Guilt free shopping

I'm writing this post while my 2017 Red Nose Day print is still being sold, but I will not publish it until after that fundraising as I don't want to muddy the waters.

My 2015 fundraising print, an edition of forty at £10 each, sold out in six days raising £400 for Comic Relief. This year's print is a larger edition of fifty and the individual prints cost more at £15 so while this one has not yet sold out* it has already raised much more money in the two weeks it has been on sale than the 2015 print did. Hurrah!
*see bottom of post for a fantastic update

I am of course thrilled, but once more, as in 2015, I have been heard to mutter "Blimey, I wish all my prints sold this quickly". Why don't they? These special edition prints are priced normally - so why are people so eager to buy these but not my other work? Don't get me wrong, people do buy my other prints (thank you kindly) but hardly in the sell-out rush I've experienced with both of these charity editions.

Well yes of course, the obvious answer is that these are for charity, but my question is WHY should that make such a difference and what is actually going on here?

Let's think about this. The buyer pays the same money and receives the same quality of item. The only difference is that their money has gone to a charity instead of to the artist. The logical corollary is that if the money is going to the artist then that actively makes the purchase less attractive. EXCUSE ME?? Does this mean people feel better about buying art if the artist isn't paid? That the idea of the purchase price going to the person who actually did the work and paid for the materials is positively off-putting?

Surely that can't be it. (But if this is what is happening then please allow me to be a bit upset).

I prefer to give the lovely buying public the benefit of the doubt and I refuse to believe the issue is people begrudging artists. Perhaps then it's that these (non) buyers are begrudging themselves. Perhaps they feel they cannot normally justify spending money on something as indulgent, fun and joy-bringing as art, but if they know the money is going to charity then their consciences are salved and they can give themselves permission. If that is the case then please let me put your mind at rest....

You are doing a Very Good Thing when you buy from a small independent maker, shop or gallery.

You are keeping us afloat, allowing us to continue and keeping the world varied and interesting for everyone. You are preserving individual creativity and craftsmanship and holding back the tide of high street blandness and for that society thanks you. You are having a direct real impact on the lives of the people you buy from and they will love you for it. You have every right to feel a warm fuzzy glow about treating yourself, or a loved one, to that thing you wanted: no guilt required. In the right sidebar of this blog (you might have to scroll down a bit) you will see the logo of a great initiative called Just a Card which was set up to remind buyers that every single purchase you make from small independents, even 'just a card', helps us to survive. Click on the image to be taken to the campaign's site where the founder, Sarah Hamilton, will explain it all much better than I can.

Thank you for reading and if it puts a spring into your step and a lightness in your heart the next time you are out shopping then my job is done.

Update: the last print sold on Red Nose Day itself, 24th March, a couple of days after I wrote the above. The £750 raised is enough to pay for 300 malaria nets, or vaccinate nearly 190 children in Africa against five deadly diseases. It will save lives. It was all totally, utterly worth it.

Red Nose Day 2017

or: how to save lives without even leaving home.

Comic Relief is a stonkingly wonderful charity which helps people overcome problems most of us will never have to face because of our sheer good luck in being born in an affluent, temperate country which has plenty of food,water and health care and is not being torn apart by war. Meanwhile, some folk here in the UK, having won that bit of life's lottery, still have to cope with poverty and other horribly unfair social disadvantages; Comic Relief helps with those too.

Once every two years Comic Relief stages Red Nose Day which is a time for people to raise money by doing anything which raises a smile. This is why I love and support Comic Relief; it doesn't nag or browbeat or send you on a guilt trip. It just makes people feel good and happy and join together, and once you've sown that seed of love and community, then generosity, empathy and compassion are not far behind.

In 2015 I produced a special limited edition print of a hare wearing a red nose which raised £400 for Red Nose Day. (I've written about how this came about in my blog before). It had been such a success I wanted to do another one but by November 2016 I still hadn't had a good idea for a subject. I wanted it to be another animal wearing a red nose and I wanted it to work as a single plate print in dark grey so it would match the original hare print.

