Five years

This December sees me celebrate 5 years in business, that’s my official 5 years, there were many many months before that of preparation and trying out ideas and of course many many more teaching myself to screen print.  So this is a time of reflection for me, thinking about where I’ve come from and where I want to go.  I took a walk down memory lane today and looked at some photos from my early days in my home studio.

There’s a nice blurry shot of my first print too.  That was the culmination of so much hard work, handmade screen, coated and exposed using home lamps and acetates printed on my home printer.  With everything printed, the screens were then washed out in the bath. It really was a kitchen-table type of set up (except without the kitchen table!)

I look back on that time fondly, but there is nothing like a milestone such as 5 years to make you think about where your business is going.  I may have been in business for 5 years but until 6 months ago, that included years of fitting in the work around other jobs in the hope that eventually I’d be doing this full time.

So now I’m wondering where the next 5 years will take me, the last 5 have taken me from home studio to my lovely studio at Yorkshire Artspace, from printing teeny pieces of fabric to printing by the metre, from a 1 metre makeshift printing table to a wonderful 6 metre table, from selling at local craft fairs to selling to people all over the world.  I look forward to seeing what the next few years have in store.