the work itself?

“I don’t know enough people” might be one of the most convenient lies artists tell themselves. And before you get cross with me, hear me out.

If you tell yourself, you don’t know the right curators, collectors, commissioners, gallerists, or writers, you get to keep believing the problem is your network. You don’t have to risk contacting somebody. You don’t have to hear no. And you get to keep hoping that one day somebody might discover you.

But hope is protecting you from the very thing your work needs you to do.

I speak to artists every single day, and I hear versions of this constantly. “I live in the arse end of nowhere.” “I don’t have the money.” “I hate private views.” ““I’m awkward.” “I didn’t go to the right art school.” “My work is too strange.” “I’m an introvert.”

And look, I have empathy with a lot of this. I’m an introvert myself. Given the choice, I would much rather sit in my little home office writing or talking properly to one interesting person than spend three hours shouting over somebody at a private view.

But I think something else is going on.

Why, when you already know how to network, are you still not doing it?

I don’t think most artists need another lesson in networking. I think some of you need to stop waiting to feel comfortable enough to start. That’s what today is about.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

BEST MOMENTS

“Your network should grow out of your curiosity, not your desperation, because desperation makes everybody look like a gatekeeper. Curiosity makes everybody interesting.”

“When your brain says, "I don't know anybody, I want you to course correct it. It's a thought error. Say I don't know them yet.”

“You don’t have to become fearless. You just have to become more practised.”

HOST BIO

With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

**

Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Join today!

https://cerihand.com/membership/

**

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course

Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to thrive in the art world today.

https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

**

Book a Discovery Call

To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at [email protected]

**

Discover Your Extraordinary Creativity

Visit www.cerihand.com to learn how we can help you become an extraordinary creative.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Andrea Grover has spent nearly thirty years championing artists who take risks. And right now, she’s taking a few of her own.

She’s turned her dining room into an experimental performance space called the Ponderosa Lounge. She’s started doing stand-up comedy in her fifties. And after ten years leading Guild Hall in East Hampton, she’s thinking deeply about what creativity, community and leadership can mean when life changes in ways you could never have planned for.

Andrea is a curator, writer and arts leader who founded the pioneering Aurora Picture Show in Houston, went on to curate ambitious projects including Radical Seafaring, and has spent her career making space for experimentation, play and what she calls the “head-scratchers”, the art you don’t immediately understand but can’t stop thinking about.

Earlier this year, Andrea was diagnosed with ALS. We talk about what that diagnosis is teaching her about accepting help and love, why she’s using comedy to process what’s happening, what decades of working with artists have taught her about leadership, and why she believes creativity can bring people together when so much around us is pulling us apart.

There is so much life in this conversation. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

BEST MOMENTS

“An extraordinary creative life really asks of us. Not that we control what happens next, but that we remain curious enough to meet it. To make something with what we have. To let other people in. To keep finding joy, play and connection.”

“Accepting love, accepting help has been very healing …. this sickness is healing me. It's healing me of this relentless pursuit, a forward motion towards I don't know what.”

“I love people who don't think like me.”

“You can't just run a cultural institution on ideas. You actually have to know how to run a business and how to pay people.”

EPISODE RESOURCES

https://www.guildhall.org

https://www.instagram.com/gentleridevan/

@guild_hall // @gentleridevan

HOST BIO

With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

**

Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? Join today!

https://cerihand.com/membership/

**

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course

Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities and thrive in the art world today.

https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

**

Book a Discovery Call

To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at [email protected]

**

Discover Your Extraordinary Creativity

Visit www.cerihand.com to learn how we can help you become an extraordinary creative.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Today, I am talking about a feeling that most of us know intimately. A feeling that most of us don’t talk about: Envy. This episode is about both kinds, which turn out to be the same machine running in two different directions.  

We’ll look at what happens inside you when you hear someone else’s good news - the prize, the residency, the museum acquisition, the sold-out show - and feel that sharp jab under the ribs that bends you double. We’ll talk about how, within about 90 seconds, you can pick up their achievement and swing it at your own career like a wrecking ball, and why that reaction isn’t just you being “awful,” it’s information.  

Drawing on research into “benign” and “malicious” envy, we’ll separate the kind that quietly points you upwards towards the work you actually want to be making from the kind that wants to pull other people down when you feel you have no control over your own situation. 

We’ll also talk about the other half that almost nobody names: what happens when you are the one being envied. The colleague who goes a bit cool, the snide remark at the opening, the tall poppy swipes that land at two in the morning and come home with you.  

This episode is an invitation to notice which kind of envy has landed, what it’s trying to tell you, and how to move from resentment and comparison towards honest data and self-trust.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

BEST MOMENTS

“When it (envy) lands, ask what kind you've got. If it's pointing you upwards towards work that you want to be making and you're not currently making, it's data, useful data.”

“Being envied by someone whose eye you trust is a form of recognition that no review will ever give you. That artist had the benign kind.”

“People are far more accepting of success they believe was earned and feel justified in cutting down success that looks like bragging or luck or shortcuts.”

