Extraordinary Creatives

By Ceri HandSociety & Culture Arts Leisure Personal Journals Visual Arts Design

Extraordinary Creatives episodes

August 19How to ask for what you need without becoming 'The Difficult One'
'I don't want them to think I'm difficult.'
I've heard that sentence more times than I can count, usually about four minutes after somebody has told me the best news of their year. They’ve landed a gig, an exhibition, commission. The residency they've wanted since art school. We celebrate, then the room goes quiet, and out it comes.
What they're worried about is never the work. It's the hundred emails from eleven different people wanting an answer that afternoon. The day of travel with nothing after it. The meet and greet with thirty people on arrival. Whether there will be somewhere to sit down for ten minutes. Whether the biggest decisions will land on the day they have the least energy.
If you have ever done that arithmetic before saying yes, this episode is for you, because I want to give you something better than hoping it will be fine.
Last week, I talked about my own experience of chronic fatigue and learning the conditions that let me flourish. That was the part we have some influence over.
This part is harder, because it involves asking somebody else for something so we can work at our best. By the end, you will understand why asking feels so hard and how to do it without appearing “difficult to work with”.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Most artists need certain conditions to do their best work e.g. ramp access, a day of rest between public events or meal breaks at particular times. But many worry that asking for “special” arrangements will make them seem difficult and affect future opportunities.

Hiding the conditions you need comes at a cost. The energy you spend worrying about what people will think could be channelled into your work.

An access rider gives artists a way to put their needs in writing before you're tired or under pressure. Every artist should consider writing one, whether they would describe themselves as disabled or not.
BEST MOMENTS
“When an artist told me early in writing exactly what they needed in order to do their best work, my honest reaction was relief, not irritation.”
“The thing that actually frightens a producer isn't somebody with access requirements. It's discovering something on the morning of the install that could have been solved six weeks earlier with one phone call.”
“You don't have to disclose a medical condition to anybody. In most countries, you're not obliged to, and a rider works perfectly well without one.”
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/
18 min
August 16Why Making Bad Work Is the Secret to Great Art with Simone Brewster
Welcome back to Extraordinary Creatives. Today's guest is the remarkable Simone Brewster. Simone is an artist whose work moves between sculpture, painting, jewellery, furniture, architecture, and public installation. On paper those disciplines might seem worlds apart, but beneath them all is one beautifully consistent line of enquiry.
Simone creates what she calls intimate architectures: objects and spaces that shape how we feel, how we connect and how we experience belonging.
Drawing on Black diasporic histories, architecture, material culture and memory, her work feels both timeless and unmistakably contemporary. You may have seen her exhibition at the Design Museum in London, or her work in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C.
In this conversation we talk about growing up in London, finding your creative handwriting, why making bad work is essential to making great work, and how to balance self-initiated projects with commissions, jewellery with public spaces, and creativity with business.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
So many creatives end up defining themselves by what they make, when actually it's the enquiry underneath the work that matters most. If you stay true to that, your work can evolve across disciplines whilst still feeling unmistakably yours.

Developing your creative handwriting means accepting that bad work will sit alongside the good. Not as a failure, but as a necessary part of the line of enquiry that makes the work unmistakably yours.

