Heather Moore – finding joy in the print studio

Heather Moore, a former teacher turned printmaker, shares her journey of rediscovering her passion for art and creativity, and making the decision to leave a stressful career in education. 
As a youngster, Heather believed her art would only ever be a hobby, as many young people do, but after having her daughter she started to realize its importance and value in her life.
In this episode Heather discusses the challenges she faced while promoting art in school curriculums, where increasingly it is data-driven approaches that are given priority. She also tells of how she transitioned from teaching to becoming a full-time artist, which included  learning how to run a business and make connections with other business owners.
We also get a chance to peek into Heather's creative process as a lino printmaker and learn about the meticulous research and preparation that goes into each of her projects, and the joy she finds in conducting workshops.

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Researched, edited and produced by Claire Waite Brown
Music: Day Trips by Ketsa Undercover / Ketsa Creative Commons License Free Music Archive - Ketsa - Day Trips
Artworks: Emily Portnoi emilyportnoi.co.uk
Photo: Ella Pallet

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:33

I love theatre, but I only ever really saw it as like a hobby thing, because at high school the idea of an artist being a proper job, just it just wasn't a thing. They dealt with a lot of stuff like you wouldn't believe what some children have to process before they even get to school in the morning, and I came away just thinking, right, that's what's missing. That's what I need more of is the creativity, that art. The stuff that I kind of perhaps thought wasn't the important stuff, but actually it was a lot more important than I realised. The teaching just got so stressful and so bad for my health that I just couldn't keep doing it anymore and I thought, no, this is the time that I need to make that difficult decision, make that sort of leap of faith and go for it.

Speaker 2: 1:28

Hi, I'm Claire, founder of Creativity Found, a community for creative learners and educators, connecting adults who want to find a creative outlet with the artists and crafters who can help them do so with workshops, courses, online events and kits. For this podcast, I chat with people who have found or refound their creativity as adults. We'll explore their childhood experiences of the arts, discuss how they came to the artistic practices they now love and consider the barriers they may have experienced between the two. We'll also explore what it is that people value and gain from their new found artistic pursuits and how their creative lives enrich their practical, necessary everyday lives. This time, I'm chatting with Heather Moore, whose return to creativity was partly inspired by a sensory experience that was more than simply visual. Hi, heather, how are you?

Speaker 1: 2:27

I'm good. Thank you, lovely to be here.

Speaker 2: 2:30

Lovely to have you here. You've told me that, having left a career in education, you get to do what you love. What is that?

Speaker 1: 2:39

Yes, well, my passion has always been art. So I'm now a lino print maker, which is kind of a big leap from what I used to be, and I work from my studio in the garden. It used to be working from the kitchen, but my husband got far too irritated with my work being all over the place and not being able to cook any dinner. So, yeah, we did a bit of a garden transformation and built a little studio Lighting. Yeah, I do workshops as well. I do little private ones, one to one in the studio, because it's only a little studio, so nice for little events. And then I support some organisations as well, so I'll go in and do workshops with people who are quite lonely and they need to come together in kind of a community event, and that's really fulfilling. So, yeah, I get to share the joy of what I'm doing and use those teaching skills that I've developed over the years, but with a focus on my main passion, which is the artwork.

Speaker 2: 3:44

Brilliant. That all comes together really beautifully. Did you have a creative childhood at home, at school?

Speaker 1: 3:53

Yeah, very much. So I wasn't an outdoorsy child so I would spend all of my time crafting. So whether it was embroidery or making friendship bracelets, or I went through a phase of making cards and all sorts. My earliest memory of sewing was my mum had taught me and I was doing a sampler, so I was stitching away while she was on the phone and then she came off the phone and I unfortunately had stitched my sampler to her tights. Obviously she couldn't wear those tights anymore, but I was very proud of the sampler.

Speaker 1: 4:31

My parents and grandparents have always been pretty creative. My mum's really into a crochet. I mean, she can make all sorts with the crochet and it's not something I've ever really wrapped my head around. But my dad was forever spending all his spare hours in the garage making aeroplanes and boats and he created a sculptural water feature a few weeks ago. So, yeah, really creative people. My granny taught me how to sew to make ragdolls and things like that and puppets and stuff. She was a seamstress by trade.

Speaker 1: 5:06

So I was surrounded by lots of creative people and really encouraged, I feel, by my primary teachers as well, because I think at that time the education system was a really creative space and my teachers really did focus on things like the DT, the art, music. We had regular cooking classes and a small group of us would host like a little dinner party for one of the teachers and things like that. So, yeah, the creative arts were really a massive part of my childhood and that's what I mainly remember from school. I don't really remember learning English and maths and all the rest of it. They obviously happened, but it's not what stuck in my mind and my fondest memories of secondary school are from the art rooms and the textiles rooms. You know, if I'd had my way, that's where I would have spent all my time and when I think back to it, I can still get all the smells of the paints and the inks. I could really imagine myself in those rooms still, whereas other classrooms, you know, yeah, they were there, but they just weren't as inspiring.

