Dare to bring compassion to business - Alison Black

0:10It's so interesting. There's a prison and the one I worked in, you know, it's been there since I grew up in this town and it's always been there and I always used to drive past and think, wow, I wonder what it's like behind those walls. It's a whole other world. I've just always been fascinated in that kind of thing. so when it came to the opportunity of looking for a job when I was qualified and where do I want to go I literally just reached out to them I just sent an email and said are you looking for any staff and then one thing led to another and I ended up working there full-time and I guess as you say I always felt as though if you can work there you could probably work anywhere it's a very intense environment it can be challenging at times and I feel as though the skills I was going to learn there could definitely take me through another job my next sort of career path whatever that may be.

1:07Welcome to the Daring Creativity Podcast the show about daring to forever explore creativity that isn't about chasing shiny perfection it's about showing up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count it's about becoming more of who you already are. My name is Rady Malinich. I'm a designer, author and eternally curious human being. I'm talking to a broad range of guests who share their stories of small actions that inspired lifetime discoveries, taking one step towards the thing that made them feel most alive. Let me begin this episode with a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create?

1:56Today I'm speaking with Alison Black, Managing Director of Studio, Craig Black. Alison's journey started with treating vulnerable patients behind prison walls to now negotiating with Fortune 500 companies, always bringing the same commitment to clear communication, compassion in boundary setting, and refusing to let perfectionism compromise either quality or family life. In this conversation, Alison also talks about how working in an intense prison environment equipped her with unexpected skills for the creative industry, as well as why she's remarkably good at delivering bad news in ways that build trust rather than burn bridges.

2:35This episode follows on from my chat with Craig Black on the first season, and it's about how they both run their family art business. It's my pleasure to share with you my conversation with Alison Black.

2:54hey Alison it's great to see you today how are you doing I'm good thanks Radim it's lovely to see you too and thank you so much for having me on your podcast well I think it was just about time that we got another member of Craig Black Studio to show up and tell us you know what you guys been up to what you're doing and get the spotlight on you because you are in the family business with Craig and your daughter and I wanted to talk about the fact how do you see things from your side talked about a bit about your background and how does it all sort of add up into this commercial enterprise that you guys running that's taking over the world of art so for those who may have not heard of Alison Black as part of Craig Black Studio would you introduce yourself please yeah thank you so much for that really lovely introduction to the podcast and I really appreciate you asking me to be on normally I'm the one more behind the seems so this is a bit new for me but happy to be here.

3:45So yeah my name is Alison Black and I'm the managing director of studio Craig Black. Craig Black is a visual artist based in Scotland best known for his signature technique which is called acrylic fusion. So essentially it's acrylic paints mixed together to make these really gorgeous mesmerizing patterns that he pours on really any object you could possibly think of it's worked on to date. So Craig the creative and I'm the business side so I deal with the overall running of the business I do all the project management the logistics all the kind of client liaison conversations all go through me so any sort of new inquiries that come through I deal with that I deal with the brief I do the proposal and Craig is the creative brain that sort of drives the fun part behind all of that so we work together as a husband and wife duo so as Radim you mentioned we are a family business and the bulk of our work is brand collaborations is what we've been doing over the past few years so Craig creates these really gorgeous high-end artwork but a lot of what he does is live performance art as well where he creates artworks live in front of audiences and that's taken us all over the world collaborating with all sorts of brands at different events brands tend to come to us looking for something a bit different to stand out from the crowd to do something different from the competitors and what Craig is doing is very very different so we've been really fortunate to be able to explore that space and to do it together it's just been lovely it's been a fantastic journey because Craig as you said was on this podcast I think as the guest number five and yeah we are nearly up to 100 now so it has been a fantastic story of watching what you guys have created and obviously what he's created and watching his career iterations from a designer to typographer to what he's become now which is a now world renowned artist with a very unique style and i do remember through a conversation that i had with craig on that previous episode he said that at one point he realized that it's time to stop being everything to everyone trying to handle a business inquiries proposals and actually say look who is the person to help me and it made absolutely natural sense for you to be in the business what was it like for you to see it because obviously i know the for example the view of my wife's you know experience of when you juggle a lot you sometimes really don't think what is the right choice or decision to make because you want to handle everything and do everything well but craig obviously once put his hand up and said i need help so what was that thing for you to be able to actually help and create this thing together because obviously more people create a lot easier operation yeah no that's a really good question and actually it is a really interesting story of how it all came about so it stems back right to the start when Craig went out on his own so that was first that started as graphic design and he's a typographer and lettering artist running his own studio and he's always been a one-man band always done it on his own I was with Craig at that time we were together and I seen him build the business from the start so I could see the work he was doing what went into it what his goals were where he was aiming to be the amount of work he put in I mean you've spoken to Craig you know him he's very driven he's very you know he's got goals he worked really hard to get there so I was a sort of back seat passenger on that journey sort of watching him on this journey which was incredible so he managed to run that business really successfully on his own for a good few years but his ultimate goal was to be a visual artist which he then sort of swapped over into about five years ago so again he was doing it completely on his own I had another job so I didn't work in the creative industry at all I was a mental health nurse in a prison in our local town that's where I worked you know I went to uni for three years to train to be a mental health nurse as soon as I come out of uni I was always very interested in that line of work that was my world I worked in a prison I worked in Broadmoor Hospital at first down in England because Craig was down in England at the time moved down there for a bit got experience there moved back up home got a job in the prison not far from where we live that was my world I was a mental health nurse in a prison and I guess for me it was really interesting to see what Craig was doing but it was very sort of separate what I was doing at that time then so as I said he became a visual artist and during that time that's been COVID happened I was pregnant with our little girl at the time so I was off work I stayed home I got to see more sort of firsthand what he did he was also working from home and naturally because I was at home it