Creativity and commerce aren't opposing forces. Learning how to build a business around your creativity gives your practice the time, space, and stability it needs to flourish - creating the conditions for your best work to exist.
BEST MOMENTS
“The difference isn't whether you make bad work. It's whether you're willing to keep going, learn from it and make the next piece.”
“You never know who is watching you….do the work - share the work.”
"Your peers are going to be one of the most valuable resources you ever have."
“That cultivation, staying connected to your true fans, your champions, is one of the best things you could be doing.”
EPISODE RESOURCES
https://www.instagram.com/Simonebrewster_london/
https://www.simonebrewster.co.uk/
Sign up for Simone’s newsletter here / https://mailchi.mp/simonebrewster/welcome-and-subscribe
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/
1 hr 33 min
August 12What Chronic Illness Taught Me About Creativity
There's something I've been thinking about for quite a while now.
It's something I've talked about with close friends, but hardly ever publicly. Not because it's a secret. And certainly not because I'm embarrassed by it. I think, if I'm honest, I just never wanted it to define me.
But over the last few years, I've realised that by not talking about it, I've probably left out one of the biggest reasons I think the way I do.
Because so many of you write to me about Long Covid, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, burnout, depression, caring responsibilities and all the unexpected things that change what we're capable of physically or mentally, it feels like the right time to have this conversation.
I'm not a doctor or a neuroscientist and this isn't an episode about fixing chronic illness or pretending mindset alone can overcome real physical limitations. It's about what happens when life changes, and you quietly keep comparing yourself with the person you used to be.
Today, I explore what chronic illness has taught me about creativity, why so many artists find themselves grieving a version of themselves they've lost, and share some practical ways to work with your energy instead of constantly fighting against it.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
One of the hardest parts of illness, burnout or unexpected change isn't simply what it takes away physically. It's the quiet loss of identity that comes from comparing yourself with who you used to be.

Instead of managing time, start managing energy. Becoming curious about the conditions that help you think, create, and recover allows you to build a creative practice that works with the life you have now.

Acceptance isn't giving up on treatment or ensuring that things improve. It's simply saying this is where I am today, because once we stop arguing with today's reality, things drastically improve.

Protect your energy from the things that deplete you but be sure not to let fear disguise itself as self-care. Learn to tell the difference between a genuine need for rest from avoidance. It is key to building a brave, sustainable creative life.
BEST MOMENTS
"I hadn't realised you could grieve your own life."
“What people couldn't see was the constant calculation happening in the background. Could I afford (the energy) to go out tonight?”
"Become a student of your well-being.'"
"Ask, what are the conditions that allow this version of me to flourish?"
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/
32 min
August 09 Drawing with Light, Playing with Time with Reuben Wu
I first met Reuben Wu when I was Director of Exhibitions at FACT in Liverpool, and he was one of the coolest musicians in the city, co-founding the band Ladytron and shaping a distinctive sound that travelled around the world.
Years on, he's one of the most singular photographers working anywhere - his images are held in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim, MoMA and the Met, and commissioned by Apple and National Geographic, for whom he reimagined Stonehenge as if you were seeing it for the first time.
In this episode, we explore his extraordinary journey from a Liverpool kid who dreamed of becoming an artist, to an industrial designer, successful musician, and then to one of the most distinctive visual artists working today.
Reuben rigs lights to drones and walks into deserts and snowstorms at night to make work no machine could ever fake - because, as he says, AI can simulate the result but never the process. And he is fierce about something most artists are frightened of: that the artist, not the gallery or the auction house, is the best person to sell and speak for their own work.
If you've ever wished someone else would do the talking for you, this one's for you. Follow the show so you never miss an episode. I hope you find this as inspiring as I did.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Reuben's story gleefully dismantles the myth of the straight-line creative career. Proving no experience is wasted, everything you do can and does feed into the artist you are, today.
Artists are often uniquely qualified to sell their own work because nobody understands the story, the labour, the intention and the meaning behind it better than the person who made it.
Breakthroughs happen when you are prepared for them - when you're ready. Luck is preparation when it meets opportunity. Being able to respond to that instinctively to those moments, creates the magic.
Tap into the power of portfolio reviews.
BEST MOMENTS
“No experience is wasted. The industrial designer, the musician, the photographer and the artist all exist inside the work Reuben makes today.”
“I call it ecstasy - it's like an ecstatic moment where you are suddenly not within yourself anymore. You are suddenly outside yourself.”
“It's like a paintbrush, but with light.”
“Creativity is not a destination but a practice of paying attention.”
EPISODE RESOURCES
https://reubenwu.com
https://www.instagram.com/reuben - sign up for Reuben´s newsletter via his bio here.
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/
1 hr 38 min
August 05Why Avoidance Feels So Productive
Welcome to the Extraordinary Creatives Podcast. I'm Ceri Hand. A former gallerist, curator, now coach to creatives all over the world. I help them to make a bigger impact with their work and earn more money doing what they love. Recently, I have been noticing something, and I wonder whether you'll recognise it too.
We often think avoidance is obvious. We imagine it looks like procrastinating or scrolling social media or watching television instead of getting into the studio.
But I honestly don't think that's how avoidance shows up for most creative people. I think it looks responsible. It looks like being busy. It looks like finally getting on top of your admin saying yes to another teaching opportunity. Maybe helping someone else out with their project or sorting your accounts out.
All good things and things that genuinely need doing, and that's why it's so difficult to spot, because from the outside it looks as though you're completely committed to your creative life, and from the inside it feels as though you're working incredibly hard.
Then you get to the end of the week and realise that you've hardly touched the work that matters most to you.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Being busy is not the same as moving your creative practice forward. The work that keeps you occupied is often the very thing that keeps you from actually creating.

