This is the second part of the Do What You Love interview with Kathy Heslop (see here for part 1). Kathy is an incredible woman who has lived many lives already, as professional musician, nautical globetrotter and serial entrepreneur who has seen multi-million dollar success for her creative businesses. We share a love of good wine, good food and good chat. She also happens to be one of the funniest women I know. ~ Beth
Kathy: image via Twitter
Today’s Do What You Love interview is with Kathy Heslop, an incredible woman who has lived many lives already, as professional musician, nautical globetrotter and serial entrepreneur who has seen multi-million dollar success for her creative businesses. She also happens to be one of the funniest women I know.
British by passport, half Scandinavian and a NYC/London girl by heart, Kathy was once a professional violinist, working with UK orchestras, theatre and opera companies. She was the first female electric violinist to perform at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club and co-wrote the trailer music for the movie Notting Hill. In 1998 Kathy co founded the digital recording studio Serious in London with her polymathic husband David. Within a year it had morphed into a digital publishing company and by the summer of 2000 they had moved to New York City to open a sister office.
Serious went on to win multiple awards and employ over seventy staff with three offices worldwide, (London, NYC & Singapore). In late 2007, Kathy and her husband sold their stake in the company and moved back to the UK. They have since founded a boutique management consultancy in London and also operate a software development company. They consult to clients across the entertainment, sports, technology, food and beverage, celebrity and lifestyle sectors, and Kathy specialises in helping companies establish brand identity and market position.
Here Kathy shares some very valuable insight and practical commercial advice for those of you trying to start or grow your creative business … (more…)
You guys rock!! Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Seriously, I cannot believe how generously you shared your advice to help me get over my first-machine-use-phobia. And I think you cured me!! I started off with baby steps as advised by the lovely Anne at Craft Gossip Sewing, and then I realised how much fun it was, and just started whizzing along!
Look what I made, thanks to you (and I surprised myself that I actually don’t care they are all wonky)…
Stitched postcards…
A four-weeks-at-a-glance wall planner with interchangeable pockets (red thread inspired by Rebecca Sower – thanks for the intro Stella)…
A journal (thanks Lorrie – remember the little heart?)…
And some other bits and pieces too. I am now officially in love with my sewing machine.
And I love all the blog and website links you shared. So inspiring and lots still to check out.
Did I say thank you SO much!
Is it just me or she beautiful, this shiny new birthday present of mine?
In fact, she is so beautiful, I am too scared to plug her in.
I so want to make gorgeous things.
But I haven’t the first clue how to use her.
I have a pile of fabric. And ribbon. And some buttons.
But I might break my beautiful machine when I try to stitch them all together.
So I bought a book, like I always do when I’m stuck.
And another, like I always do when I’m still stuck.
I now have eleven books on sewing.
But I still don’t know where to start.
It’s like I need to know everything before I can make anything.
I don’t know how much is enough.
Please help me!
Any inspiring sewing blogs, project ideas, mixed media artists using stitch, you name it, I want to know about it. Do you have a story about how you learnt to sew? I want to hear about it!
Just a little bit more knowledge. And then I promise to plug her in.
If you want to put a rocket under your ideas and ambition, start or grow your own business or revolutionise your current business, and make your own choices and your own money, then you need to meet Danielle LaPorte. She is one white hot woman. She made me think differently about aspects of my own business, and I wanted to share some of her magic with you.
Danielle is the creator of www.daniellelaporte.com, and has brought out a new book, THE FIRE STARTER SESSIONS, which helps entrepreneurs rock their career with integrity, audacity and their truest strengths. Danielle is a former news show commentator, and director of a Washington-DC think tank, where she managed a team of analysts studying global trends for the likes of the Pentagon and the World Bank. She is the lead author of the Amazon bestseller, Style Statement: Live By Your Own Design, and has been featured in Elle, Vogue Australia, Body + Soul, The National Post, Entertainment Tonight, and The Huffington Post.
Here she gives us insight and some awesome advice…
In the first of a new series of Do What You Love interviews, I’d like to extend a warm welcome to Christina Sbarro, a woman who is on a mission to truly do what she loves. Christina is all wrapped up in the creation of ‘A Field Guide to Now’, a book which combines her beautiful writing, storytelling and mixed media art, and which is stitched together with the love of a community of supporters.
Watch this gorgeous intro to her story here:
Here’s what she has to say to you all…
Today I am 32. Tomorrow I will be 33. Pretty old, pretty young, depending on your perspective. Or maybe just right, for me, right now.
It has been quite a year.
1. I quit my job
Some say change is stressful, I say it is energising, important, refreshing. Quitting my job was hard. It wasn’t a boring, draining, rat-race type office job. It was an uplifting, challenging experience that taught me so much and I loved it. I had five amazing years at UNICEF, the world’s biggest organisation working for children and children’s rights.It took me to the edges of humanity, introducing me to amazing people shining brightly in the darkest of situations. I travelled the world, venturing far beyond the urban jungle out into the places where life happens for so many.