was before Olivia was born he was quite busy with what he was doing he was sort of saying to me oh Ali can you help me with a bit of coffee for social media can you maybe help me look over this contract just little things so I naturally got slightly more involved with the business during that time I had more of an understanding of what he was doing because I was seeing it there I was in the background so then time went on we had the baby I was off on maternity leave same thing I was there a lot more he was at home and then he really quite quickly as you'll have probably heard when you spoke to him his career as a visual artist did start off quite quickly he got busy quite fast and I guess at that point it became a lot for him to manage on his own the creative the runner of the business you'll know yourself everything that goes into that he was doing it all on his own it was a lot and at that time we got asked well Craig got asked to do an artist residency in Nashville Tennessee unbelievable opportunity unreal I was still off work at the time so we all went as a family Craig, Olivia and I all flew out to Nashville for five weeks it was insane, it was up in this lovely house Craig was doing this residency in a place called Cheekwood Estate and Garden so he was there Monday to Friday he was there creating art, sort of 8 to 4 I was pocketing in and out but mostly looking after Olivia, she was only one at the time roughly but while he was doing that, so he was working in the American time zone, sort of near enough full time at Cheekwood but also juggling work back home he had a project that was ongoing in america and he also had work back home in the uk so really the hours he was putting in when we were over there was wild he was working probably like close to 14 hours a day to manage all those different time zones and to keep on top of things back home whilst being over there in the state so i guess as his wife and also as a mental health nurse I could see the toll that that was taking on him I could see that it was just a lot for him to manage it was a lot of pressure it was a lot for him as one person and Craig is a perfectionist he's not going to let anything slip he always does everything to the best of his ability on time the idea of missing a deadline is just unthinkable to Craig so he was always very you know he was always very strict with his time but I could see the impact that was having on him as a person so we sat down one night in this house in Nashville and I said this seems a lot for you to manage Craig you know what what we're going to do about this you're getting so busy it is just you what do we do Craig had always said to me from the start that he wanted this to be a family business and he wanted us to work together but I guess my own self-doubt and lack of belief in myself I guess led me to believe that I probably wasn't good enough to support him I probably felt as though he needed someone better than me to make sure that he was going to succeed and be what he wanted to be the last thing I wanted to do was to hold him back but anyway we sat down we had this conversation and he said I want you to be the person that comes on board to help me it needs to be you it makes sense you know the business you've been there from the start we've got the same goals we've got the same aspirations of where we want to be and no one else cares as much as you do as his partner I obviously want to see him do well I want to be there to support him to do that and I thought you know what you're so right if anybody wants this for you and wants this to be a success then it is me more than anyone else so I guess part of me thought what have we got to lose you know let's try it on the flip side of that there was the idea of me going back to work in the prison we just had a little girl you know the shift work the change of lifestyle that would be it would just be a completely different environment and shift than being away from her having to get up really early in the morning to be there for half past seven and you know all that comes with being a parent and working full time I knew that working together would just allow us that flexibility to do things like go to Nashville as a family and have the flexibility around her whilst also working on these really cool exciting creative projects which for me is mind-blowing because I'd never been in that world before to see what Craig was doing what he gets to call work all creatives I look and I think wow that is incredible that you know one you've got the talent to do that and two the opportunity to get involved with these really fun creative projects so anyway while we were in Nashville as I'd mentioned Craig had this ongoing project that he was in discussions with with a coffee company based in San Francisco who wanted Craig to do the artworks for the packaging it was probably the biggest project at that time in terms of the amount of work that was going to go into it that he'd had as a visual artist all those conversations were happening while we were in Nashville he was taking the calls and he said to me that night in Nashville he said I really need you to step up and take the lead on these calls so I can take a back seat and I said oh right okay let's uh-huh that's what you need me to do so right there and then he made me an email he said I need to make an email address we need to be official here so he made me an email address alison at craig.black and he added me into the call the following day and again backstory to this is I was there the whole time so I understood the conversations that were going on for this project I didn't just go in blind so I go on the call the next day Craig's not there it's just me it's the ceo of this coffee company it's their project manager it's they're working with an agency it's their creative director several creatives in their team and me sitting there thinking oh wow okay how have I found myself in this position but you know what I don't know I felt as though naturally I just thought well what would Craig do what would Craig say what would Craig want me to say and essentially to cut a long story short I took that call followed that then up over the next few weeks to get the project over the line signed off and moving forward with it getting everything all lined up to go ahead and did it successfully and I came off that the back of that project saying to me okay yeah I think I think I can do it it was exciting it was fun I felt I don't know surprised myself a little bit by being able to go on and do that he was delighted and from there we kind of came off of that and decided okay i think this is the way forward this is what we're going to do and the rest is history i suppose the rest is very much a history because i'm fascinated that you were a mental health nurse in prison and as you were describing the story of how you came on board and what happened next you said i had a self-doubt i didn't think i would be a good enough for not good enough fit for craig's business but i'm thinking you must have compared to a regular project manager or creative this plethora of a toolkit and sort of this arsenal of actually understanding how to deal with situations that can throw anyone massively because it's amazing to be as you're describing you know in a world of creativity where people do this for a job but because sometimes the reality and the heaviness is so detached from real problems shall I say you know sometimes we as creatives argue about color of the blue or pink or is this the right typeface that people have opinions about something and you're thinking and I'm gonna quote Sia's album title it said some people have real problems when you take it from the world of creativity into somewhere where people are not only in prison incarcerated but also in need of medical assistance that is very much a different side of the world to what we do it's so true i wanted to see how did you this is going to be interesting question how did you end up in prison we'll be back after a quick break this episode is brought to you by lux coffee co the first creative speciality comfy company building a platform to shine the light on emerging global talent with a mission to make a positive impact on a creative industry and beyond.