Avoidance rarely looks like procrastination - it looks like responsibility. Admin, teaching, and helping other people all feel productive, which is exactly why they are so effective at pulling you away from the uncertainty of making your own work.

Your brain is not trying to sabotage your practice – it is trying to reduce discomfort. Every time you choose certainty over uncertainty, you reinforce the habit of stepping away just as the work starts asking something of you.

Creative confidence is not built by making uncertainty disappear. It is built by learning how to stay with it long enough for the work to emerge.
BEST MOMENTS
“She wasn't wasting time. Quite the opposite. Then I asked her how much time she'd actually spent making her own work, and there was a long pause, and she said, hardly any.”
“Teaching gave her certainty. The studio gave her uncertainty, and without realising it, she'd slowly started choosing certainty over uncertainty, again and again.”
“What I don't think helps is piling more pressure on.”
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/
9 min
August 02Your Creative Work Matters and You Have The Talent To Bring It To Life with Ela Thier
We're told that creative talent is something you either have or you don't. Ela Thier has spent nearly 40 years disproving this crippling myth. A New York–based writer, director, actor, and founding director of The Independent Film School, she’s helped more than 65,000 artists find and develop their voices. Her films include Tomorrow Ever After, Foreign Letters, and her latest, 109 Billion Followers, stars Oscar-winner J.K. Simmons.
In this conversation, we trace Ella’s journey from being her mother’s “wild weed” - a third child raised with very little supervision and a lot of imagination, through quitting filmmaking for almost a decade, to returning with a completely different relationship to her work.
We talk about the difference between writing as therapy and writing as a gift, why craft is learnable, and why Ella believes talent is simply the courage to be fully yourself. She shares how she keeps “the rent and the real work” in two separate hands, and the cast of inner voices who appear in her book How to Fail as an Artist: My Best Tips - from Mr. Stop, whose only job is to talk her out of it, to the 120-year-old version of herself she writes to when she loses her nerve.
If you’ve ever stood at the edge of giving up on your work - or you’re standing there right now - this one’s for you.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The story many of us carry is that our work is a private indulgence, a side‑note nobody’s waiting for. You may never see the life it touches, but you are not creating into a void. Make the film, the painting, the book as if it already matters to someone, somewhere - because it does.

Your audience is not a panel of judges to impress, but the people you are taking care of. The shift is from asking whether they will approve of you, to asking what they need and making the work from there.