Now it so happens that my amazing friend Emma Mitchell (aka silverpebble) is one of the co-editors of Mollie Make's special Red Nose Day Crafternoon edition which is in itself an utterly brilliant collaboration of talented craft folk and just keeps on giving; the sale of the magazine raises money initially and then the fantastic ideas and projects contained within help people raise even more (and HAVE FUN). It also happens that in November I was at Emma's house being taught silverclay modelling as part of her inaugural Making Winter retreat. (These amazing weekends involve spending two whole days learning new skills, creating lovely things, making friends, eating delicious food and finding the good stuff in our cold dark winter. Emma has even written an accompanying book which will be out this autumn). But I digress and this rambling story is going somewhere I promise. That morning at Emma's house the post arrived with a padded bag which got Emma very excited. She opened it and revealed the top secret prototype for Peggy the Felt Dachshund.

Peggy as she appeared in the Crafternoon magazine three months later.

Instantly the decision was made.

• A dachshund would look lovely in a red nose.
• He would tie in with other Comic Relief projects.
• There is a lot of dachshund love in my Twitter feed. 
• He would look good in grey.
• He could be made the same height as my hare print so people can hang them next to each other.

It was so obvious I really didn't know why I hadn't thought of it before.

So here he* is, proudly 'Cutting a Dash' in his smart red rose.

'Cutting a Dash' findraising linoprint
 image size 18 x 10 cm

A limited edition of just 50 handpulled linoprints costing £15 each including free UK delivery, every penny of which will go to Comic Relief. He is available until 31 March 2017 or until he sells out, whichever comes first. For £15 you can (for example) pay for six anti-malaria nets and save the lives of six children AND you get a limited edition print delivered free to your door. I can't see any downsides. Can you?

IF YOU'D LIKE TO FIND OUT MORE OR ORDER PLEASE CLICK HERE.

*it has been tactfully pointed out to me by a reader of this blog that my dachshund looks suspiciously like a girl. This is a good point. I am going to have to come to terms with this and get used to her new gender identity....

Comic Relief, registered charity 326568 (England/Wales)

SC039730 (Scotland)

A Flick of Hares

There are several collective nouns for hares, but I like 'flick' the most for the way it evokes the fleeting glimpse which is often all we get.

This post is about how one small 10 cm x 10 cm hare ended up saving lives almost by accident.

It started last autumn when I decided to make a small collagraph print of a perky little hare peeping at the world. Once I'd cut the plate it had to be varnished with several coats of shellac, so while I waited for that to dry I was at a loose end.

There was a small piece of scrap lino on my workbench, just a bit bigger than the collagraph plate. I cut this down to the same 10 cm x 10 cm size and sketched on the outline of another hare - similar to the collagraph but not the same, more a memory of the drawing I had done earlier. I then carved it out with my lino tools almost freehand, pretty much making it up as I went along.

I inked it up and printed a first proof - and I laughed out loud. Instead of the 'Curious Hare' I had planned (and I think achieved) for the collagraph, this chap looked slightly crazy. He was definitely a March Hare.

Collagraph 'Curious Hare' (left) and linocut 'March Hare' (right)

I produced prints from both the collagraph plate and the lino block, and in fact printed the lino version in several different colours. Both were a hit when they debuted at a Christmas fair in December 2014.

A couple of months later I was mulling on what I could do for Comic Relief's 2015 Red Nose Day. I thought of the Parable of the Talents; I could either just give £100 to Comic Relief, or I could spend that amount on materials, packaging, postage and PayPal fees and quadruple it before passing it to Comic Relief. The theme in 2015 was 'Make your face funny for money', so I looked at my hare.... and wondered what he'd look like with a red nose. The answer was he would look like this.....

'Mad March Hare'

Behold, my March Hare was now even more bonkers, and had become a Mad March Hare. I contacted Comic Relief to get the necessary approval and paperwork. (If your fundraising is connected to your business it has to be authorised, for obvious reasons). Fortunately they loved the idea and gave me full permission. I announced on social media that there would be an edition of 40 and that they would be £10 each. I printed only a few in advance as I really wasn't sure they would sell....

The entire edition sold out in under six days *screams* and thanks to the enthusiasm and generosity of the wonderful people who bought one (or two, or three) I was able to send a fantastic £400 to Comic Relief.

Packaging up and mailing the prints

And all because I had had nothing to do while I waited for some varnish to dry.


Footnote:
My Mad March Hares have of course all gone - never to be repeated (such is the nature of limited editions!). The original collagraph 'Curious Hare' and linocut 'March Hare', in various colours, can still be purchased on my website, as well as greetings cards with the Mad March Hare image.