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17:21Yeah, that is a very interesting question, I know. So I guess I've just always been fascinated with that world, I suppose, how that people's backgrounds and how their lives can lead them on different paths and where they can end up and I feel as though some of the most vulnerable members of society are in prison and it's so important that they have support when they're in there to then get back on their feet and get back out and be you know members of society again and get their lives back on track I suppose when I was doing my training to be a mental health nurse I went to uni for a few years you go on different placements and you go to different places to experience what it would be like working in each place and actually knew someone who worked in a prison and they told me all about it and I thought god it's so interesting there's a prison and the one I worked in you know it's been there since I grew up in this town and it's always been there and I always used to drive past and think wow I wonder what it's like behind those walls it's a whole other world I've just always been fascinated in that kind of thing so when it came to the opportunity of looking for a job when I was qualified and where do I want to go I literally just reached out to them I just sent an email and said are you looking for any staff and then one thing led to another and I ended up working there full-time and I guess as you say I always felt as well if you can work there you could probably work anywhere it's a very intense environment it can be challenging at times and I feel as though the skills I was going to learn there could definitely take me through another job my next sort of career past whatever that may be although at the time I thought it would be in nursing just in a different play for different direction I guess at that time I never saw myself doing what I'm doing now even some of my ex-colleagues who I meet now every now and again they'll say what are you doing with yourself and when I tell them it seems so strange to them how I've taken such a turn from where I originally was to where I am now but you made a good point about the skills that I took from there into the job I'm doing now although it is two completely different worlds there's interpersonal skills there's communication skills there that 100 % I probably haven't realised at the time but have helped me and the role that I'm doing now because I guess one of the most challenging things when I worked in the prison was dealing with patients who perhaps were struggling to understand some of the things that I was saying some of the advice that I was giving them and perhaps not really fully comprehending why they were given that certain advice you know in terms of changing their behaviour, changing their lifestyle and it's all about sort of framing that in a way to get them on board, to understand there's a lot of negotiating, there's a lot of de-escalation of challenging behaviours at quite an extreme level sometimes.

20:09But bringing that into there makes it seem much easier to deal with you know the types of clients that we work with now if we need to have conversations that maybe could be a bit uncomfortable. They're nowhere near as uncomfortable as they were previously in the prison so i guess it's good experience that way i like that you have natural intrigue driving past the prison and thinking i wonder what happens behind that yeah i wonder what's there not to be a prisoner but actually how to help these people because it made me think of like natural intrigue and curiosity of how you approach this from a place of compassion and empathy of how can i be of value to society in a way because talking about de-escalation and how some people are struggling to understanding the advice and i'm thinking that's most people especially the creative ones because we can be and i say we we can be so set in ways of this is what's happening this is what i want to do this is how i want to approach this no nothing else goes yeah and as you said that skill set that you've learned as a mental health nurse actually helps you to de-escalate some of the situations now because people might be thinking like wait a minute you created lovely artwork traveling around the world surely there's no need for de-escalation because I'm sure it's all sunshine and ice cream right but it not really is isn't it it's not really that all the time is it yeah exactly that I mean it's not that it's confrontation in the same way sometimes that there could have been in my past job but when you start conversations and there's a brief that changes and it's setting clean expectations about what's achievable and when that's achievable and being clear in that communication and feedback honest feedback but in a really nice positive constructive way and like was both ways taking that from a client and also giving that back but there's definitely so many skills that can transfer over for sure it's definitely interesting when you said it's interpersonal skills it's interpersonal relationships because when we understand more of ourselves we begin to understand more about others when we stop sort of looking for answers well i don't think we ever stop looking for answers within ourselves we always got something else to solve or sort or deal with but the more we come to be at peace with who we are and what we do and how we think and where we've come from and what is in our dna then you can actually stop focusing on yourself as much and actually start looking outwards and how can i help these people because i don't have to look for any immediate clue straight away and i think in the case of creativity creativity is a very good escapism of okay I don't have to deal with what I need to deal with because I can hide myself away the phenomenon of being busy it keeps things away from what you really need to deal with a hundred percent that was one of the things when I worked there if I had a patient that was working with who had a lot going on one of the main things I would encourage them to do is create art to get themselves lost and there was art classes there's education within a prison it's like a community in itself so there's an education department they can do art they can do that exam there's a gym it's to promote healthy lifestyles and positive behaviors instead of reinforcing the negative ones that perhaps have been brought up with so that would be in most of my care plans that would be well what are you doing today for yourself that makes you feel good for some people that's the gym for some people that's drawing for some people it's painting whatever that may be but that would be most of my advice would be to people who are