Keep the rent and the real work in separate hands - asking your art to also pay the bills is a reliable way to do neither well.
BEST MOMENTS
“Ela … has made peace with failure without ever making peace with quitting.”
“Craft is learnable, the writer or the filmmaker is already in there, and that talent is simply the courage to be fully yourself on the page·”
“The book gave me, and gives people, permission to just mess around, which is where our best work comes from.”
EPISODE RESOURCES
https://theindependentfilmschool.com
https://www.instagram.com/elathier
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/
1 hr 10 min
July 29 Inside the Art Surgery - Thirty Minutes, Real Questions, Honest Answers
Every week inside the membership, artists send in their questions. Career challenges, pricing dilemmas, difficult clients, creative blocks, gallery relationships, commission nightmares, confidence crises. Ceri works through them live, unfiltered and at pace, with more questions landing in real time from the room.
The result is one of the most popular sessions inside the membership. Fast, direct, occasionally sweary, and completely honest.
No script. No softening. Just Ceri answering whatever artists are actually grappling with right now.
It has yet to be proven that there is a question she cannot answer.
This episode gives you a taste of what happens inside the Art Surgery every week. If you want the full session, the full archive, and the chance to bring your own question live, the membership is where it all happens.
Join our Membership at - https://cerihand.com/membership/
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Admin expands to fill whatever time you give it. Every email feels urgent. Almost none of it is. Batch it all into one admin day and protect the rest of the week for the work that actually matters.
When anxiety spikes, “spray and pray” feels like action – but it isn’t. Instead of firing off panicked applications, start by calming your anxiety, telling your brain nothing’s gone wrong, so you can act from a calmer, more intentional place.
One artwork can live many lives – One piece can quietly work for you all year, let it travel. That film or artwork can stay as a full piece or elements of it can be used for clips, newsletters, embeds on other people’s sites and more.
Selectors aren’t hunting for perfect work. Most submissions are good. The ones that get remembered feel inevitable and alive – like the idea and the medium have clicked so well the work couldn’t exist any other way.
BEST MOMENTS
“Rather than am I right for it? The question is - Is the work right for it? Would your work come alive in that context?”
“We have to carve out the day to make ourselves the most clear-minded thinkers and makers. We have to give our time to that bit that only we can do.”
“Don't do that little garden studio down because actually there will be absolute gold in there, and you want people to access it.”
“We have to remind our brain that our creativity is fundamental to who we are, to everything we do … if we're not regulated. We can't do good stuff in the world.”
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/
43 min
July 26 Fast Robots, Slow Clocks: How To Design Art That Lasts Beyond Your Lifetime with Zander Rose
Somewhere inside a mountain in the West Texas desert, a clock is being built to keep time for ten thousand years. All mechanical. Wound by whoever makes the day-long hike to reach it. Designed so it´s chimes never ring the same sequence twice.
Zander Rose has spent nearly thirty years building it.
He grew up in a junkyard on the Sausalito waterfront – boat builders, artists, an activist mother who went on to become mayor, and a flea market every Sunday where he and his father took machines apart to see how they worked. Before the clock he was making combat robots that won six world titles, fast machines built to win in seconds. Then he gave half his working life to the slowest object on earth.
What he’s really after isn’t the engineering. It’s a question I keep coming back to: Are we being good ancestors – and what would we build differently if we believed the future was watching? In this conversation we get into where that question came from, what it’s like to design for someone who won’t be born for thousands of years, and what the world’s oldest organisations – a hotel run by the same family since the eighth century, temples older than most nations – know about lasting that the rest of us have forgotten.
It will leave you thinking about being a good ancestor and building things to last.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Trust the future. Build it room to think.
Don’t take options away from the people who come after you. The forest you don’t cut down, the river you keep, the law written simply enough that the next generation can reinterpret it – that’s the work.
The conditions you grow up in aren’t just backstory, they’re training. A junkyard, a boatyard, a poor area – these aren’t obstacles to a creative life, they’re live laboratories. The places you learned to improvise quietly decide what feels possible to you now.
Competition doesn’t have to mean scarcity or shame. Other people’s excellence can become raw material for your own growth, not evidence that you should stop.
BEST MOMENTS
“Look at what you're making this week and ask who it's really for. Then ask whether you're adding options to the world, or quietly removing them.”
“Trust the future. Build it room to think.”
“I was only interested in building something that was the first of its kind. I had zero interest in building another one of anything.”
“Fail fast is definitely the fastest way to learn.”
EPISODE RESOURCES
https://rosefutures.com
https://longnow.org
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?
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/
1 hr 48 min
July 22Public Art: The Four Questions Every Artist Must Answer
I'm Ceri Hand, and this is Extraordinary Creatives. Thirty-five years in the contemporary art world as a gallerist, curator, commissioner of public art, institutional director, and now coaching artists and creative leaders worldwide to make a bigger impact and earn more money doing what they love.
Over the last eight weeks, we've built a complete commissioning practice together. We've looked at the mindset, the five signatures of under-pricing, the commission ecosystem, the inquiry filter, the chemistry call, the alignment document, paid concept development, the production agreement, managing the making, the delivery, the legacy package. What public art is, the roles you can play, and what changes when the commission is this big.
So, today we're going to cover three things, and then I'm going to leave you with the one sentence that I hope you carry out of the whole series.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Build your scaffold once, then run every commission through it. The artist who thrives isn’t winging it each time; they’ve got a clear structure on the studio wall - they have stopped rebuilding the system from scratch for every new brief.

