Extraordinary Creatives

I have two guests on the podcast today, and they have made something extraordinary together.

The first drew queer Britain into being for sixty years and quietly refused to call any of its art. It paid the mortgage. It was cheaper than being a window cleaner. He published the world's first LGBTQ+ graphic novel in 1983, drew for Gay News, Capital Gay and The Guardian, made safer-sex campaigns through the AIDS crisis, and hung a nineteen-metre banner at Carrow Road for Justin Fashanu. All of which he called work - never art.

That guest is cartoonist David Shenton. The artist who finally insisted it was art is Ian Giles.

Together they have made Kindly Ease the Tension, David's first ever institutional retrospective. It begins with a small burnt doll, dressed in clothes knitted by a boy in a Lancashire terrace house and thrown into the fire by his father. The doll survived. So did the boy.

In this conversation we get into what happens when somebody finally calls your sixty years of work art. We talk about the Duvet of Love; an AIDS memorial David stitched in a bedsit that he never meant to be art. We talk about the trans baton being passed in a moment when many in the gay community have gone quiet. We talk about censorship and the rising conservatism in the arts, the works that have to be shown after hours, the double standard between classical nudity and queer images. And we talk about what intergenerational care actually looks like in practice. 

David is seventy-seven and says this retrospective has stretched his horizon by another ten years. There is a lesson in that for all of us.

KEY TAKEAWAYS


Some of the most important opportunities in your career won’t arrive through a formal application process. They happen because you care enough to ask the question, start the conversation, or create the thing you wish existed.


What feels awkward, unfashionable, or difficult in one chapter of your life may be exactly what gives your work its depth and originality later on - resist the temptation to self-censor.

BEST MOMENTS

“The work you make at your kitchen table, when nobody is watching, may turn out to be the archive of a generation. Keep going. Pass the baton when it is time.”

“I really wanted to live in a world where there was a David Shenton retrospective.”

RESOURCES

https://www.instagram.com/d.shenton

https://www.instagram.com/iangiles

https://www.museumscollections.norfolk.gov.uk/collections-object-page?id=NWHCM%20:%202016.221.1

HOST BIO

With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? 

https://cerihand.com/membership/

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course

Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities and thrive in the art world.

https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

Book a Discovery Call 

To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching, email us at hello@cerihand.com

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

This episode is part of a nine-part series on commissions. How to prepare for them, respond to them, deliver them, and, crucially, how to stop them burning you out. If you haven't followed the podcast yet, hit follow so you don't miss an episode.

Today, episode three of nine. The first practical stage of the commission process. Your commission ecosystem.

In episode one, we did the mindset work. In episode two, we named the five mistakes that almost every underpriced commission has in common.

Today we start building the structure.

Here is the principle.

Stage one of any serious commission practice is the invisible work. The four decisions you make, in advance, before any enquiry arrives.

These decisions form what I call your commission ecosystem. Build it once. Revisit it annually. Let it do the work of saying no, so you do not have to do it in the moment.

Why does this matter? Because the moment an enquiry arrives, your nervous system will want to say yes. The ecosystem, written down in advance, is the only thing standing between that yes and the resentment you will feel six months later.

Four decisions. Let me walk you through each.

KEY TAKEAWAYS


Set a clear annual profit target for commissions - pricing will stop feeling vague or reactive any you will know how many of each type of commission you need to complete to keep your practice viable.


A written rules list and clarity on materials, scale, and time protect you from burnout work and pull in the commissions that genuinely grow your practice.  

 

BEST MOMENTS

“The year is the unit, not the commission. Once you know what the year needs to earn, every individual commission conversation becomes easier, because you know what you're measuring against.”

“This is the work. Nobody else can do it for you. But once it's done, every inquiry that arrives from that moment onward lands into a structure that already knows how to respond to it.”

“Clarity makes an artist easier to collaborate with, not harder. It gives the people commissioning them something stable to work with.”

