For the love of crafting projects
The obsession with projects started when I was a kid. It was something I got overly excited about with boundless enthusiasm and relentless focus. I loved the entire process of coming up with fun ideas, drawing up all the details in scrapbooks and colourful posters, announcing grand plans at the family dinner table, and then scurrying off to bring them to life in my bedroom.
The aim of these projects was never world domination or to make a tonne of money, but simply to do things that brought me great artistic joy. Each of them filled a creativity void; they fed my curiosity, gave me energy and helped me grow my skills.
There was a fashion label named ‘JemG’ with my friend Emma at the age of 13 (ironically she launched her own fashion business Rae26 last year); a travel and food blog called Seasoned Sampler when I was 19 and despite its cheesiness, it gave me space to develop my writing style (even if my dad was the only religious reader!); an impressionist-style oil paint project when I was 22; a graphics design phase of making travel diaries around the same age; and the list goes on.
Casual Chronicles was another one of these projects. I started it from my parent’s lounge room before I moved to London because I wanted a new paint project that I could travel the world with and capture all the people I saw along the way. I wrote this to my school friends in a Facebook post in 2014 and it still makes me giggle today: ‘In preparation for being poor and unemployed [in London], I have started doing sketches of weird and wonderful characters from around the traps… It’s very new (like today new) and sparse, but here is my collection of scribbles so far…hopefully lots more sketches to come”.
Since then, there have be countless scribbles and Casual Chronicles has grown beyond my wildest dreams. It’s allowed me to keep my love of projects shining bright with new exhibitions, collections and collaborations. Every single one of these mini-projects within Casual Chronicles starts with an idea that I build out on a large white board with post-it notes, painting mock ups and scribbly scrapbook pages. My latest ‘Holidays From Home’ collection was no exception and a giant vision board lives at the end of my bed to keep me focused on what to paint next. Seemingly, not much has changed since my creative kraft kid days.
Thankfully though, I did manage to find a job in London where I have worked for the past 6 years whilst running Casual Chronicles on the side. And to this day, I’m grateful for what my love of side projects has given me:
Creative outlet outside of work - a way to channel my messy, artistic side that doesn’t always have a natural place in a corporate environment (and doesn’t have to find a place in that environment either – you can have interests outside of work!)
Mindful practice to unwind – an incredibly mindful form of art therapy that helps brings perspective when life feels a bit hectic.
Practical business skills – I kid you not, I’ve gained more practical business skills through my projects than I learnt in my business degree at university. Not to mention, it’s taught me to be incredibly productive and efficient at my job because I’ve got something I love waiting for me at home (I love my paints).
A stronger network – the people who I’ve met (supporters, customers, and other creatives) have become an incredible network and some have even become life-long friends. They are my cheer squad and my critics and they help shape my artistic direction.
Social impact for the things I care about - a way to make impact by celebrating key themes like individuality and exploration in my artworks. And a way to connect my artwork sales or exhibitions to charities that I deeply care about.
Something to talk about – I know this sounds strange but it does make the dreaded ‘so, what do you do?’ question a bit more thrilling to answer.
Experimentation – a way to keep experimenting with things that bring me endless joy.
So, not only am I part of the appreciation society for side projects because they make me feel like that overly excited kid time and time again, but I also believe they can be a fun and playful experiments to learn and grown from at any age or stage in life.