Run every commission through joy, safety and income filters before you say yes. When those filters are true to you and your practice they alert you early to commissions that look good on paper but still not right for you. Preserving your capacity for work that is truly yours.
BEST MOMENTS
“Saying no to a commission that doesn't pass the filters is not lost income, it's preserved capacity; every no protects the yes you're truly waiting for.”
“Built once, used again and again. The artist who thrives has built the scaffold once and now runs their commission practice through it calmly, profitably, without drama.”
“A process without the willingness to say no is just admin. It looks good on your website, does nothing for your life.”
“The artist who wins commissions isn’t the most talented. The artist who wins commissions is the one who makes it easy to say yes, makes it safe to trust them, and never starts from scratch.”
Want grounded, art‑world‑tested guidance each week? Join my free Beat the Block newsletter and put this commissioning scaffold to work in your own practice by going to https://cerihand.com/subscribe/
EPISODE RESOURCES
Pollinator Pathmaker episode - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/making-ambitious-work-is-never-just-about-ideas-with/id1709105337?i=1000753927961&l=zh-Hans-CN
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]
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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/
27 min
July 19Late Starts, Long Breaks: A Survival Guide to the Art World with Hettie Judah
The art world runs on storytelling. The story of the artwork. The story of the artist. And one of the most seductive stories of all, the one that says if you got your toe over the line out of art school, your career goes onwards and upwards from there in a straight line.
My guest today, Hettie Judah, has been inside the art world since the early 1990s, as a writer, critic, curator and advocate. And she has written a book that quietly dismantles that story. How to Enter the Art World… After a late start, a first career, illness, raising children, a crisis of confidence, leaving it in disgust…
In this conversation, Hettie shares how the art world's myths are really costing the people inside it, why the relationships that move careers are built in quiet galleries rather than at private views, and what the financial reality of a successful writing and curating life actually looks like. You will leave with a sharper read on the structures around your practice, and permission to stop measuring yourself against a career shape that was never real in the first place.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The art world tells a particular story about itself - A linear career. A clean upward arc. The right schools, the right shows, the right age. And if you didn't get on that track, or you stepped off it, maybe to have children or it was never offered to you in the first place, the story says you missed your window. Hettie demonstrates that is not true.

If you are coming back to your practice, or finding your way in for the first time, or rebuilding after a long stretch away, take this as the invitation. Not to enter someone else's version of the art world. To build the one that holds your work.

Often creative labour is quietly self‑subsidised so the rest of us can have the books and conversations we need – think a £150 fee for an event, from which the writer or artist still has to cover train fares and providing their own books.
BEST MOMENTS
“You can construct the art world you want to be part of …. the structures around artists can be changed.”
“We all need one another…. we all learn from the questions that other people ask.”
“I really wanted the book to feel like you were having a conversation with a friend.”
“I remember them (art works) with my body as well as my mind's eye. I remember them so strongly.”
EPISODE RESOURCES
https://apollo-magazine.com/author/hettie-judah
https://www.instagram.com/hettiejudah/
Hettie´s books - https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Hettie-Judah/author/B00E9ZRESS
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]
This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/
1 hr 22 min