As you may have noticed if you follow either my blog, or my Instagram or Facebook profiles, I am not normally one to flaunt myself in front of the camera or appear in the press. In fact, I recently wrote a whole blog post about how difficult I find it to do just that, even when it is absolutely required of me.

But as with so many things in life, pushing yourself outside of your well-worn comfort zone brings its rewards. And this week I got mine, in that although I am not literally “in the press” as such, the online magazine feature that I endured all those photographs (and subsequent painful editing session) for has finally been published!

If you would like to give my Meet the Maker article a read, you can find it here on 91 Magazine’s website. I am so grateful and proud of it! 

I don’t (I hope, anyway!) come over as a babbling idiot, which I often feel I do when people ask me in real life about what I do for a living.

This has happened a couple of times recently. The first time was when I went to a party (an unusual occurrence for me!) with my partner and his colleagues the other weekend, which had some quite high-profile people in attendance, one or two of whom are properly in the press a lot.

Surrounded by nice, intelligent, political people who do quite Important Things for a living, I found myself stammering and spouting inanities when asked what it is that I do. Saying “I make dolls and miniature teddy bears” just didn’t really cut it, I felt. People were either baffled, or flummoxed – or at least, that’s what their faces implied when I told them. In a world with so many big problems, surrounded by people who spend their days actively trying to solve them, I tended to agree with them.The second occasion was at a gathering of creatives in my home city, Nottingham, arranged by Holly Tucker, MBE; online personality, business maven and founder of Not On The High Street and Holly & Co. Holly is, unlike me, the epitome of someone who is, as my mum used to put it, “not backward in coming forward”. She understands self promotion as a positive force, and uses it very effectively.

It turned out to be a gathering to promote Colour Friday, a colourful, positive and independent alternative to the cut-price consumer madness that is Black Friday.  I had been invited via Instagram direct message, so was feeling quite chuffed that someone in high places had actually heard of me to invite me to such a gathering. However, when I got there and met lots of creatives from my very own city, not to mention being greeted by Holly herself, whose own self-confidence shone like a beacon in the room, I stumbled and gabbled and was unable to muster any sort of “elevator pitch” about what I do.

Instead, I mumbled something about making dolls again, and felt, yet again, a sense of bafflement from my audience. Which left me feeling a bit inadequate and crap really. Even though 99% of the problem was probably in my own head, rather than anything that anyone else had said or done.

As a result of being over-sensitive to experiences like those described above and not being the world’s most confident self-promoter in the first place, I tend to downplay my own endeavours. Because lets face it (and face this I have, particularly during the first lockdown, when the terrible situation of people dying all across the world left me doubting the point of it all) making “fripperies” for a living is not really very important or worthy in the big scheme of things, is it?So anyway, having someone take me seriously enough to devote so much online space to me, my photographs, my words and my work, has been such a great, and rewarding experience.

I am filled with gratitude to 91 Magazine for the opportunity to be in the press and to put my work in front of so many people, but not just because it’s nearly Christmas and I want to make sales. To be given the time and space to think and talk about what I do and why and how I do it; to be taken seriously and to be made to feel worthy. Of what, exactly, I’m not quite sure, but to have what I do seen and respected and not trivialised, has been a much-needed boost to my rather neglected and battered-of-late self-confidence.

And that has been more precious than gold. ♥