Babble + Yak

Emma   If you know me well, or not, and were asked to describe me in a few words, one of those words might be overthinker.  For the last year I have over thought a lot of things and really spectacularly failed at getting that work life balance.  We have all had to adapt during and after lockdown.  One way I did was to take on full time work.  While I enjoyed working with some of the people I did, I did not like the role.  It made me ill, and tired, so tired that it became all consuming.  Making art was far from my mind, well not entirely, I felt guilty that I wasn't making, I felt that I was letting myself down, that I would be de-skilling myself by not practising, giving myself a creative block.  I didn't pick up a pencil for months. While I joked with some friends about this, and perhaps it was a time to give up on it all, there was a serious thought process going on.  What if I did stop? what would I do? What wasn't working before that I c...

  Its that time of year again!  Its always good if and when you can, to support small or independent business' and as Christmas 2020 fast approaches its seems even more important to champion this market.  Gifting something from a small business comes with love and gives the recipient something really a bit unique.  Below we have listed some shops you may want to visit.  These are people we love, know through our business community, or have bought from.  We have tried to group them but grab a brew, put your feet up and have a scroll through!  were not in the habit of promoting ourselves but if you would like to visit Jess or Emma's shop then just click our names-Happy Shopping! Prints-cards-calendars  Sketch book designs -Sunderland lad, Manchester based, music, football and city typography art. Emma has bought t-shirts and cards in the past-good gifts for the men in your life that are typically hard to buy for....Free UK delivery-Sign up to news...

Hello!  I n May myself and Jess took part in the Whitley Bay carnival online.  The following is a ‘brief’ take of an interview that we took part in as part of that event.  For ease of reading we have highlighted the questions and bullet-pointed the answers; the original transcript is over 5000 words……. E-Right, Im recording J-Here we go…… Hi Everyone, we are Emma and Jess, we run babble and yak together which is a blog we started about a year ago.  It is all about the creative, working for yourself but not by yourself being each other’s sort of virtual cheerleaders-it seemed quite fitting to share our understandings on a blog for other creatives to share their experiences.    Emma and Jess  We have known each other a long time and had planned to show together this year at Whitley Bay for the first time but for obvious reasons this didn't happen! So, we decided to do something virtually together instead.   Last week we put out a call for...

Yak:Emma  February, ah the month of love, pancake day and my birthday! (my brother's as well but as he doesn’t write this, I am not sure it should really be mentioned…) If you’re anything like me, then you are probably not feeling the love, worrying about the calories and aghast that the year has gone so quickly.   When I say year, I do wonder where the last 16 years have gone. Way back in 2004 I graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University with a 1 st class hons degree, world was my oyster and I genuinely thought that by the time I was my age now, I would have achieved so much.   Charcoal drawing circa 2004-hanging fabric E Pinnock  To unpick that a bit I should say what I mean by achieving.   The d efinition is, 'to successfully bring about or reach (a desired objective or result) by effort, skill or courage'    On reading this I can already see that it doesn’t mention anything I measure my own achievements by; a high-flying career,...

Yak As months go, January is pretty loaded.  Expectations are high, motivation is at its most powerful new me; new you, new everything.  I don't buy into this much (I did for many years, but honestly, you're good as you are) but I do love a list and a plan.     Social media has a lot of positives, and my personal favourite is Instagram, but it also has a fair amount of negatives.  With January and creatives there is a mass of new planners, success sharing from 2019, goal planning for 2020, exciting opportunities and that is all great, I am genuinely happy for those successes, art gets a rough deal and its great that people are making progress.  For me though, its one big comparison of what I haven't achieved, to goals I haven't met, to work I am just not capable of making.        For me, comparisons have always been around.  At school, constant comparing with others on where their life was going, boys, body's and grad...