12 Jun 2025

What does balance look like?

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Back in March of this year I was invited to speak to a group of creative and entrepreneurial women about the evolution of my weaving business, and to answer their questions about some of the decisions that I have made. They asked great questions! It really got me thinking about the winding road that I am travelling on, and sparked far more thoughts than I could share at the time, so I thought I’d put some of my musings here on my blog.

I posted some thoughts on starting out in my business here. This second post is my reflections on the eternal question…

How do you balance running a business with developing your own creative practice?

If there is anyone who finds it easy to do this, I have yet to meet them. For most people this is a continual work-in-progress, and inevitably so because nothing is ever stationary for long.

I know that I have been in the place of thinking “aha, I have this all worked out now, and I have a lovely balance in my life between these diverse interests and pursuits” and five minutes, five days, five months later something in the environment shifts and changes (oh hello, pandemic, fancy meeting you here) and I have had to shift and change in response. And if there’s ever a moment when the universe isn’t changing around me, then it’ll be me doing the changing, as my interests evolve and develop. So my perspective on this is that balance is never achieved, there is only the act of balancing.

Balance is never achieved, there is only the act of balancing.

As it happens this is something I have been giving a lot of thought to lately. For the last two and half years I have been working on a big project which has (i) sucked up most of my time and attention, and (ii) given me a way of working that has been fairly stable. It’s been a very creative project, but it has also been a very outward-directed one, and I think this is an important point. Because running a business can in fact be a very creative experience, and I have learned to enjoy all sorts of things that I never imagined could be enjoyable. No, I’m not yet a passionate enthusiast for the filing of tax returns (an area of business where creativity is perhaps regarded less positively). But thinking of ways to present information on my website, streamlining the booking process for workshops, working out how to get yarn and dye information onto labels: these can be quite niggly things, but there is also scope for learning, for fun and for experimentation there.

So a really important aspect of the balancing act is expanding my ideas of what creative work looks like. It turns out that those three things I mentioned — learning, fun, experimentation — are key elements that help to make work feel creative and energising for me. But it is also the case that the majority of work in running a business is focused on the experiences of others: the experience of people who visit my website, who join a workshop, who purchase something from me. It matters enormously to me that I make those experiences as good as I possibly can, and so my antennae are always tuned to the response that I get to my latest experiments.

    • Making icons, presenting course material, arranging cakes for contextual photos… All part of the job.

    However, I also need space and time just to listen to myself and to explore my own ideas. This is the aspect of creative practice that is perhaps most difficult to incorporate into running a business and yet, for an artist or a maker, it is also the most essential. My intention, not always achieved, has been that 20 per cent of the time I spend working should be spent on my own creative work. And, now that my all-consuming project is moving into a new phase, I’d like to increase that proportion to 40 per cent.

    Because, ultimately, my own ideas are basically all there is here. If I don’t have those to offer, then what is the point?

    When I think about this, the story that always pops into my mind is one told by Grayson Perry when he gave the Reith lectures. His series was entitled Playing to the Gallery and you can still find it on BBC iPlayer or buy it as an audiobook. There’s a section towards the end of the final lecture where he describes the work that goes into putting on an exhibition, and he conjures it up very vividly. He describes the empty white room at a big museum which he has to fill with work, for everyone to look at, and for the press to review and comment on. And this work has to sell, because his income, and potentially the income of several other people, depends on it. But on top of all of that, he notes, there is the expectation that he will go into his studio and create this work “with the carefree joy of a child”. The audience laughs, as well they might, because it sounds like a recipe for insanity.

    And yet, and yet… that is basically the act of balancing we are all trying to pull off in life, isn’t it, whatever we work at? Perhaps the question is less about time constraints and more about the fear that I sometimes hear people express, that “if I had to do it, it wouldn’t be fun any more.” I think that might be a topic for another post.

    What does balance look like? was posted by Cally on 12 June 2025 at https://callybooker.co.uk

    15 May 2025

    Not a leap, but a creep

    2

    Back in March of this year I was invited to speak to a group of creative and entrepreneurial women about the evolution of my weaving business, and to answer their questions about some of the decisions that I have made. They asked great questions! It really got me thinking about the winding road that I am travelling on, and sparked far more thoughts than I could share at the time, so I thought I’d put some of my musings here on my blog.

    Yes, I’ve been slow to act on that thought, but I’m here now with question one. These are not intended to be general principles applicable to all, but just my own experience and reflections.

    Question: How did you take the leap?

    Did I have money saved up? Did I line up lots of commissions? Was I offered one big lucrative commission?

