Interview
Ingrid Fawcett
As part of our Interview series 1, we spoke with Ingrid Fawcett a communication manager, jewellery designer and singer in a community choir that sings to popular music. She tells us about her journey.
Transcript:
Who are you and what do you do?
I’m Ingrid Fawcett, I’m the Communications Manager for ABC Life Support and I also have a couple of little businesses called Silver Fox Silver
Jewellery and Create at 68.
I’m also a member of the Collaboration Choir in St Neots, which is the outpouring of everything that’s going on in your life through singing and fun. So it’s a great place to be, really good people.
How did you get into the creative industries?
It kind of came about as starting as a bit of a hobby. We moved up to St. Neots, it’s had two children, and I quickly recognised that I wasn’t any good at just being on my own at home with the kids.
So when I wasn’t out and about, I wanted to be doing stuff with the time that I had. So I started making and stuff, found bits of material, and started making things like bunting and cushions, and then it became beaded jewellery, which became Silver Fox.
It kind of morphed into various different things because I found different ideas of things that I wanted to try and make, some of them successful, others not so much. But yeah, being able to put together things and create things was a really nice way to just feel like I was
giving a little bit more than just being a mum.
And that’s gone on throughout the last 15 years, and it’s gone in various different directions.
It kind of works in parallel a little bit. I suppose I’ve come to the communications from being a PA to start with with Danielle. And soon again, I’m one of these people that always says, “Yes, going, “Oh, I can do that. Yeah, I can do that, that’s fine.” So that’s gone on from organising her diary to doing the social media, to doing the marketing,
to doing the liaisons with clients and now account managing. So it’s kind of morphed into, again, meandered.
So the communications and the sales is now down to me in a part-time capacity. And then the silver jewellery kind of carries on alongside that.
I’d seen a documentary about Rock Choir when they went to Wembley and thought, Oh my God, that’d be amazing. I like singing, I’m not particularly good at it, but I really like singing. So when Rock Choir opened, I was like, right, I’m there first night, and I’ve been there ever since. And then Rock Choir kind of stopped. And then the collaboration choir was born and it’s just turned a year old. And it’s the most fun you can have with a bunch of people who have all come to it
with a very different approach to life, different things they’re dealing with. It’s a really nice crowd of people. And the Christmas parties are phenomenal because everyone’s just straight away up for it. So there’s lots of dancing and singing and it’s just joyous, it really is.
And I’ve made some amazing friends through it and it really kind of typifies what St. Neots is about in that people just come together on a Tuesday night to have a sing and again, have lots of fun. And then we all go off in our own little different directions and carry on with life, but we’ve always got that connection.
And it’s, yeah, I help a little bit with that and checking people in and smiling and answering questions, hopefully in the right way. But yeah, just helping to organize with Carrie. So it’s really good. So if anybody fancies joining, Tuesday nights.
What tips would you give to someone starting in the creative industry?
There’s lots of things that I’d have thought, if I’d thought about at the beginning, would have made a very different path of what I was doing. I think as a creative and somebody who’s using their hands, you get very focused on making and very focused on finishing and making sure that everything is perfect. And then thinking, right, well somebody will want to buy this, but actually not focusing enough on selling it.
And being confident enough to say actually the stuff that I’m making is good, the pieces that I put together, I can do commissions. It’s not super top end, but it’s going out there and being confident enough to say this is good and this is why you should buy it because I’ve made it. I
think working on things like social media is great, but that’s not always going to attract the people that you want and get your price point right. And all of those things. If I’d spent more time at the beginning, rather than trying to create a page on Etsy, which was never going to get found because you need hundreds and hundreds of items and spend more time doing that than spending making.
It’s a really hard balance to find. And I think it’s just going out there and talking to more people about it and not being put off by the craft fairs that are dreadful. Finding the ones that are good and finding your gang that want to buy from you, that understand what you’ve created is good and really just go for it and not sort of sitting back and waiting for people to come to you, but to go out and really try and push it without being too salesy. So it’s a really hard one.
I think in terms of being creative, I think being part of something where you can share ideas and understanding from other people and sort of say, actually, I’m not on my own because it can be a very solitary place to be. My husband would get home from work and I’d have had a day making silver and been loving it, but the only external I’d have would be radio 2. So I’m like, okay, the people I’m listening more to are people like
Jeremy Vine, which is a running joke in our house. But I think being part of something and almost having like a hub of somewhere you can share those ideas and reassurance that you are doing the right thing and that you are doing the right things for the right reasons as well. I think doing all of those things and not just being a little person on your own in your garden making silver, I should have probably done more of that than really did.