Extraordinary Creatives

Trust Discomfort As Part of Your Creative Language with Amartey Golding

Amartey Golding makes chainmail sculptures that are seductive, threatening, funny, and deeply unsettling all at once. And in this conversation, he explains why discomfort might be one of the most important tools an artist has. Raised between London, Ghana, Rastafarian culture, council estates, and rural England, Amartey speaks with rare honesty about growing up between identities and how that tension became the emotional engine of his work. In this conversation, you’ll hear how he learned to trust discomfort as part of his creative language, why audience feedback became essential to sharpening his voice, and how he creates installations that work not just intellectually, but viscerally — through sound, light, atmosphere, scale, and the body itself. We talk about the emotional labour behind ambitious projects, the crash that can come after making large-scale work, and why sustainability, family life, and building a nourishing environment now matter as much to him as artistic ambition. But perhaps most importantly, this episode offers a powerful lesson in how to develop your own artistic voice: not by trying to become someone else, but by listening more deeply to the contradictions, histories, and instincts already living inside you. This one is rich, layered, funny, tender, and deeply human. I can’t wait for you to hear it. KEY TAKEAWAYS Belonging is not always about finding where we fit, but about reshaping inherited stories until they can accommodate more of who we are. Sometimes our work becomes a way of making room for identities that existing symbols struggle to contain. There are moments in a creative life when continuing to succeed at one thing becomes a barrier to discovering another. Growth often asks us to leave behind what is proven, visible and commercially rewarded. We romanticise the artist who creates through suffering. But, when people have enough security to be curious, playful, and fully present, they gain access to forms of imagination that survival alone cannot sustain. BEST MOMENTS “Extraordinary work rarely comes from pretending to have everything figured out. It comes from staying in relationship with the complexity. Staying curious enough to keep listening to your own voice as it shifts and evolves.” “For me, it's all about the visceral... it's all about the belly, making stuff from the belly.” EPISODE RESOURCES http://amarteygolding.com/ https://www.instagram.com/amarteygolding 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 hello@cerihand.com This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Artists, Don't Reply To That Commission Enquiry — Filter First - Part 4 of 9

This episode is part of a nine-part series on commissions. How to prepare for them, respond to them, deliver them, and, crucially, how to stop them burning you out. If you haven't followed the podcast yet, hit follow so you don't miss an episode. Today, episode four of nine. And this is where the series shifts gears. For the last three episodes, we have been doing the preparation work. The mindset. The five signatures of under-pricing. The commission ecosystem. Today, an enquiry has arrived. This is the moment most artists get wrong because this is the moment their nervous system takes over. When an enquiry lands in your inbox. And before you've finished reading it, your stomach has tightened, your brain is already drafting a reply, and somewhere in the next three sentences you're going to offer availability, ideas, enthusiasm, and a half-committed yes – all before you know you are a good fit. And the principle is this. Before you reply with anything, you filter. How, is what today´s episode is about. KEY TAKEAWAYS Ceri´s short enquiry form is a low-friction sieve: it quietly filters out tire-kickers, and a serious client will fill it in within 10 minutes. The right questions reveal what they actually want, how committed they are, whether they really get your work, and whether their budget and timeline are realistic. After the enquiry form, you move into a chemistry call – 30 minutes - to ask important questions and spot red flags. Then, produce an alignment document to further test understanding. If the client confirms the alignment document, you move forward; if they come back with big changes, it’s a sign you weren’t fully aligned on the call – it’s far better to catch that now than 3 months into making. BEST MOMENTS “Stage one of responding to any inquiry is the initial filter, low friction, high signal, a sieve, not a conversation.” “If those signals are weak, you slow things down, you don't ghost them, but you don't rescue them, you reply politely with more questions,” “The alignment document - a short-written document that confirms in writing what you heard, not a proposal, not a quote, an alignment document.” For a text version of today's teaching, plus new practical guidance every week, you can subscribe to Beat the Block at http://cerihand.com/subscribe EPISODE RESOURCES First episode of this 9-part series - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/designing-the-way-you-want-to-work-the-mindset/id1709105337?i=1000769915059 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 hello@cerihand.com This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Don't Wait For Permission To Build The World You Want To Live In with Ian Giles and David Shenton