Photo: Francois d’Elbee
I met children with bare feet, guns, no parents, ambition, hope
I met world leaders, religious leaders, and gang leaders
I travelled with sports stars, famous actors and cabinet ministers
I dined with a prince, and a Nobel Peace Prize winner
I learnt how to shoot a camera,
how to shoot a handmade football,
how to shoot a bow and arrow,
how to shoot an AK47*
*obviously not at people or animals
Photo: Francois d’Elbee
We shared childhood games
We shared long bumpy car rides
We shared untold secrets
And we shared our stories
Photo: Francois d’Elbee
I saw pain, beauty, courage, love
I questioned and I listened
I changed and I grew
It will stay with me always
2. I started my own company
Shortly after my last birthday, I finally recognised that although I loved my job, it ate all my time and there were other things I wanted to do. I took the plunge to start my own company and set off in a new direction. It has been a fantastic roller coaster full of unknowns, challenges and new experiences. I love this delicious freedom.
3. I moved house
Enjoying a cup of tea in my new studio in (quite often rainy) Yorkshire
4. I learnt to surf… (well kind of)
(no chance you are getting a picture of that!!!)
5. I watched a moon rise in the Sahara Desert, and welcomed in the new year from the top of a giant sand dune with my man
Photo by me, dunes by some mysterious natural phenomena
6. I became an auntie for the third time, and experienced the magic of meeting her the day she was born.
Photo: Chris Nicholls
Photo: Chris Nicholls
7. I bumped into my old friend ‘me the artist’ at a mountain retreat in California, and we have been hanging out a lot together ever since.
With teachers Kelly Rae Roberts & Mati Rose McDonough and my An Artful Journey sisters
…and much more besides. I loved it all, and I have a feeling there is a big year ahead. Join me on the journey!
Photo: Francois d’Elbee
”When you are in your 30s you are old enough to know better,
but young enough to do it anyway” ~ Bridgette Bardot
Capturing a fleeting moment in a way which one day will take you right back to that place, the smells, the sounds, the feeling. There is magic in photography. I love taking photos and I think something in me helps me take some sweet shots with the occasional flukey great one, but I don’t really know why I like the ones I like, and I know there is so much more to learn. So I have just taken a class with photographer extraordinaire Susannah Conway, learning more about composition, light, and all sorts of other things I never really think much about.
I photographed my cup of tea, and then played around with some editing tools. Which one do you like best? And which one do you like least? I’d love to know which and why.
Original photo:
I quite like the original photo, but think altered version number 12 is my favourite. I love the difference in texture either side of the diagonal line, and the pattern in the bottom right corner would make fantastic wrapping paper!
Photography actually runs through my family (right back four generations) so maybe this is just awakening something that has always been there… more on that another day.
A volcano erupted in Iceland sending a cloud of volcanic ash across Europe yesterday. You may have heard about it, seen the pictures, thought it bizarre.
Rangarvallasysla, Iceland Credit: Neil MacWilliams
As the cloud has filled the airspace, the airports have shut down one after the other and it has left an estimated 600,000 people stranded – including me! I was in Geneva, supposedly for a day. But my flight back was cancelled and the earliest I can get home to England is Monday evening on the Eurostar train. So what is a girl to do but head to Paris for an impromptu weekend of cafes, galleries, wandering and dreaming?? Oh life is hard.
It’s quite odd actually as I had been dreaming about going to Paris in the spring. Unusually for me I had no plans this weekend, and I accidentally bought an ‘anytime’ instead of fixed time return train ticket back from London so even that is still valid when I get back. I only had my handbag with me, so no laptop = no work, and no clothes = excuse to buy new ones. Funnily enough what I did have in my handbag were every girl’s true travelling essentials: credit card, camera, chocolate, sketchbook and mascara. What more do I need? And an old friend from the US just happens to have also got stranded and is heading here right now. What a wonderful piece of bad luck. Even ash clouds have a silver lining…
If you also happen to be in Paris or have any tips on must-visit ateliers, flea markets, cafes or stationery shops please do share!
A bientôt.
More Paris posts here:
Paris je t’adore
Shopping in Paris
Travelling Light
Random acts of generosity
Thought I’d share a piece from a series I am working on – ‘Bloom True’. The smells and colours of the emerging spring made me want to paint flowers.
Recently I was introduced to the incredibly talented Flora Bowley in a post by Lorrie Spotts, and instantly loved her work. I was intrigued to then discover she is teaching a workshop at Squam in the autumn, entitled… Bloom True! It felt like a sign so I have recklessly signed up for Squam and will be heading back to the US for more creative fun with lovely American gals later in the year. I have also signed up for a photography workshop with Susannah Conway and wabi-sabi paper with Judy Wise.
Anyone else going? It’s going to be so much fun.
But for now, I am living in the moment of gorgeous sunshine, long mountain bike rides and painting – bliss.
Happy weekend!