Speaker 2: 6:17

There's a whole holistic three-dimensional experience for you a multi-sensual experience to remember the smells and the atmosphere for the rooms. That's really encouraging that you had that. You continued with your arts education at college. Did you know what you wanted to do next?

Speaker 1: 6:37

Not. I didn't have a really clear idea of what I wanted to do after college. I knew I wanted to go on to university and sort of toyed around with the idea of maybe being a therapist. I didn't have a particularly set idea. I did some art, I did maths, I did some psychology, which I absolutely loved. But then, you know, I loved the art but I only ever really saw it as like a hobby thing because at high school the idea of an artist being a proper job, just it just wasn't. I think you know all the famous artists are dead or Agency for Mental활, motor oil, yeah, it just was never spoken about as a realistic career choice.

Speaker 1: 7:19

When college finished I was just sort of like, well, now, what do I do? I need to think of a proper job. So, having enjoyed the psychology, and within the psychology course we did some units on child psychology which was just totally fascinating. So that kind of fed me down the track of working with kids and I'd had a weekend job working at a soft play. Absolutely loved that. That was just complete madness, like doing kids parties and dancing around to reach for the stars from S Club 7. And yeah, so I thought, well, you know I'll try teaching and you for the friends of mine that were looking at teaching courses. So when I got to uni other people were seemed a lot more excited about the teaching practice than me. I was really enjoying the training and everything.

Speaker 1: 8:15

The thought of being in front of a class was absolutely terrifying, which I suppose isn't that unusual. It's quite an odd thing to do. The first time I just sort of assumed that was nerves. But yeah, I loved doing all the art teaching and I've never had any regrets about going into teaching. But it was never really the passion that it was for some of my friends and no people who'd from being really tiny would pretend to be teachers doing registers. That was never the way it was. For me it was. I liked working with kids, loved doing art, so sort of put the two things together. But the thought of teaching in high school was far too terrifying to entertain so I stuck with the younger children.

Speaker 2: 9:01

Yeah, despite feeling, maybe thinking, I'm quite not as passionate about it as some other people are.

Speaker 1: 9:09

Were you able to easily fall into work once the studies had finished, I would love to say yes, I would love to, but no, there wasn't a lot of work in the Northwest, where I'm from, so I did a bit of supply teaching for a while, which actually was a brilliant experience. It sort of taught me to be very flexible and be able to think on my feet a lot more. And then eventually I thought, you know what, I just need to go where the jobs were and I ended up working in Luton down south, and it was a really brilliant thing actually, because it wasn't my husband yet, but my partner and I both moved down south and it sort of gave us that first opportunity to experience proper independence. We moved down there and built ourselves a little life in the world's tiniest flat, but it was ours and it was lovely.

Speaker 2: 10:42

Yeah, how did the career progression go?

Speaker 1: 10:48

It went well. Actually there was a lot of opportunity for development. Luton was this amazing hub for teachers. Actually they just really wanted to get the best out of teachers. There was a lot of excitement for new initiatives and things like that. So I loved it. I mean, I won't say it wasn't stressful there were big stresses but yeah, there was a lot of opportunity for development and at one point I was applying for deputy headships and things like that after being in the job, I think, six or seven years. So when we moved back up north I just kind of assumed that was where I was headed. You know, moving up the ladder, I did go into leadership roles. I was in charge of art for five different sites at a big academy and I absolutely loved working with staff and developing their understanding of art and sort of sharing that big passion that I had. It just didn't always make it down to the kids because of the pressures of timetables and all of that exciting stuff that I've now left behind me.

Speaker 2: 11:59

Yeah, and did you find that stressful, frustrating?

Speaker 1: 12:06

Yeah, I'm a massive believer that art is a great way to enable people to communicate. I worked in a lot of schools over my career as a teacher where there were lots of children who didn't know how to communicate their feelings, whether that was because they had additional needs or because they dealt with a lot of stuff. Like you wouldn't believe what some children have to process before they even get to school in the morning. So I was a big believer that art could have a huge impact on these children who didn't necessarily feel that they were achieving success in the academic subjects. It gave them an opportunity to explore things and show a side of themselves and feel the success that they felt was lacking from their school experience. But yeah, it was really frustrating because my experience was the higher you move up the ladder, it seems the less realistic view you have of the humans that you are teaching and it becomes more about data, and so art wasn't really a subject where the data was important, so it wasn't prioritised and I found that really frustrating.