    The answer to this one is simple: I didn’t leap at all. My transformation from full-time employed person to fully self-employed person was essentially a creep rather than a leap. Occasionally I have had to take a bigger step to get from one stage to the next, but I reckon I have always had one foot on the ground somewhere.

    In every decision to do something, there are a host of factors at play. There are many paths we could take — each with its advantages and disadvantages — and there are also paths we may not be able to take, because of wherever it is we are starting from. Since I hadn’t even begun learning to weave until I was in my mid-thirties, I was necessarily starting in a place where I had existing commitments, but I was also in a place where I had support — the commitment and the support being essentially two sides of the same marriage!

    Nor do we all have the same appetite for risk in its various forms. When it comes to finances, I am quite a cautious person. I like to be able to look ahead, be fairly confident about what my expenses are going to be, and know how I am going to pay for them. I don’t always have that security, because life happens — and as a household we have been through all sorts of ups and downs in our circumstances — but again, coming to this business lark a bit later means that I have had plenty of experience of adjusting my costs to suit my means and I know how to live well on onions and lentils.

    Side note

    There’s a fabulous little book called Profit First by Mike Michalowitz, in which he sets out a regime for managing costs within a small business. It’s a regime that forces you to put ‘profit first’ and therefore to manage your costs within what remains, rather than to run up costs and then wonder why your business isn’t making any money.

    He proposes a scheme of many separate bank accounts for different categories of expense (which in the UK banking system might well raise eyebrows), but you don’t need those to make it work. These days many small business accounts offer ‘buckets’ which do the same job, and I now have one of those, but for a long time I just kept my money in notional buckets on a spreadsheet — if you are the conscientious budgeting type, then it works just as well.

    But back to the creep. It may be obvious from some of the themes that appear in my work, but my previous line of work was all about data. I’ve had all sorts of different roles, from building databases to teaching data modelling techniques, but there’s always been data somewhere. And I am absolutely passionate about data literacy, but I will restrain myself from setting off on my hobby horse about that. Anyway, when I left my last full time role, I started teaching part time for the Open University, and mainly taught first and second year undergraduate statistics.

    This was a great job for a maker to have in the background because it could be scaled up one year — teach more modules or more classes, take on extra marking etc — and scaled down the next. It was also seasonal, and a calendar would set out exactly when I would be most busy during the year, so I could plan around it. Most importantly of all, here in Scotland we have a fantastic little band of maths and stats people, who are a delight to work with — and in the end, that was the hardest thing to give up, even when I no longer needed the money!

    Some data-inspired weaving from the archive

    I was down to one class a year, ostensibly a full-time equivalent of 0.11 or about half a day a week, but it was necessarily taking up more of my brain space than that, and finally I needed to let it go so that I could do other things. But I think it is worth pausing to highlight that particular benefit of a job outside one’s own business. There is a lot to be said for having colleagues — peers who are not only doing the same sort of thing as you, but whose interest is embedded in the same organisation or service, whether that’s a local business, a council department, or a small corner of a multi-national corporation. When your business is entirely your own, there is nobody who is invested in it like you are, and that can be lonely. While you are finding your way, your community, your networks, it isn’t daft to hold onto that collegiality in another endeavour and make the most of it.

    I’d also like to add that it is perfectly normal to have a job besides your own business, and I know dozens of established artists and makers who do different kinds of work (we might want to reflect on the economics of this, but that’s another story). Because it isn’t a part of the maker’s life that we typically see on Instagram, it is easy to think that it doesn’t exist, but it is important to remember that we are only seeing what the maker selects for us to see. And the reasons for the omission may not be what we think, either. I’ve never made a secret of my OU teaching, but it also isn’t something I tended to plaster all over my blog or social media — though you’ll find it mentioned here and there if you look back over the years — because I knew that my students were googling me! My discretion was actually driven by the job itself rather than by the desire to appear more self-sufficient as a weaver.

    Not a leap, but a creep was posted by Cally on 15 May 2025 at https://callybooker.co.uk

    22 May 2023

    Gracious Preservations

    2

    Gracious Preservations is the name I have given to this garment.

    The garment

    The back panel, front panels and the neck facing are handwoven in silk and organic cotton, while the side pieces and neckband are a lightweight organic Tencel I purchased from Bawn Textiles. I used the Tibetan panel coat pattern from Folkwear, adapting it somewhat to eke out the small quantity of fabric I had woven – because when I wove it, I had a different garment pattern in mind – but isn’t that the way things go?