locked in a cell for several hours per day okay what can I give you to do in your cell to keep your mind off of what it's currently focusing on whether that be creating art and drawing whatever it is writing and there's some incredibly talented artists in there Craig came in actually to do a talk with some of them when I worked there to sort of show what can be done if you have a skill in that creative world there's so many paths you can go down use those skills and turn them into something really positive and it massively helped it really did the feedback was I feel good when I'm painting or I feel good when I'm lost in a drawn I forget where I am for a second I'm able to switch off and that's in the prison but I guess it's the same for creatives in any business I see it in Craig sometimes he'll come into the studio he'll put his music on he'll paint and he'll literally he won't look at the phone he won't be distracted by anything he's so in the zone and I can tell when he comes home at night that there's just a spring in his bed he's happy when he's spent a whole day paying it does something to him that just puts him on another level of just feeling really content I suppose Absolutely love what you're describing about options for the prisoners of actually how they can find escapism I think is a good way to see us as you said they were able to create art yeah because potentially you are one of the first steps to their change recovery rehabilitation to be actually shown what's possible because i feel that people like us are very lucky to know what our opportunities could be we can make our own opportunities we can go after them we can be obsessive but some people from unprivileged backgrounds some poor backgrounds they don't even know but potentially what's out there so showing them that those are possibilities i think must be so rewarding because compared to them we were very lucky that's it i guess sometimes and you made a really good point before about sometimes it's about perspective i think you can get so lost in your own world of what's happening in terms of deadlines or does that logo look okay is that the right shade of blue and is that client going to be really upset that you know i've not done the exact angle that they were wanting when reality is the perspective of what life can be like for other people their problems are so much bigger than that so Craig will even say to me if we have a stressful week which quite often we do in the studio with things like that the stress is real I've seen it within this business too of course but Craig will stop me if I get a wee bit stressed or anxious about something you'll see but listen Ali did anyone and die and it's such it's such a good point because that is when you're working at not even just a business a medical setting in general there's people who they come in and they are very unwell they're potentially life-threatening illnesses whatever it may be and there's people there whose jobs are to manage that and to support them back to full health and that is someone's job who they can go home at night and they think about that and they hope that they're okay and they pray that when they go in the next day the patient will be okay so it does just put it into perspective I think sometimes then make you realize that your problems aren't quite always as big as perhaps you build them up to be in your head.

26:58This is what I want to know, because when you were talking about Craig and say when he's in a state of flow, painting and being happy and looking at his phone, that's a proper cleanse of mind. I think we all dream about a part of the creativity when you can actually focus on what the hell you want to do. but what I want to know how did you metabolize your work before working with Craig because you seeing firsthand so many stories life stories so many people that you wish that there was hope for everyone but you come home and once upon a time you were coming home from prison whereas now we see Craig being unhappy because he's been throwing pain around all day how was it for you what did you do and how did you help yourself to how do you metabolize it so you can go back in the next day and do the same thing again and hope that there's hope for these people yeah that's a good question and it was hard quite often i'd come home from work okay we come home from work at the same time and i'd ask him how his day was he'd ask him my day was so i would listen to him and everything that he had going on and then i would tell him about my day and i guess that helped in itself where it's sort of there's only so much you can tell because a lot of what happens is confidential but the general overall gist of what was happening I would fill them in on and even that in itself would be like okay I've offloaded that I've done absolutely everything I could today that was always my thing I never ever left until I knew I had ticked every single box it's not the type of job you can just leave something half done if there's something happening you need to stay and see that through so I always made sure when I was driving over my car I always asked myself did I do absolutely everything I could today is there anything else I could have done if there's not which there never was I wouldn't leave at that point then I would just need to say to myself okay it's time to shut off now it's family time go to the gym watch a film hang out with Craig hear about what was happening with him and then go back in again the next day and do it all over again so I guess it's kind of trying to separate that a bit which can be hard sometimes sometimes I would think if there were situations happening there I would naturally think of it I think it's hard to switch that off completely but always just think I've done absolutely everything I can there's not if I worry it's not going to change anything there's people there dealing with it now and then I'll go back in tomorrow and then pick up where I left off sort of thing but I guess in hindsight I think when I was working in that world that was just what I did that's what I was used to it's only now I suppose that I realize that life is a bit lighter now probably when we have a dbs craig and i we do still most nights chat about how the day was how things went what we've got on the next day and it's a whole different kind of vibe the conversation's completely different as you could imagine so it's different yeah i like that you said the world is lighter but you did alluded a little short while ago that work sometimes can be quite stressful because when you see the portfolio of what you guys produce these amazing brand collaborations the end pictures look shiny glossy full of contrast and color and vibrancy and saturation we