For a text version of today's teaching, plus new practical guidance every week, you can subscribe to Beat the Block at https://cerihand.com/subscribe/

EPISODE RESOURCES

Episode 1 of this 9-part series - https://podcasts.apple.com/es/podcast/designing-the-way-you-want-to-work-the-mindset/id1709105337?i=1000769915059

HOST BIO

With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

**

Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? Join today!

https://cerihand.com/membership/

**

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course

Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities and thrive in the art world today.

https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

**

Book a Discovery Call Today

To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at hello@cerihand.com

**

Discover Your Extraordinary Creativity

Visit www.cerihand.com to learn how we can help you become an extraordinary creative.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Today’s guest is an extraordinary artist whose work feels deeply lived rather than simply made.

Alexis Soul-Gray is a British painter exploring memory, loss, and maternal lineage through richly layered works that move between abstraction and figuration. Based in Devon, her paintings feel both intimate and expansive.

A graduate of the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins, Alexis has exhibited internationally, received two Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grants, and won The Delphian Open in 2021. Alongside her studio practice, she also curates’ exhibitions, including Declarative Language, a group show bringing together women artists whose practices have been shaped by caregiving within neurodivergent families.

We talk about art school, grief, motherhood, caregiving, advocacy, and the challenge of continuing to make work that stays true to lived experience rather than outside expectation. Exploring the realities of artistic identity alongside financial pressure, loss, and resilience.

What unfolds is an honest and deeply human conversation about endurance, creativity, and what it takes to keep going when life refuses to move in a straight line.

KEY TAKEAWAYS


When you’ve carried grief and caring responsibilities for years, the work you make in the margins is not “less than” - it’s work that has learned to hold chaos, fatigue, school refusal, and hospital letters in the same frame as colour, gesture, and form.


You don’t need a clean, linear career to be an artist; you need a stubborn thread. The years of bad jobs, failed applications, family rupture, and self-doubt don’t sit outside the practice - they deepen it.


The culture will always reward tidy, repeatable pictures, but painting is something else: a willingness not to know the outcome in advance, to refuse being a production line for your own style, to risk disappointing people who only came for the last hit. 

BEST MOMENTS

“I just couldn't really see that my practice would ever become a full-time pursuit for me. It was very much the kitchen table … snatched moments.”

“A creative life is not built in perfect conditions, it's built in real ones… sometimes the most important thing is not how quickly you move forward, but that you keep returning to the work.”

“There is no neat formula here. No single turning point where everything suddenly resolves. Instead, what we hear is a gradual return.”

EPISODE RESOURCES

https://www.instagram.com/Alexis_soul_gray

HOST BIO

With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

**

Ceri Hand Coaching: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? Join today!

https://cerihand.com/membership/

**

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course

Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities and thrive in the art world today.

https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

**

Book a Discovery Call

To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at hello@cerihand.com

**

Discover Your Extraordinary Creativity

Visit www.cerihand.com to learn how we can help you become an extraordinary creative.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

This episode is part of a nine-part series on commissions. How to prepare for them, respond to them, deliver them, and, crucially, how to stop them burning you out. If you haven't followed the podcast yet, hit follow so you don't miss an episode.

Today, episode two of nine. The five mistakes I see every artist make when pricing commissions. I see them every single week. In coaching conversations. In the Mastermind Circle. In private messages from artists I have never met who have found my work.

Different artist. Different medium. Different decade of experience. Same five mistakes. Every time.

If you listened to episode one, you'll remember I opened with a story about a textile artist, mid-career, who sent me a costing for a corporate commission and told me he was embarrassed. Today we are opening up his costing. Not literally his numbers, but the five mistakes inside it. Because every one of them will be familiar to you.

KEY TAKEAWAYS


Quote in the currency your costs are in; otherwise, you're letting the currency markets quietly price your work for you. If the market shifts in the time it takes you to create the commission, you can easily lose 5 to 15% of your fee.


Your client sees the finished piece, but you lived a “three-month shadow life” around making it; your fee has to reflect the shadow life, not just the visible outcome.


Day rates anchor your income to availability; move to project fees so you’re pricing the value of a lifetime of practice, not slices of your calendar.   


Treat bespoke and repeatable work as two different commissions with two different pricing logics and stop trying to negotiate all of that over email.