PODCAST HOST BIO

With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

****

Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? Join today!

https://cerihand.com/membership/

****

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course

Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities and thrive in the art world today.

https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

****

Book a Discovery Call Today

To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at [email protected]

****

Discover Your Extraordinary Creativity

Visit www.cerihand.com to learn how we can help you become an extraordinary creative.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

My guest today is the wonderful Italian-Australian singer-songwriter Gabriella Cilmi.

Many of you will remember her breakthrough hit Sweet About Me, which became a global success when she was just sixteen.

Since then she's toured the world, won awards, shared stages with some of music's biggest names, and now, after thirteen years, she's released a remarkable new album called Pure Love. It's soulful, analogue, deeply human, and for me, one of those records that gets better every time you listen to it.

What fascinated me wasn't the success. It was the journey back to herself.

In this conversation, Gabriella shares what it took to stop running from other people's expectations, how she learned to trust her own creative instincts again, why the people around us shape the work we're capable of making, and how she finally found the confidence to make the album she'd always wanted to make.

If you've ever questioned your own voice, struggled to trust your instincts, or wondered whether it's too late to create the work that's really inside you, I think you're going to love this conversation.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

BEST MOMENTS

“That first seed of idea is so important. don't lose track of it. It can change. Be open to it changing, but there's always something in that.”

“Fear never disappeared but became something she learned to work alongside. And perhaps most importantly, success became less about proving herself and more about finding peace with herself.”

“I just stopped trying as hard and just did what felt natural.”

EPISODE RESOURCES

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5v2GEv1pQaCp6oeOQROdKE

https://www.instagram.com/gabriellacilmi/ - to pre-order her new album

HOST BIO

With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

**

Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? Join today!

https://cerihand.com/membership/

**

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course

Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities and thrive in the art world today.

https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

**

Book a Discovery Call Today

To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at [email protected]

**

Discover Your Extraordinary Creativity

Visit www.cerihand.com to learn how we can help you become an extraordinary creative.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

I was watching The Big Deal, the new programme with Steph McGovern on the BBC, and I came away with more thoughts than will fit into one episode. Most of them can wait. Today I want to use one thing from it, because it landed directly on top of something that comes up in my membership every single week.

An artist has made a body of work. It went out once, into one exhibition, and it didn't sell. Now it's in the studio taking up space, and the question arrives in one of three forms. Should I auction it off cheap? Should I give it away? Should it even be on my website anymore?

So, three questions, and every one of them is a plan for getting rid.

It is interesting the speed at which the artist brain goes to disposal. The work has been out once…. and already the conclusion is that it's spent, it's evidence of something that didn't work, and that the fastest way back to feeling alright is to make it disappear. And underneath that is something bigger - artists hate the idea of selling.

Yet, I know that every artist can turn their graveyard of pieces that did not sell into a living archive that attracts collectors.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

BEST MOMENTS

“The work in the corner of your studio isn't waiting to be disposed of. It's waiting for you to remember why you made it and share your enthusiasm for it.”

“You have to sell yourself on the work first before you try to sell the work to anybody else.”

“She started looking for her people, her collectors, the ones already half interested in what she was interested in.”

If you want more of this in your inbox every week, subscribe to my newsletter Beat the Block cerihand.com/subscribe and it’ll land in your inbox every Friday.

EPISODE RESOURCES

How to sell more art episode - https://podcasts.apple.com/tw/podcast/want-to-sell-more-art-fix-this-first/id1709105337?i=1000700986682

HOST BIO

With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

**

Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? Join today!

https://cerihand.com/membership/

**

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course

Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities in the art world today.

https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

**

Book a Discovery Call

To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at [email protected]

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Some artists spend their whole lives trying to outrun the work that made them famous.

There is a page in Emma's notebook that has been written out, in more or less the same words, most weeks for months.

Five things on it. Email the curator she met last spring. Book the studio visit. Get the new work up on the website. Finish the residency application. And every week, in that big looping handwriting of hers, the same five things go down on a clean page, and by the following week not one of them has a line through it.

If you have a page like that, and I think most of you do, I think some of you could recite yours to me right now, then this one is for you. It will help you to work out why you are repeatedly delaying doing those specific tasks, so you can finally break that cycle, get them done and make some real progress.Before we go any further, if you haven't followed the show yet, do that now, because these solo episodes land every week and they are built to be used rather than just listened to.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

BEST MOMENTS

“Not one of those five tasks was a task. All five were feelings that she'd already decided the task would produce.”

“You tell yourself to put the new work online, and it (your brain) files that under judgement. And you tell yourself to raise your prices, and it files that under losing everything you've built.”

“Confidence arrives afterwards. It arrives as evidence. Every difficult email that you've sent, every application you've submitted, every room that you've walked into before you felt ready, your brain quietly loved that you came out the other side.”

“Practising saying it out loud to yourself over and again is how it becomes embodied.”

PODCAST HOST BIO

With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

****

Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? Join today!

https://cerihand.com/membership/

****

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course

Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities and thrive in the art world today.

https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

****

Book a Discovery Call Today

To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at [email protected]

****

Discover Your Extraordinary Creativity

Visit www.cerihand.com to learn how we can help you become an extraordinary creative.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/