see the end result this is what we get but we don't see behind the scenes and sometimes we think how can this be stressful if someone's looking at it like why do you say stressful so can we put a bit more color on what goes behind the scenes and how obviously you guys spend a lot of time together as a family as a couple as collaborators as a business partners we will talk about that bit because there must be again another sets of tools and ways of how to do this but what goes into these projects that people don't really get to see especially from the production delivery you know strategy logistics and that kind of stuff so I'm really curious about that bit yeah that's a good point and maybe seeing stressful was the wrong word because I guess I don't want that to make me sound ungrateful for what we're doing what we're doing is I feel so lucky to be doing it and to be a part of it I guess there's times when it's just quite intent so by that I mean I guess I've never worked in a creative agency before that Craig has so he's able to sort of compare how that work so because it's just the two of us the way Craig describes it is say we get an inquiry come in from a brand who want quite a lot of work done quite often in quite a short time frame you know what it's like Craig is the only creative that can do it it's him and his paint and that's it his technique everything is done by hand by him it's not as though we've got a team of people who come in and help do that I think that's really authentic part of it is we want to keep it that way for everything that goes out is completely handcrafted by Craig himself so sometimes the timing can cause that can be a lot for him as a person a one person to churn out the amount of work sometimes it's being asked for so I guess in terms of manpower that can be quite stressful sometimes because Craig will say to me Ali you're doing the job of what in an agency you would have an account manager you'd have a project manager you would have all these different people maybe three or four people doing the job of what you're managing yourself right now which I guess does put it into perspective of the more hybrid role that I do I do a wee bit of everything so it's Craig to be fair so he dips in and out with that side of things what you need to do so I guess sometimes it can just take up a lot of our time so although we work in the studio every day we drop a library at school and then we come work in the studio go and pick it up but sometimes when there's brief that are quite full on there's a lot of work needing done in quite a short time frame we do need to work in the evenings there's just no question about it because if we don't do it it's not getting done so I guess that's what I mean when I say it can be stressful sometimes it means we need to go pick Olivia up from school take her home dinner bath bed and then once that's done we start all over again Craig and I will sit in the kitchen at home and we'll catch up sometimes he'll need to come back up to the studio and do a little bit or if it's things that we can do at home then we'll do that and sometimes that can take us up to sort of 10 o 'clock at night and then that can be a sort of persistent pattern until that project's done and signed off and we've met the deadline so I suppose in some ways that can be quite intense where we feel as though being a husband and wife family business is amazing I love it so much but sometimes we try so hard not to let it bleed into family time so when Olivia's picked up from school we don't work we get her all sorted and when she's in bed sometimes we do need to pick it up again which can be a bit exhausting a bit full-on you know what it's like yourself I'm sure there's no set it's not set nine to five when you've got your own business you need to do the work when you need to do the work it's just part and parcel and there's not any other option you just need to get it done it's interesting what you're saying i didn't mean to sound ungrateful because stress is our body's reaction to physical mental and emotional reaction it's a perceived demand or challenge that requires adjustment or response i am reading google right now but we perceive stress mostly as a society as a negative thing but stress is the fuel that there's a good stress and there's a bad stress and sometimes we use stress to positive actions to actually spur us on actually get stuff done because what you describe and it goes back to what you said earlier about craig craig never wants to miss a deadline craig always wants to do a good job it comes from the point of care because if you don't give a shit things are a lot less stressful right yeah that's true if you didn't care about quality of your family life you didn't care about quality of the business i think the stress will potentially subside but being stress is just potentially just the mechanics of delivering quality of life so i think what you describe and it just sounds like you guys really put a lot of focus in a lot of areas and do it really well and sometimes and i keep repeating this on my podcast and everywhere else there's no such thing as end of problems it's something will always give even just if you line up everything perfectly or the ducks are in a row doesn't mean that they'll stay that way because the work looks so peaceful and mesmerizing you're thinking surely that must be all easy right one of my analogies is that when we see that kind of stuff we're thinking i've got expectations of this to go really well and you do a couple of pieces and you feel like a superhero but then the lex luther with kryptonite shows up and go hey listen you felt amazing you felt million dollars but this is the reality of it all because ultimately to get to the process of the final outcome you have to go through so many blocks and obstacles and challenges because as you said at the beginning like what he does is very much a one-of-a-kind sort of situations right now so didn't seem like that was a it was an issue whatsoever yeah i know and it's nice for you to say that and i guess craig being the perfectionist that he is he really provides himself on everything that he puts out there is a hundred percent and that's the end product is like that because of all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes to make sure everything is absolutely perfect before sharing that with the world and i guess that's as you say if he didn't give a shit life would be easier he wouldn't need to probably spend four hours at night going over things and perfecting things and making sure everything was absolutely immaculate he would just turn it out but that's just not in his nature not in my nature and i guess that's what's gotten to where the yesterday, I suppose.