Speaker 1: 13:33

I'm quite an emotional person anyways, but you know it. Just I could see the difference that art made to the children that I taught because I was prioritising it, because that was my passion. But it's tough for teachers. They've got a lot to try and squeeze into the curriculum. Every time some big issue comes up and you see it on the news and they're like, well, this should be part of our curriculum. And I just think, oh my goodness, the poor teachers have got so much that they already have to squish into the curriculum. Yeah, it was very frustrating.

Speaker 2: 14:07

Yeah, I can believe. I like the analogy that the higher up you get, the further away you get from the children and the real people in the situation. So you'd been trying to encourage others to enjoy art, but you've told me that it wasn't until you had your daughter that you started creating for yourself again. So tell me about that time.

Speaker 1: 14:31

Well, when we did move south, I said we had a really tiny flat so I didn't really have space to get equipment out and be able to leave a project sort of half done, or occasionally during the school holidays I would leave a few bits and pieces out on the dining table. But when we moved back up north and we got our own house, we had a bit more space and still, you know, the job's busy and I wasn't really prioritising myself. But then I had a daughter and I suddenly felt, during maternity leave, I suddenly felt really sort of lonely and like I was I don't like this phrase, but just a mom, which is a terrible felt, like a terrible thing to say at the time, because being a mom is something that I had wanted for years, to the point where people were asking me, you know when you're having a child, because I hadn't had one yet. But yeah, I felt like I'd completely lost the essence of who I was. I just had become a person who, you know, moves through the motions and functions.

Speaker 1: 15:44

And then the November I think it was after I'd had my daughter we went along to some open studios that Uthburn Valley near us is huge for the arts and there's loads and loads of artists, studios, and that once or twice a year they open up all the studios. You can go in, meet the artists, have a little tinker around. And we popped into Northern print and they had all the presses go in and you could go in and you could do a line-up and you could try this, that and the other. And I was just, I was so excited I completely lost my family, just left them behind and threw myself in. I had the best time and I came away just thinking, right, that's what's missing. That's what I need more of is the creativity. That are the stuff that I kind of perhaps had thought wasn't the important stuff, but actually it was a lot more important than I realized.

Speaker 1: 16:46

So then I got a bit of money at Christmas, got a bit of pocket money from my dad, and I thought, oh, I've really enjoyed doing the printmaking. And I went and bought myself a lino print kit and got thoroughly stuck in and haven't stopped since. And it's, yeah, completely, completely changed my outlook on how important creativity is to me, which is odd, really, because I knew it was important to the kids that I was teaching but had never considered the fact that I needed it. Yeah, very strange. So anytime my daughter had a nap, that was me tinkering away with the lino and making prints, making a huge mess in the kitchen. Eventually my husband said I can't carry on like this. This prints everywhere and they're lovely, but we just can't cook dinner. So we knocked down the potting shed and had it rebuilt and that's my little studio now, so I can make a big mess and then shut the door and it doesn't matter. Yeah, I can come back to it later. But yeah, my own space for being creative not being interrupted.

Speaker 2: 18:05

That's a bit of a metaphor as well, isn't it? I mean, it's physically your own space, but it's so your own space, yeah. So you as a person.

Speaker 1: 18:15

Yeah, I mean when we first had it built, I would say it was probably half and half mine and my daughters, so she had an easel in one half of the room and you know she would stick things up on the wall and there were shelves. I've since I've sort of gone full time in the business I've kind of shuffled a few of her things out, but she wasn't using so much. So I've replaced her easel that she wasn't using with a big table for all my photographs and organizing myself. So it's very much more. The balances is mine and it just has some of her crafty bits in there.

Speaker 2: 18:58

Did you find, as well as gaining a bit more of you, did you find other kind of benefits around, like your emotional and your mental wellbeing? Did you find that was coming from having this activity to do?

Speaker 1: 19:14

Yeah, definitely, because teaching was a really stressful job and I would come home completely exhausted even on a good day, because you know you're given as much as you can and although I was teaching part-time, the rest of the time I was looking after my daughter. So I'm just a tired person. I'm constantly tired. But when I sit down and I carve the lino I find that I'm concentrating so much on that one task because I don't want to make a mistake, that anything else that I'm sort of stressed or worried about kind of melts away, because I don't have space for that as well. So it's a really nice mindful activity. And, to be honest, when I turned it into a business, my husband worried that that thing that I did to help me relax and de-stress was going to have to be replaced by something else. But I don't find that at all. I still have that same connection to the process, the art-making process. It still helps me to calm. When I'm carving and when I'm doing the printmaking I have my music turned up and I'm singing along and it just is that really joyful process for me. So turning it into a business hasn't taken any of that away. It's just become a really integral part to what I need to be healthy, having that creative outlet.

