Extraordinary Creatives

I first met Reuben Wu when I was Director of Exhibitions at FACT in Liverpool, and he was one of the coolest musicians in the city, co-founding the band Ladytron and shaping a distinctive sound that travelled around the world.

Years on, he's one of the most singular photographers working anywhere - his images are held in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim, MoMA and the Met, and commissioned by Apple and National Geographic, for whom he reimagined Stonehenge as if you were seeing it for the first time.

In this episode, we explore his extraordinary journey from a Liverpool kid who dreamed of becoming an artist, to an industrial designer, successful musician, and then to one of the most distinctive visual artists working today.

Reuben rigs lights to drones and walks into deserts and snowstorms at night to make work no machine could ever fake - because, as he says, AI can simulate the result but never the process. And he is fierce about something most artists are frightened of: that the artist, not the gallery or the auction house, is the best person to sell and speak for their own work.

If you've ever wished someone else would do the talking for you, this one's for you. Follow the show so you never miss an episode. I hope you find this as inspiring as I did.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Reuben's story gleefully dismantles the myth of the straight-line creative career. Proving no experience is wasted, everything you do can and does feed into the artist you are, today.

Artists are often uniquely qualified to sell their own work because nobody understands the story, the labour, the intention and the meaning behind it better than the person who made it.

Breakthroughs happen when you are prepared for them - when you're ready. Luck is preparation when it meets opportunity. Being able to respond to that instinctively to those moments, creates the magic.
Tap into the power of portfolio reviews.

BEST MOMENTS

“No experience is wasted. The industrial designer, the musician, the photographer and the artist all exist inside the work Reuben makes today.”

“I call it ecstasy - it's like an ecstatic moment where you are suddenly not within yourself anymore. You are suddenly outside yourself.”
“It's like a paintbrush, but with light.”

“Creativity is not a destination but a practice of paying attention.”

EPISODE RESOURCES

https://reubenwu.com
https://www.instagram.com/reuben - sign up for Reuben´s newsletter via his bio here.

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/

Welcome to the Extraordinary Creatives Podcast. I'm Ceri Hand. A former gallerist, curator, now coach to creatives all over the world. I help them to make a bigger impact with their work and earn more money doing what they love. Recently, I have been noticing something, and I wonder whether you'll recognise it too.

We often think avoidance is obvious. We imagine it looks like procrastinating or scrolling social media or watching television instead of getting into the studio.

But I honestly don't think that's how avoidance shows up for most creative people. I think it looks responsible. It looks like being busy. It looks like finally getting on top of your admin saying yes to another teaching opportunity. Maybe helping someone else out with their project or sorting your accounts out.

All good things and things that genuinely need doing, and that's why it's so difficult to spot, because from the outside it looks as though you're completely committed to your creative life, and from the inside it feels as though you're working incredibly hard.

Then you get to the end of the week and realise that you've hardly touched the work that matters most to you.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Being busy is not the same as moving your creative practice forward. The work that keeps you occupied is often the very thing that keeps you from actually creating.

Avoidance rarely looks like procrastination - it looks like responsibility. Admin, teaching, and helping other people all feel productive, which is exactly why they are so effective at pulling you away from the uncertainty of making your own work.

Your brain is not trying to sabotage your practice – it is trying to reduce discomfort. Every time you choose certainty over uncertainty, you reinforce the habit of stepping away just as the work starts asking something of you.

Creative confidence is not built by making uncertainty disappear. It is built by learning how to stay with it long enough for the work to emerge.

BEST MOMENTS

“She wasn't wasting time. Quite the opposite. Then I asked her how much time she'd actually spent making her own work, and there was a long pause, and she said, hardly any.”

“Teaching gave her certainty. The studio gave her uncertainty, and without realising it, she'd slowly started choosing certainty over uncertainty, again and again.”

“What I don't think helps is piling more pressure on.”

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/

We're told that creative talent is something you either have or you don't. Ela Thier has spent nearly 40 years disproving this crippling myth. A New York–based writer, director, actor, and founding director of The Independent Film School, she’s helped more than 65,000 artists find and develop their voices. Her films include Tomorrow Ever After, Foreign Letters, and her latest, 109 Billion Followers, stars Oscar-winner J.K. Simmons.

In this conversation, we trace Ella’s journey from being her mother’s “wild weed” - a third child raised with very little supervision and a lot of imagination, through quitting filmmaking for almost a decade, to returning with a completely different relationship to her work.

We talk about the difference between writing as therapy and writing as a gift, why craft is learnable, and why Ella believes talent is simply the courage to be fully yourself. She shares how she keeps “the rent and the real work” in two separate hands, and the cast of inner voices who appear in her book How to Fail as an Artist: My Best Tips - from Mr. Stop, whose only job is to talk her out of it, to the 120-year-old version of herself she writes to when she loses her nerve.