36:35Well, actually, I'm sure you had the quote that if you make easy choices, you've got a hard life. But if you make hard choices, your life gets easier. Because ultimately, what you're building, it's a product of hard choices. It's difficult decisions that make the future a little bit easier. And I think how do you instill into people that care a little bit more or wanting to be a little bit more, potentially the work that you did with prisoners? you can put yourself in a position where when you apply yourself when you see what that possibilities can be that could potentially create easier lives for them and i think that's an interesting juxtaposition we found here that it needs to be hard to feel good i say it needs the hard part needs to be there for the work to feel good otherwise what are we trying to do because how quickly would we get bored if everything was super easy and things were coming together with millions of pounds in the bank and the work would be great no one would care because there is a friction that creates this amazing visual storytelling that you guys produce yeah that's exactly it yeah so true so i've got a question you said you do a lot of brand collaborations and then come to you asking for a lot and asking for it quickly how do you manage that because as you just said it takes a lot of time it takes time to do handcrafted unique pieces so how does that singing dance go with clients to encourage them to slow down and avoid and be more realistic that's a really good question and i guess that's probably what i was sort of referring to earlier when i was talking about the interpersonal skills and the communication skills that i learned through the prison one of the girls i used to work with in the prison a really good friend of mine kirstie she used to always say to me ali you are so good at giving bad news that's what she and i thought okay that's a really interesting skill to have i didn't realize i was good at that but good to know so i guess something i've always kind of thought in my mind and to be fair to answer your question around what do we do when brands come to us and ask for work to be done in a super quick turnaround i guess i just need to be good at giving them bad news and a really nice way sort of explain if you want the quality of what we wants to give you then it's going to take just a little bit longer try and meet in the middle somewhere here's what we can do to try and speed up the process but I'm afraid that what you're asking for isn't going to be achievable and it's just sort of having that conversation which can be quite difficult sometimes but I guess that it's got to be done at times because sometimes they come along asking for things that just would be near impossible and I'm a big believer in just setting clear expectations from the start if you don't it just causes so many problems to say yeah yeah we can do it and then to not be able to do it as i say that is krig's absolute worth nightmare to not meet a deadline he would just oh no he couldn't even bear the thought of it so i guess we just need to have that conversation and try as much as we can to sort of explain that we need a little bit more time and and come to an agreement together and yeah the people we work with our so reasonable and they understand and yeah it's not to this point caused any major problem what a compliment to be told that you're very good at giving bad news it reminded me of the lyrics from song called joy rise by meat muff and it says give me the bad news first because good news is probably worse yeah i feel like there's a t-shirt somewhere there and it says i'm good at giving bad news yeah it comes from a place of self-acceptance you know that you can handle the reality because most creatives would try to give very good news because they would be very bad at giving bad news you know hence why we've got that sort of dance of how much is it gonna cost how much you're gonna pay me how much budget have you got how quickly do you need it because if you say look it's gonna be a month it's gonna be 10 whatever figure look it's gonna be a month it's gonna cost this much this is what we can give you that's what it is you can take it or you can leave it because when you think about it people in prison didn't have a power of negotiation it was either this it was either that because obviously like pricing the work can be quite tricky right so do you have much negotiations with people about what it should be or do people push back or do you ultimately it should be priced from the top down this is what we create this is the value this is the name this is the association this is what we charge yeah how does it work with brand collaborations and commission pieces yeah i'm curious if you can just sort of go around without telling too much detail but i think yeah i'd like to know that because that's what you're involved with now yeah no for sure so i guess because we've now got sort of four or five years of this under our belt we've got a kind of blueprint as to what we do in terms of pricing and in terms of how we sort of lay that out depending on what they're asking for.

41:37So nine times out of ten a client will come to us asking for specific things that they're looking for and more often than not they'll say to us please just sort of put that together in a proposal with a price and then we'll review it. Sometimes obviously we'll have discussion around budget up front and then that allows us to give a really tailored proposal that we know is going to fit within their budget if not what we normally do because there's so many different elements to Craig's work so there's a live performance of it there's the content creation performance part of it where the brand can have all the assets that show the process behind the creation of the artworks there's the artworks themselves there's different objects that can be painted they can be hand painted they can be vinyl wrapped like the Porsche was there's so many different variations at different price point so quite often what we'll do if the client's not been open with their budget is we'll give tiered option where there's a sort of top tier that's all super bespoke hand-painted big involvement live at an event top level and we'll give a price for that we'll then give a sort of lower budget one that's maybe the items aren't hand-painted but they're vinyl wrapped or there's less items or there's not the live art performance you know we sort of move things around and we've got a blueprint because we've done so many similar one we've got an idea and a base point of how much each one would be and we'll put that together and we'll send that across and then quite often the client will either choose an option or they'll come back and sort of curate their own out of the options we've given they'll request specifically one thing from one part and one thing from another part and again we'll put that together putting your face on it and send it along so it can be a bit of a lengthy process especially if they don't know exactly what they're looking for but this is quite an interesting thing about Craig I guess going back to me being good at giving bad news Craig's really good at suggesting ideas that aren't even in the brief and I think that it's a skill that I really admire in Craig where they'll come along quite often brands will come on along and they'll say okay we're looking for this this than this and Craig will say oh well have you actually thought about this because this would be better sometimes I'm on the call going oh Craig that's not what they've asked for you know just they've asked for this so just let's do what they're asking for but Craig's probably got a