BEST MOMENTS

“When artists and creative practitioners move from day rates to project fees or to flat fees based on the scope of the commission, two things happen, the fee goes up and the quality of the relationship improves.”

“Every commission disaster I've ever coached on can be traced back to a decision made over email.”

“A good commission process protects three things. Your time. Your practice. Your sanity.”

Don't forget, you can get a text version of today's episode plus new practical guidance every week if you subscribe to my Beat The Block newsletter – Access it here - https://cerihand.com/subscribe/

PODCAST HOST BIO

With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

**

Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? Join today!

https://cerihand.com/membership/

**

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course

Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities and thrive in the art world today.

https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

**

Book a Discovery Call Today

To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at hello@cerihand.com

**

Discover Your Extraordinary Creativity

Visit www.cerihand.com to learn how we can help you become an extraordinary creative.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Today’s guest is someone who quite literally shapes how stories feel.

Tiffany Anders is a music supervisor working across film, television, and advertising, and if you’ve ever been completely pulled into a scene emotionally, there’s a good chance someone like Tiffany helped build that experience.

Her work spans everything from the Sundance-winning indie film Like Crazy to major series like Reservation Dogs and Netflix’s BEEF. What’s remarkable is how seamlessly she moves between those worlds, bringing the same instinct, care, and emotional precision whether she’s working with a tiny music budget or a global production.

But what makes Tiffany especially compelling is how she got here. Growing up in Los Angeles around filmmakers and musicians, she absorbed how music and images work together to tell a story. That deep sense of listening still defines the way she approaches her work today.

We talk about how a project unfolds from script to screen, how she figures out what a scene needs emotionally, and how she balances instinct with the realities of budget, time, and negotiation.

We also get into collaboration, creative identity, and the invisible decisions that shape the emotional experience of film and television. And there are some brilliant stories along the way, from discovering music as a kid and playing in bands to her recent work on The Lowdown.

If you’ve ever wondered how music really works in storytelling, or how to build a creative life that can hold both art and complexity, this is a great one.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Your early environment matters, but it’s not about having perfect conditions. In Tiffany’s case, it was chaotic, it was under-resourced, it required her to grow up quickly. But what she did was translate that into skills.
It’s not about imposing taste or showing off knowledge. It’s about understanding the world of the work deeply enough that the right choice becomes obvious. And that comes from years of paying attention. From being curious

BEST MOMENTS

“You needed those role models … to be able to go, okay, this is feasible for me, I can do this.”

“In a world where it’s easy to skim, shortcut, and replicate, Tiffany has built her career on going deeper. Listening properly. Understanding the backstory.”

“Creativity isn’t just about what you make. It’s about how you think, how you connect, and how you move through complexity.”

EPISODE RESOURCES

https://www.instagram.com/jumblequeen

PODCAST HOST BIO
With over 35 years in the art world, Ceri has worked closely with leading artists and arts professionals, managed public and private galleries and charities, and curated more than 250 exhibitions and events. She has sold artworks to major museums and private collectors and commissioned thousands of works across diverse media, from renowned artists such as John Akomfrah, Pipilotti Rist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Vito Acconci. Now, she wants to share her extensive knowledge with you, so you can excel and achieve your goals.

**
Ceri Hand Coaching Membership: Group coaching, live art surgeries, exclusive masterclasses, portfolio reviews, weekly challenges. Access our library of content and resource hub anytime and enjoy special discounts within a vibrant community of peers and professionals. Ready to transform your art career? Join today!
https://cerihand.com/membership/

**

Unlock Your Artworld Network Self Study Course
Our self-study video course, "Unlock Your Artworld Network," offers a straightforward 5-step framework to help you build valuable relationships effortlessly. Gain the tools and confidence you need to create new opportunities and thrive in the art world today.
https://cerihand.com/courses/unlock_your_artworld_network/

**

Book a Discovery Call Today
To schedule a personalised 1-2-1 coaching session with Ceri or explore our group coaching options, simply email us at hello@cerihand.com

**
Discover Your Extraordinary Creativity
Visit www.cerihand.com to learn how we can help you become an extraordinary creative.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/