Speaker 1: 20:46

And I do other things as well. You know I walk, I do other bits and pieces, but yeah, that sort of way to express what's important to me as well is crucial. I mean, for a while, when I first started printing, I would print things that were sort of, you know, popular at the time, like flamingos or penguins or things as gifts for other people. But the further I've got into it, the more I've realised that it's important for me to create images that make me feel good, because then, you know, my customers kind of get that feeling through the artwork as well. I want to bring people joy and I need to feel that joy in order to give it out.

Speaker 2: 21:35

I suppose Definitely it's very good that you can recognise that, both the desire now to produce what you want to produce, but also recognising that this is something that is important and relevant and necessary for you and enjoyable. But we are going to talk about turning it into a business, because you've mentioned your creative outlet into earning money and it sounds like you're still able to gain all the benefits of creativity from that. But tell me when and how you decided to make the change. How did you actually go about that?

Speaker 1: 22:17

Early stages I didn't think of it as being a business. It was just there as a hobby to help me kind of chill out after a long day or distract me from doing housework while the baby was napping, because I'm not a fan of housework. But then people started asking me if I could do them a print for this or could they buy that one off me. Would I do something special just for them? And one of my friends that I was working with at the time saw how much I was enjoying it and suggested I open to Net-C Shop, which I did. And once I'd done that I kind of got the bug. I was like, oh, this is a business. But then lockdown came along front times. But then during lockdown I joined something called Mint Biz Club. So I was, it was all online and I just kind of soaked up all the training I learned about websites and emails and you know all the stuff that goes along with running a business that I had never even considered because I was just happily making my artwork and I thought customers would just float along and come and find me. It doesn't work that way, I'm afraid, but yeah. So I kind of just got the bug and it grew bigger and bigger and in my head I'd sort of picked out that, you know, maybe by the time I was 40, I would be able to leave teaching and then go full time in the business. I'm not quite there yet, not far off but the teaching just got so stressful and so stressful I'm so bad for my health that I just couldn't keep doing it anymore and I thought, no, this is the time that I need to make that difficult decision, make that sort of leap of faith and go for it.

Speaker 1: 24:10

I'd been working with a coach for a few weeks before I handed him a notice on like a mini course and she'd sort of given me this real self-belief that I could make this into a viable business and it could be my full time thing. And, yeah, why not? Working with a coach really helped me with what she would call mindset monkeys, those horrible little thoughts that creep into your head and tell you you're not good enough and you can't do this, it's not possible and art isn't a real job, and all of those things. She helped me to work through a lot of that stuff. So, yeah, that played a massive part in helping me to make that big leap, helping me to sort of transition from being a teacher and doing things a certain way to actually oh, do you know what? I can now change my routine and mould my day to be how I want it to be and make this work for me rather than me working for somebody else.

Speaker 1: 25:21

I'm not going to say I've completely wrapped my head around that because, yeah, I'm sort of seven, eight months in and I'm still struggling with that a little bit, but I think it takes a long time you know a career of 17 years doing one thing a particular way to then sort of jump ship and change the way you're doing things. That is taking some adjustment, but having a coach and building up a network of self employed people who have become really good friends and you know you kind of share the problems you're going through it's really important to have that support. I think actually when you jump into it so trader, business owner just got to get on with it, but actually you still need people around you to share experiences with.

Speaker 2: 26:18

Absolutely. I had similar experiences as being a freelance editor and at some point thinking oh, I'm actually a bit lonely here. I need to go out and meet some people, but it sounds like you're really embracing and enjoying learning about the business process as well as the creative process, and that you're taking that on with quite a keen interest by the.

Speaker 1: 26:43

Yeah, I think sometimes I have to stop myself a little bit because I can sort of fall into the trap of what I heard one I can't remember her name. I heard one lady describe it as procrasta learning, where you fall into the trap of, just right, I've done this course, now I'm going to do this one, I'm going to learn this thing, but not actually putting it into practice and moving on with it. So I think having a coach and being part of the business accelerator program is helping to sort of bring the learning together and also make sure that I do something with it, rather than just learning things for the sake of it. So, yeah, but I really enjoy learning about it.