confidence in himself that I really like we respond really well to where he goes I really like what you're asking but I think this would be better and I think if you really want to make a difference you should think about this and here's why and he'll explain the idea and more often than not they buy into it they trust that he's the expert in his field and what he's saying and why he's saying it so there's been a few times he's done that where you're in conversations with a client and he's coming up with all these new ideas and it's getting a bit out of control but but it works i think when i listen to this and when i think about a theme of the show which is daring creativity daring forever this is how you move forever because you can easily think seeing craig's stuff going oh it's another one of this is another one of those where's the deviation where's the longevity where's the future having spoken to craig on the podcast and the social setups there is so much vision he lives and breathes being craig black no one else is craig black and suggesting things that are out of the box and suggesting things that are not in the brief what's the worst that can happen they can just say no so they can be good at delivering the bad news but Craig is obviously there to lead this process because ultimately if you both are not looking out for the future of what you create then you're quite likely just to end up doing the same thing over and over again sticking with your formula and that was what we would be so it's that element of actually looking ahead and doing things in a way that you potentially can see something that other people can't see because again they're not gray black they are brown that need something doing you know so this is a fantastic way to hear how do you find the pockets of opportunity by just being you and speaking up yep that's exactly it and as you say like you mentioned at the start Craig's massive into visualization so there's a vision board it's right there in the studio wall of where he wants to take his art the different directions he wants to go in what he wants to do what he wants to achieve and that's what he always says is you need to put it out there to get there you need to ask the question if you sit back and just take on very similar briefs after similar brief then you're not going to get to where you want to be so I guess he's got that ability to see where he wants to go and then know what he needs to do to get there and just has the confidence to speak up about it so yeah it definitely is a very daring creative with Craig Black I've got a question I want to know what do you put on your visualization board what is your part half of driving things forward because craig is very obviously well documented in saying what he wanted to do he wanted to have a family business live back in scotland live by the sea we've heard from craig next to craig you've got almost this sort of unpevered freedom to see things in a different way because craig is going to be craig black for a while and before the next iteration what he does and how he does it he's aiming somewhere but your input your auditions where do you see the freedom of being daring and where do you see your freedom of pursuing things as couples and greater business yeah so i guess we do have a lot of the same vision so mine don't vary too much from his the main thing for me is that it's a family business and we can travel together with our little girl it allows me the flexibility to drop her at school every day pick her up from school every day I'm so grateful for that having been in a job before that would never have allowed me that freedom and flexibility that's the main thing for me is to continue to do this as long as physically possible to have that lifestyle because I know I don't want to feel lucky that's not the right word because we've worked really hard to get it but how grateful we are to have that I guess from the creative side I mean I don't have lots of creative opinions I think that's why we work so well together and don't clash that much is that Craig fully drives the creative vision of the studio and I support him with that where I can but in terms of the actual creative ideas it's mostly him I don't know if Craig's told you the story of how acrylic fusion all came about it was all off the back of my gym leggings that I had years ago yeah so I would love love love to see a range of acrylic fusion gym leggings that I could wear to the gym that there's a whole story about that you know k-creates the artwork and they do them in loads of different variations loads of different colors that for me would just be a full 360 moment that would mean a lot to me and also i would just love to wait around town going to the gym and be so proud to say this is what we've done and this is where it started and look where we are now so that would be a goal of mine is achieve that within the next five years or so what an amazing story before i let you go i want to link back to the beginning of this conversation when you said that when craig asked you to actually come on board you felt that there was some self-doubt you felt you might not be good enough that sort of element of change surprise change of gears how do you feel now this many years into the business what have you learned and what has been the highlight of the things that of course you mentioned all the freedoms and the things that you can do what have you learned about yourself because I don't think you feel that there's any self-doubt or not being good enough anymore thank you so much it's really kind of you to say and it leads so nicely into the point that made me feel good enough is the reason I didn't feel good enough at the start as I just felt as though I was just this girl coming from a completely different world into this new creative world I then I knew a little bit about through being with Craig and attending events and meeting people through the years but I wasn't really part of that world see how accepted I was by all the people within the creative industry when we announced that I was joining the business I can't even explain I think you were one of them Radine so many people reached out to me personally to say wow this is amazing what you're doing please let me know if you need any help please let me know if ever there is anything at all you're struggling with I'd love to help you we think what you're doing is amazing I'd never experienced such a positive welcome opinion on what we're doing I guess my worry was that people would think what is she doing what is she going to achieve here she's out with her own remit she's sort of out of depth here that's what I had in my imposter syndrome brain but very quickly I realized just how nice everyone was in the creative industry people wanted to help each other out I've seen it throughout the years people who have helped Craig throughout the years and then those same people and more people since then I've wanted to help me to see us do well to genuinely want the best for us and I guess that just gave me all the confidence I needed that I felt welcome in this world with all the events that we go to Craig was the main person that people would know but very quickly there'd be people who would be coming up to me and asking how we were getting on I'd be asked to speak at events and obviously as an association of plague but then to forge my own relationships with people and to have my own little network I ended up getting a mentor Tim Hughes he's amazing and he coached me through the first year or so to help me with any little bits that I was sort of struggling with it's helped more than people probably realize feel part of that world and I do very much