Castles are not always grey.
Got a cuppa? Then I’ll begin.
I’m Ali, May’s mum.
After 23 years of being a primary school teacher, in early 2015 a little seed was planted. I wondered if I could set up an art business teaching children ‘properly’, with a decent budget, and not having to rush, that would also cover my household bills. My own school was really happy for me to do this, but wouldn’t allow me to charge a fee, so I contacted local primary schools to see if I could run after school clubs and charge for them, and they all said yes.
I really tried at the school I was teaching at, a Leicester city school with 550 pupils. The Art budget was £80. This is 15p per child per year. As you can imagine, I, like many other primary school teachers, put my hand in my own pocket to subsidise, and became a bit of a magpie, collecting things to use in class.
Dedicated to quality provision, I wrote a complete scheme of work for all year groups based on colour mixing; at the time it was one of the highest rated resources on TES. With my £80 budget and this scheme I knew a lot could be achieved, so I went with confidence to a staff meeting and said ‘I would like us to only buy red, yellow, blue, black, white paint, and teach the children to colour mix’. I’ve told this tale many times, and sometimes I get quite emotional. The then deputy head said ‘But when I’m teaching castles, I just want to grab the grey’.
Castles are not always grey.
I resigned, and set up ‘smARTsy’.
But what about May?
So I’ve waffled on about ME but it’s May’s lovely face that you’re more likely to see. May has been delivering workshops and slaving over the hot kiln for years now…if you’ve ever wondered how she started with smARTsy, read on.
Two years old in 2016, smARTsy was now well established. May, along with the rest of my family, had heard me waffle on about glass for hours on end, and had sat with me whilst I was working in the workshop.
One particular day, I had a children’s party booked, and I woke up with a migraine. I rang May, and asked her to come over.
Eyes closed, from my deathbed, I managed to say (insert weak and feeble voice) ‘Tell me what you know about the glass’ and May proceeded to tell me plenty, she had soaked up everything like a little sponge!
May ran the party workshop perfectly and now as an independent tutor she runs all your Leicester workshops as well as being available for private bookings.