Speaker 1: 27:28

I mean, there's so many things that I never thought, I've never even considered I would have done. I've built my own website. That's a headache and a half, but I've done it and there's a lot of things that I never thought were things I'd need to learn or things that I'd be able to do. I just kind of get on and do it now and just like, well, we need to do that, so let's do that. There's there's no kind of oh, I couldn't, possibly anymore. I'm a business owner now. This is my business, this is what I do. Yeah, also, it's very nice to introduce myself as an artist now that I'm full time. I'm not a teacher, but do a bit of art. I am an artist and it's like, yeah, that is a thing, that is a real job, I'm going out and I'm doing it.

Speaker 2: 28:17

So what does that actually mean? Being an artist, being a printmaker? What do you produce? Are we talking about commissions? Are we talking about product? We talking about workshops?

Speaker 1: 28:28

Yeah, a bit of everything. So I probably put together one big collection in a year. That's usually around six months worth of work if you include in all you know, all the research, the prep that goes into it and then the actual making and the development of the ideas. And then I'll do like little miniature projects and they might be any prints that sort of go awry or things that I've tested and not wanted to take to fall through wishing or things that have just not come out exactly how I want them. I reuse those in collage pieces. So that's a really nice way to loosen up.

Speaker 1: 29:13

Actually, sometimes, when I feel a bit like I'm in between projects, I get out all of the, the misprints, the test prints, the papers that I've just covered in leftover ink. Because I don't like to waste things, I've got it on the palette. I'll just like roll it all over the scrap pieces of paper and I create collages. And then I did a series of tiny prints. I've got some tiny seascapes and we're talking like I mean the papers only three inches square and the line of blocks are even tinier, and I did the same with a few northeast landmarks as well. But yeah, when I'm not doing the printmaking. I'm doing a couple of online workshops that I created in the last couple of years, but one of the things that's most popular at the moment is the one to one workshops, where people come and work with me in my garden studio on a one to one basis and they come and make their own little masterpieces with me.

Speaker 1: 30:14

They get a couple of hours to totally pick my brain, go through my process from beginning to end and come away with about 10 lovely prints that they can take home with them, and I really love that it's.

Speaker 1: 30:27

It's nice to get really in depth with one person and sort of learn what makes them tick and help them to create something that's special to them. I'm just releasing some at home packages as well, so if you wanted to have a workshop at home and say, have a girls night in or something with a bit of a difference, I come to you, bring everything with me, bring the workshop to you and you can have it at home and I'm building up an alternative version and do version and a baby shower version as well. Yeah, so workshops are a big part of it and they kind of they enable me to flex that teacher muscle, because I still enjoy it. I like to share my passion while still making it about the art and about it helping people to relax, because that's what it is to me. It's about finding your joy and doing something good for you, and I think workshops are a great way to do that and to find what your creative passion is. I enjoy it as much as they do. Brilliant.

Speaker 2: 31:38

Do you have any particular aspirations or thoughts for the future?

Speaker 1: 31:43

I got a few events booked in looking at some ideas for pop-up shops and things like that with some other creatives and wholesaling, which it's only a recent thing that I've started doing. But I've selected some of my most popular prints, because pretty much all of my prints are limited editions, so I only have between five and twenty in a run, generally speaking, apart from the tiny ones. So I've selected some of my favourites and some of the most popular ones and created smaller reproductions so that they can be wholesaleed out to shops.

Speaker 2: 32:25

Yeah, brilliant, Going back to the very first open studio that you went to have you opened your studio.

Speaker 1: 32:35

Well, I suppose actually I did. I had sort of a small gathering when I released my collection in 2022, and people popped into the studio and had a little nosey round there.

Speaker 2: 32:49

You could be inspiring the next Heather that is looking for something. Just know, that's really true.

Speaker 1: 32:56

I hadn't thought about it from that point of view, I think.

Speaker 2: 33:05

Well, we can visit there and you can cogitate.

Speaker 1: 33:07

Yeah, that is definitely something to consider for the future.

Speaker 2: 33:11

Yeah, how can people connect?

Speaker 1: 33:14

with you, Heather. I'm on Instagram, Facebook. If you search the Peacock and the Print Maker, you'll find me on those too, and you can find my website at thepeacockandtheprintmakercom, so you'll find information about all of my products and workshops on there.

Speaker 2: 33:33

Fabulous. Thank you so much for speaking with me today. It's been lovely.

Speaker 1: 33:37

Yeah, I've really enjoyed it.

Speaker 2: 33:38

Thank you, Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to Creativity Found. If your podcast app has the facility, please leave a rating and review. To help other people find us On Instagram and Facebook. Follow at Creativity Found podcast and on Pinterest, look for at Creativity Found. And, finally, don't forget to check out creativityfoundcouk, the website connecting adults who want to find a creative outlet with the artists and crafters who can help them tap into their creativity.