I have been on the Community Connections South Next Steps programme with Christine Hammond for over a year now, meeting with Christine approx. once every 6 weeks, either in person or on zoom. This is after attending several of CCA art courses.
I have found Christine to be an enormous support in guiding me towards setting up a Facebook shop to sell my original artwork, setting up a new art site on lnstagram, advising me on good selling practice of my original artwork plus art prints online. Thanks to Christine and the Next Steps programme I have managed to sell some pictures through my Facebook shop -several original pictures to a lawyer in USA and more to various people in UK.
Christine has guided me through finding an economical printer to get art cards printed (and l have had some success selling these too), what type of info to include in my bio online, advised me on pricing, and has supported me to have my artwork exhibited in a Cambridge cafe where I made further sales, and checked my layout for business cards. She has also enquired about finding me further professional training about on-line selling techniques, and has encouraged me to attend webinars I have found for myself. She has also sent me educational videos re selling art, and videos by other artists. She has always replied to my messages on WhatsApp, and I feel she has been extremely understanding and patient too.
Before I joined next steps, I was not a confident artist, in fact I did not even consider myself to be an artist, but having success in selling and being encouraged throughout has increased my confidence and given new purpose to my life since I lost my husband. And I still create art but with more skill and determination now. I have made new friends through all my art creation and selling endeavours, and my relative success has earned me the respect of people who before only knew me as being ill and incapable.
Thanks to CCA art courses and Next Steps I now have a new identity and a more positive confident outlook on life. I also find all the artwork very relaxing and therapeutic to do, and my mental health has improved so that I have been able to reduce my psychiatric medication a lot and still be well. I enjoy the computer side of selling (which Christine has supported me in doing) as I enjoy using computers generally. During lockdown contact with the outside world in relation to my artwork via my computer (zoom appointments with Christine, zoom courses and dealing with online enquiries about my art) helped to stop me from becoming too socially isolated and also it stopped me from becoming depressed during that time.
Christine and Next Steps have helped me enormously and l would recommend their help to anyone wanting to move on after finishing their CCA course to take their learning further. It is hard for disabled people to compete without support and CCA is absolutely great at providing that support.
Thank you to all the team at CCA and to Christine and Next Steps especially.
Community Connections South is a Building Better Opportunities project funded by the European Social Fund and The National Lottery Community Fund
