As a freelance artist and creative practitioner, Heidi Mehta works across Newport, Cardiff, Swansea and the surrounding areas. She regularly facilitates workshops in schools, community centres and arts spaces, the latter of which was where she came to hear about CICH Newport.
“Someone at The Riverfront in Newport told me about the programme of events,” says Heidi. “She mentioned a series led by Grace Quantock, as well as a business startup programme and a programme for women business owners. I signed up for all three!”
The first CICH Newport event Heidi attended was one of Grace Quantock’s sessions, which profoundly changed her view of her own value and how she manages her time.
“One theme was about reflecting on who you are as an individual, but also as a creative practitioner. Grace has physical disabilities that affect how much work she can do. The approach she uses to balance her work life with her personal needs forced me to assess how I work; I'm a working mum with two children, wearing many different hats and spinning multiple plates, and I sometimes overlook my own needs.
“I do so many hours of extra unpaid work outside my actual deliverable work (such as admin, planning and so on), but it’s not sustainable in the long term to ignore the time and effort these things take. Grace taught me about the benefits of factoring in these additional demands when we think about how long something will take. It helps manage expectations and enables you to create more realistic plans for the working day, while helping ensure we get paid for the work we put in.”
Another point Grace highlighted was around hidden value. “She said we all have resources and assets that we bring to things outside the deliverable work, which I hadn't considered before,” says Heidi. “I've got years of experience within the arts sector and often find myself imparting advice and supporting other artists and my clients, but I just give it away.
“Before going freelance seven years ago, I worked for the Arts Council of Wales for 13 years then took redundancy. I went from having this big organisation behind me to being alone. It's taken me a while to be confident enough to say I run an organisation and have this wealth of knowledge and experience. Thanks to Grace’s workshops, I now value myself, my expertise, my resources and my time more; they are part of why people work with me, and I feel much more confident to have conversations around budgeting for these things when I quote for projects.”
The other CICH Newport programmes Heidi is taking part in will help her build momentum around her multidisciplinary creative art studio practice. “While this arm of my business doesn’t bring in as much money as my other work at the moment, it’s where I get my creative inspiration from,” she says. “I’m looking forward to learning more about ways to make money from it, how to go about marketing and branding, and that sort of thing.
“One really important realisation I’ve had is that creatives with businesses often think differently to the typical businessperson. I’ve been on business courses before that felt stiff and stuffy; they didn’t take into account how creative my thought processes are. For example, rather than making notes in a meeting, I find it more beneficial to draw or doodle. This is something that some people frown upon, because they think someone who is drawing can’t also be listening. However, for me and some other visual thinkers, it helps me focus on what’s being said and helps me retain the information better. Having the permission to creatively develop myself in ways that I'm familiar with has helped me think constructively about my business side, far more so than a lot of courses I've done in the past.”
Reflecting on the CICH Newport programmes, Heidi feels like she’s benefited in so many ways, but wishes more local creatives could experience the programmes too in the future.
I definitely think there’s a need for what CICH Newport is providing. While I’m quite well-networked in the community arts sector, I'm less so with my personal studio practice. It can feel isolating in my studio on my own, so the chance to find a few more artists that work in that area is brilliant, and so important for our wellbeing.
“Imagine if we could have permanent local hubs where you could go to talk to other creatives and have opportunities for regular training in and around your creative business. It’d be really good for the sector and the individuals within it; people could have regular opportunities to learn, to continue their development and to nurture new talent. It’d be a game changer, and I'd love to see it happen.”