I have two guests on the podcast today, and they have made something extraordinary together. The first drew queer Britain into being for sixty years and quietly refused to call any of its art. It paid the mortgage. It was cheaper than being a window cleaner. He published the world's first LGBTQ+ graphic novel in 1983, drew for Gay News, Capital Gay and The Guardian, made safer-sex campaigns through the AIDS crisis, and hung a nineteen-metre banner at Carrow Road for Justin Fashanu. All of which he called work - never art. That guest is cartoonist David Shenton. The artist who finally insisted it was art is Ian Giles. Together they have made Kindly Ease the Tension, David's first ever institutional retrospective. It begins with a small burnt doll, dressed in clothes knitted by a boy in a Lancashire terrace house and thrown into the fire by his father. The doll survived. So did the boy. In this conversation we get into what happens when somebody finally calls your sixty years of work art. We talk about the Duvet of Love; an AIDS memorial David stitched in a bedsit that he never meant to be art. We talk about the trans baton being passed in a moment when many in the gay community have gone quiet. We talk about censorship and the rising conservatism in the arts, the works that have to be shown after hours, the double standard between classical nudity and queer images. And we talk about what intergenerational care actually looks like in practice.  David is seventy-seven and says this retrospective has stretched his horizon by another ten years. There is a lesson in that for all of us. KEY TAKEAWAYS Some of the most important opportunities in your career won’t arrive through a formal application process. They happen because you care enough to ask the question, start the conversation, or create the thing you wish existed. What feels awkward, unfashionable, or difficult in one chapter of your life may be exactly what gives your work its depth and originality later on - resist the temptation to self-censor. BEST MOMENTS “The work you make at your kitchen table, when nobody is watching, may turn out to be the archive of a generation. Keep going. Pass the baton when it is time.” “I really wanted to live in a world where there was a David Shenton retrospective.” RESOURCES https://www.instagram.com/d.shenton https://www.instagram.com/iangiles https://www.museumscollections.norfolk.gov.uk/collections-object-page?id=NWHCM%20:%202016.221.1 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. 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, email us at hello@cerihand.com This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Your Commission Ecosystem: Four Decisions To Make Before The Next Enquiry Lands - Part 3 of 9

This episode is part of a nine-part series on commissions. How to prepare for them, respond to them, deliver them, and, crucially, how to stop them burning you out. If you haven't followed the podcast yet, hit follow so you don't miss an episode. Today, episode three of nine. The first practical stage of the commission process. Your commission ecosystem. In episode one, we did the mindset work. In episode two, we named the five mistakes that almost every underpriced commission has in common. Today we start building the structure. Here is the principle. Stage one of any serious commission practice is the invisible work. The four decisions you make, in advance, before any enquiry arrives. These decisions form what I call your commission ecosystem. Build it once. Revisit it annually. Let it do the work of saying no, so you do not have to do it in the moment. Why does this matter? Because the moment an enquiry arrives, your nervous system will want to say yes. The ecosystem, written down in advance, is the only thing standing between that yes and the resentment you will feel six months later. Four decisions. Let me walk you through each. KEY TAKEAWAYS Set a clear annual profit target for commissions - pricing will stop feeling vague or reactive any you will know how many of each type of commission you need to complete to keep your practice viable. A written rules list and clarity on materials, scale, and time protect you from burnout work and pull in the commissions that genuinely grow your practice.     BEST MOMENTS “The year is the unit, not the commission. Once you know what the year needs to earn, every individual commission conversation becomes easier, because you know what you're measuring against.” “This is the work. Nobody else can do it for you. But once it's done, every inquiry that arrives from that moment onward lands into a structure that already knows how to respond to it.” “Clarity makes an artist easier to collaborate with, not harder. It gives the people commissioning them something stable to work with.” For a text version of today's teaching, plus new practical guidance every week, you can subscribe to Beat the Block at https://cerihand.com/subscribe/ EPISODE RESOURCES Episode 1 of this 9-part series - https://podcasts.apple.com/es/podcast/designing-the-way-you-want-to-work-the-mindset/id1709105337?i=1000769915059 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 hello@cerihand.com ** 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/

Grief, Caregiving and Work That Shines Through It All with Alexis Soul-Gray

Today’s guest is an extraordinary artist whose work feels deeply lived rather than simply made. Alexis Soul-Gray is a British painter exploring memory, loss, and maternal lineage through richly layered works that move between abstraction and figuration. Based in Devon, her paintings feel both intimate and expansive. A graduate of the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins, Alexis has exhibited internationally, received two Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grants, and won The Delphian Open in 2021. Alongside her studio practice, she also curates’ exhibitions, including Declarative Language, a group show bringing together women artists whose practices have been shaped by caregiving within neurodivergent families. We talk about art school, grief, motherhood, caregiving, advocacy, and the challenge of continuing to make work that stays true to lived experience rather than outside expectation. Exploring the realities of artistic identity alongside financial pressure, loss, and resilience. What unfolds is an honest and deeply human conversation about endurance, creativity, and what it takes to keep going when life refuses to move in a straight line. KEY TAKEAWAYS When you’ve carried grief and caring responsibilities for years, the work you make in the margins is not “less than” - it’s work that has learned to hold chaos, fatigue, school refusal, and hospital letters in the same frame as colour, gesture, and form. You don’t need a clean, linear career to be an artist; you need a stubborn thread. The years of bad jobs, failed applications, family rupture, and self-doubt don’t sit outside the practice - they deepen it. The culture will always reward tidy, repeatable pictures, but painting is something else: a willingness not to know the outcome in advance, to refuse being a production line for your own style, to risk disappointing people who only came for the last hit.  BEST MOMENTS “I just couldn't really see that my practice would ever become a full-time pursuit for me. It was very much the kitchen table … snatched moments.” “A creative life is not built in perfect conditions, it's built in real ones… sometimes the most important thing is not how quickly you move forward, but that you keep returning to the work.” “There is no neat formula here. No single turning point where everything suddenly resolves. Instead, what we hear is a gradual return.” EPISODE RESOURCES https://www.instagram.com/Alexis_soul_gray 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: 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 hello@cerihand.com ** 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/