feel part of it now and it's just such a nice place to be and I'm so happy that I made that choice and made that jump because it's been amazing so happy for you so happy that this is where you started this is what's happening this is where you guys going because you just said a short while ago that I don't want to say we're lucky but I had a guest on this show who's created an incredible sort of food business and his story was about the fact that he said put yourself in the luck's path you put yourself in the path of luck because things don't happen in isolation things don't happen in seclusion you need to align yourself with something that can potentially change your life because when you talked about a positive energy when people think of craig they think of it was positive this is what he lives and breathes i've never seen him on a bad day i'm not there with you every day but it's what he symbolizes that's what he stands for that's what he wants for other people and that's what comes back and in the same way luck favors the prepared if you go after what you want it's usually a question of time it's no question of if maybe or when it's more like okay it's gonna happen it's gonna happen because you're working actively towards it so everything that you describe having a mentor being on a receiver and a lot of advice that only forges a creative network that we are here for one another because it's usually those who haven't had time to think about their part in the creative industry or they haven't solved their own sort of careers or they struggle with some of their self-doubt and feeling like they're not good enough they just need someone like us to say look you'll be okay because even though it's a sort of multifaceted world with no rules this creative world you need to make sense of it and having other people to help you with that it's priceless and invaluable because we need to do this for one another for sure and that's probably i should have mentioned that at the start when kate listens to this he'll be angry that i'm sure but Craig being the positive supportive business partner and husband that he is he was the main driving force to give me that belief in myself for him to after every call I would say to him you know how was that is there anything I could have done differently he'd always give me feedback he'd always be really helped to build my confidence to push me forward because he wanted me to be the best that I could be so I guess having him in my corner without that I probably would have struggled to be honest he's always been here he's got my back he's always there and I guess very quickly helped me to build that confidence and just feel as though I deserve to be there alongside him as much as the next person so yeah he's the one I should have been thanking first so yeah let's rewind and thank Craig first for that I think when you think about it your little girl she's already living a story of her parents that some people are just can find it unimaginable this is a life from a family that is driven, knows where to want to go and creating something which is so of its unique sort of character and output there.

54:23It's incredible. How much of Olivia's input goes into Craig's work? That's a really good question. I think the two of them definitely are more creative than I am. So she does get involved to some extent. He helps her come in and mix the paint. She wants to have a say in the colours, which sometimes doesn't go down too well with him because she wants every colour of the rainbow just mixed in together and poured on things so you need to probably that's where i come in and give her the bad news okay let's maybe take out the yellow and the green and the orange and just mute it down a little bit so that works well together her and craig probably once a month or so have a craft day just the two of them they come into the studio and she's got her own little craig black t-shirt it's so cute they'll go on the back they wear their t-shirts they come in they create artwork but she's got artworks on the wall in the studio she's got her own little desk she's got her own paint she's doing her thing she definitely is going to be creative little girl as she grows up and as you say just giving her exposure to that world and showing her the different careers that are available through I mean we take her to a lot of events we went to California April I think that was where we done the collaboration with Meta and we took her there to Meta HQ she met all these incredible creatives there who were all these just amazing creative brains doing amazing things with lots of talks and people sharing the work that they do and she sat through it all and got to watch it all and just to see her take all that in and see what's possible and look at all the different careers and the different variations of the creative sector that she can get involved with it's just so lovely I don't think she does realise that that's a really really privileged position to be in but we're trying to explain to her you should really take all this in and I mean she has only five but just let her see what's out there from a young age and then make her own decision as to what she wants to do but yeah it's really nice to be able to give her these experiences and do it all together it's lovely thinking about one time you actually gave good news it was when you must have announced that you're working with disney yes well yeah what did olivia think of you guys working with disney oh she absolutely loved it she was over the moon over the moon so craig teaches her a lot about logos so they'll point for things and say oh look at that logo and someone designed that and you know explains it all and we got Craig done the Disney D and when that got delivered we opened it all up and Craig had said what logo is that that daddy's going to paint Disney no way she was just so so excited about it so she got involved she's in the video the creation process because she just didn't want to miss that one she stood and watched near enough the whole thing she wanted to get involved and then she loved Moana so Moana was the kind of second part of that where there was a Moana sand sculpture in Cannes at the Cannes Lions Festival and Craig was doing the stones he painted the stones to go around the sculpture as well as the pearl that she was holding so she was absolutely mind blown at the thought of Craig collaborating with Moana she's telling all her friends in school she's so proud it's lovely it's magical for her really it's unbelievable even for us it blows my mind never mind her it's really special i can't only imagine what she's grown up to be become with everything that she's seen firsthand because that's a school of life creativity and yeah experience of what's possible so alison i'm super proud and super happy with what you guys do and it's amazing to see from afar and from near and cheer you cheer you from the sidelines because it's you've creating both of you are creating something which is unique it's exceptional and i think you're inspiring not only your little girl but everyone around you so well done thank you so much that really means the world and yeah i really appreciate you taking the time to chat to me so thank you so much

58:16thank you for listening to this episode of daring creativity podcast i'd love to know your thoughts questions and suggestions so please get in touch via the email in the show notes or social channels this episode was produced and presented by me Radim Malinij the audio production was done by Neil Mackay from 7 Million Bikes Podcast thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode

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