Hi 👋🏼 and welcome friend 😎
I’m Amy. I’m an artist, creative business owner, mother of two girls under 4 and I live in South East London. Some of my letters may come from rural Northumberland (where I’m from) as I flit back there to get childcare support and headspace.
I decided to start Spray it Gold for 2 reasons:
I want to play with Substack as a sort of artform in itself; a new home for my work as a lot of my projects are self-led and can be accessed online to do at home BY YOU! If you like that sorta thing.
The personal why: I’m at the ‘what the fuck am I doing’ point in my life where some significant lines are converging - I’ve come out the other side of pregnancies (including loss) and having babies, I’m navigating Matrescense and motherhood and trying to work out if the career I’ve been building for the past 10 years is ‘the one’…I thought writing about it might help with navigation over these choppy choppy waters!
I’m aiming for just the right blend of serious stuff and frivolity. Art with a side helping of haircuts and fashion chat.
So I’m welcoming you into my flat in South East London. We’re actually moving out soon so there’s lots of boxes being packed, de-cluttering and sorting-out going on at the moment. Let’s sit in amongst the boxes and have a little rummage shall we?!
What I think I’ll be writing about…
Matrescence and motherhood
The next, post-babies, family phase of life and personal craic
Creativity and the power of art - for us, in life, in business, for parenting, for little ones
Creativity and flow hacks
How to get off phones and dive a bit more into real life (particularly when it comes to kids)
Introversion stuff - I’m an introvert who loves colour, loud clothes and dancing but speaking in a group scenario makes me want to run for the hills.
Advocating for creative mothers to stay in the industries they want to, or continue to boss their businesses (instead of having to sack it all off because they had kids)
Getting my head down in my local library in SE London, one of my fave places to work
What I’m into outside of running a business, art practice and being a mama:
Gardening - I’ve actually always loved planting things so this isn’t a specific mid-life hobby 😂 though I’ve still got a lot to learn.
Films; the weirder and off-beat the better
Comedy (husband is a character comedian, so I’ve really bought into that)
Music: a bit of everything. I’ve mostly got BBC 6 Music on the radio to serve that need
Friendships with female pals. Connection, laughing and supporting one another get me through a lot of shit.
What is art? (baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more..)
Sorry 🙈 I’m an 80’s baby so 90’s music is my spiritual home…
I call myself an artist and have done for over a decade…I haven’t found a better alternative word yet. Still working on that.
I dream up project ideas that are all about what connects us as human beings. The boxes I would tick, if filling in a form about my art practice would be:
Installation ✅ Interactive ✅ Live Art ✅ Art Activism ✅ Guerilla Art ✅
Community & Connection ✅ IRL/event based ✅
I’m not good at drawing or painting and love to challenge the notion that you’re only an artist if you’re good at those things (it often 🤯 kids when I tell them this in workshops).
I’m interested in using lots of different mediums and forms to make you FEEL something and celebrate being human.
I only make work that is personal, or that provokes some sort of emotional response. If you want a deeper dive into my body of work, for now it’s HERE, but I’m in the process of making a mini ‘this is your life’ type post with past projects soon.
Somehow I’ve carved a living in one of the most expensive cities in the world (thankyou London) from doing this and applying my artistic skills to the events business. More on HOW, later.
The business of being creative.
In 2020 when all weddings were being cancelled due to the pandemic, I decided to start a Wedding & Event Styling company 🫠, The Joy Eclectic - my second foray into business after having an experiential events limited company in 2013-2018.
After never quite landing enough weddings and working my arse off on Instagram content for seemingly no return, this year I pivoted to cut out weddings. I’m inviting you to watch this unfold in real time. Whether I keep going with this or not is in the balance - I often get strong urges to burn everything down and start again. Urges perhaps I need to resist 🔥
I’d love to explore ideas around the ‘starving artist’ - can we buck this trend and actually value our creativity enough to make a decent living? More to add to our chat list…I’ll need another Negroni if we’re going there!
Motherhood, Matrescence and the Mess
My own mum says I’m ‘in the treacle’ at the moment, and I’m feeling it. My husband is a comedian and has started a maths business in the last few years - we’re both effectively self-employed without any family on hand locally to support 🫠
There’s lots to say about relationship dynamics, babies, domesticity, the joy and the grind and I’d love this publication to be a place to share our honest experiences and support each other. Shall we create a Village online for ourselves?
What’s in it for you then?
⚡️ Access to free art projects to do at home for wellbeing, parenting, creativity and your community - things like video workshops, pdfs, and audio walks. Some are conceptual, some are about making things.
⚡️Monthly creative projects to do with your little ones (0-4’s) delivered online but taking place in the real world, to help give you ideas to get creative and make memories with your kids, if you have any or hang out with any.
⚡️Monthly Culture & Craic Brainsplurge newsletters to your inbox once a month with personal updates (business/work/family/me) plus what I’ve been reading, watching, hearing, podcast-consuming. With a smattering of the places I’ve been in London; art exhibs, events and the like.
⚡️A continually growing resource library with posts and recommendations to support motherhood, business and creative growth - the things and people that have started to help me ‘unlock’ this next phase of mid-life and take some forward-moving action.
⚡️Behind the scenes craic about my art projects and design business
⚡️ IRL - Occasional recommendations for creative places to go with 0-5’s in London that aren’t just about getting cool selfies for Instagram (makes me barf).
⚡️IRL - Occasional recommendations for creative, wellbeing, tank-filling places to go for YOU
⚡️IRL - Some sort of real life connection/community event. Ideas percolating on this as we speak.
I’d love for you to be part of a community of like-minded souls that value connection, creativity and honesty. Hit Subscribe to join us.
There’s no paywall…yet
It is my dream to get paid for the work that I do as an artist. Part of starting this Substack is to explore this possibility, once I reach a certain point. Can you help me get there?
Join the crew
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