If you’ve ever stood at the edge of giving up on your work - or you’re standing there right now - this one’s for you.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The story many of us carry is that our work is a private indulgence, a side‑note nobody’s waiting for. You may never see the life it touches, but you are not creating into a void. Make the film, the painting, the book as if it already matters to someone, somewhere - because it does.

Your audience is not a panel of judges to impress, but the people you are taking care of. The shift is from asking whether they will approve of you, to asking what they need and making the work from there.

Keep the rent and the real work in separate hands - asking your art to also pay the bills is a reliable way to do neither well.

BEST MOMENTS

“Ela … has made peace with failure without ever making peace with quitting.”

“Craft is learnable, the writer or the filmmaker is already in there, and that talent is simply the courage to be fully yourself on the page·”

“The book gave me, and gives people, permission to just mess around, which is where our best work comes from.”

EPISODE RESOURCES

https://theindependentfilmschool.com

https://www.instagram.com/elathier

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/

Every week inside the membership, artists send in their questions. Career challenges, pricing dilemmas, difficult clients, creative blocks, gallery relationships, commission nightmares, confidence crises. Ceri works through them live, unfiltered and at pace, with more questions landing in real time from the room.

The result is one of the most popular sessions inside the membership. Fast, direct, occasionally sweary, and completely honest.

No script. No softening. Just Ceri answering whatever artists are actually grappling with right now.

It has yet to be proven that there is a question she cannot answer.

This episode gives you a taste of what happens inside the Art Surgery every week. If you want the full session, the full archive, and the chance to bring your own question live, the membership is where it all happens.

Join our Membership at - https://cerihand.com/membership/

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Admin expands to fill whatever time you give it. Every email feels urgent. Almost none of it is. Batch it all into one admin day and protect the rest of the week for the work that actually matters.
When anxiety spikes, “spray and pray” feels like action – but it isn’t. Instead of firing off panicked applications, start by calming your anxiety, telling your brain nothing’s gone wrong, so you can act from a calmer, more intentional place.
One artwork can live many lives – One piece can quietly work for you all year, let it travel. That film or artwork can stay as a full piece or elements of it can be used for clips, newsletters, embeds on other people’s sites and more.
Selectors aren’t hunting for perfect work. Most submissions are good. The ones that get remembered feel inevitable and alive – like the idea and the medium have clicked so well the work couldn’t exist any other way.

BEST MOMENTS
“Rather than am I right for it? The question is - Is the work right for it? Would your work come alive in that context?”

“We have to carve out the day to make ourselves the most clear-minded thinkers and makers. We have to give our time to that bit that only we can do.”

“Don't do that little garden studio down because actually there will be absolute gold in there, and you want people to access it.”

“We have to remind our brain that our creativity is fundamental to who we are, to everything we do … if we're not regulated. We can't do good stuff in the world.”

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/

Somewhere inside a mountain in the West Texas desert, a clock is being built to keep time for ten thousand years. All mechanical. Wound by whoever makes the day-long hike to reach it. Designed so it´s chimes never ring the same sequence twice.

Zander Rose has spent nearly thirty years building it.

He grew up in a junkyard on the Sausalito waterfront – boat builders, artists, an activist mother who went on to become mayor, and a flea market every Sunday where he and his father took machines apart to see how they worked. Before the clock he was making combat robots that won six world titles, fast machines built to win in seconds. Then he gave half his working life to the slowest object on earth.

What he’s really after isn’t the engineering. It’s a question I keep coming back to: Are we being good ancestors – and what would we build differently if we believed the future was watching? In this conversation we get into where that question came from, what it’s like to design for someone who won’t be born for thousands of years, and what the world’s oldest organisations – a hotel run by the same family since the eighth century, temples older than most nations – know about lasting that the rest of us have forgotten.

It will leave you thinking about being a good ancestor and building things to last.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Trust the future. Build it room to think.

Don’t take options away from the people who come after you. The forest you don’t cut down, the river you keep, the law written simply enough that the next generation can reinterpret it – that’s the work.

The conditions you grow up in aren’t just backstory, they’re training. A junkyard, a boatyard, a poor area – these aren’t obstacles to a creative life, they’re live laboratories. The places you learned to improvise quietly decide what feels possible to you now.

Competition doesn’t have to mean scarcity or shame. Other people’s excellence can become raw material for your own growth, not evidence that you should stop.

BEST MOMENTS
“Look at what you're making this week and ask who it's really for. Then ask whether you're adding options to the world, or quietly removing them.”

“Trust the future. Build it room to think.”

“I was only interested in building something that was the first of its kind. I had zero interest in building another one of anything.”

“Fail fast is definitely the fastest way to learn.”

EPISODE RESOURCES

https://rosefutures.com
https://longnow.org

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 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/