    The fabric

    The fabric itself is a close relation of this project – yes, it is the same warp and weft, and the weave is also based on sound recordings of handwashing during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, I used that underlying structure more loosely this time, allowing myself to intervene in the design and introduce marks of my own.

    The name

    The phrase Gracious Preservations comes from a description of a journey taken in Ladakh in 1885 and recorded by my great great grandfather. He wrote, “Passing through rivers, or over them, on swaying bridges made of twigs; crossing glaciers, with dangerous ice hanging from steep, rocky precipices, where one truly carried one’s life in one’s hands; traversing partly snowed-up passes 14,000, 16,000, 17,000 and 18,000 feet in height. There were so many gracious preservations from danger that the recollections of this journey are truly a page of memory which my dear wife would not, on any account, be deprived of.”

    The person

    The fabric and the coat, then, are a reflection on the life of my great great grandmother, Adelheit Schubert, which seems a very extraordinary one from a distance of 150 years and several thousand miles.

    In brief, she travelled from Germany to India in 1876 to marry her sister’s widowed husband and work with him at the Moravian missions along the Indo-Tibetan border. And I must admit I find every part of that sentence is quite startling, before we ever get near the snowed-up passes.

    I only know the barest outline of Adelheit’s life, but I find it striking how profoundly its course was affected by disease. Her older sister had died of a fever, possibly typhoid, in the spring of 1876, which was the catalyst for her journey and her marriage. And in 1891 her husband died of typhus. Adelheit herself, though she became very sick, was again graciously preserved. However, her life in Ladakh was now over and she returned to Europe at the end of that year.

    “Gracious Preservations” was posted by Cally on 22 May at https://callybooker.co.uk

    26 Aug 2022

    Personal Approaches to Design

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    I can’t tell you how pleased I am to hold the new Complex Weavers book in my hands. Having been present at the moment when the first spark of the idea was seen, I’m acutely aware of how much effort from how many people it has taken to nurture that spark into the beautiful finished volume. The book celebrates the 40th anniversary of Complex Weavers and commemorates the life of Wanda Shelp, who served the organisation in many capacities over many years. It is a wonderful accomplishment by the editor, Laurie Autio, and her team.

    Photo shows the front cover of the book, its title "Eight Shafts: Beyond the Beginning" and subtitle "Personal Approaches to Design". Edited by Laurie Knapp Autio, and the Complex Weavers logo.

    The book’s subtitle Personal Approaches to Design is a theme which resonates strongly with me, and if you are interested in the many different ways weavers turn their ideas into cloth then I think you will love it. I’m honoured to have a piece of my own work included here: an over-sized scarf in double huck called Through the Looking Glass.

    Eight shafts: Beyond the Beginning is available to order from the Complex Weavers Marketplace. In the UK, however, it may be more affordable to purchase from The Handweavers Studio, because the postage costs from the US are substantial. And at the time of writing, I see they have just re-stocked!

    Personal Approaches to Design was posted by Cally on 25 August 2022 at https://callybooker.co.uk

    19 Aug 2022

    Postcard from Sutherland

    0

    Scotland is blessed with an exceptional quantity of coast for its size, which is perfect for those of us who love edges.

    My home stretch of coastline is along the Firth of Tay, but I love to visit all the other edges too, especially those further north. One of my favourite areas to visit is Sutherland, in the farthest north-west corner of Scotland. The pandemic has kept us away for a few years, but that meant it was all the more of a treat to head back there in July. I feel as though I have only partly returned home…

    Working with sound as a design inspiration has been an ongoing interest for me since I first joined the Aural Textiles project in 2018, and watery sounds are right at the top of my list. I took a lot of photos on our trip, but also captured just as many sound snippets. My phone calls them ‘voice memos’ though in truth they are mostly ‘wave memos’. I am looking forward to exploring these creatively over the coming months, and in the meantime I have discovered that Descript (the program I use to transcribe and caption my teaching videos) offers a little visualisation tool – perfect for sending you an audio postcard from Sutherland.

    The idea of using sound as a design source can seem a bit strange. It’s appealing in principle, but how exactly do you make it work as a weaving? Of course there is no single answer to that question, but a whole host of possible answers depending on the way you like to approach the loom.

    I’ve been sorting out my ideas on this in order to develop a brand new online workshop, which is quite exciting. It is an opportunity to bring together several different strands of design thinking, and to see how they complement and support each other. My thanks go to the Weavers’ Guild of Boston for setting me this challenge! I’m looking forward to leading the workshop in November, and to learning what sounds they find inspiring.

    Postcard from Sutherland was posted by Cally on 19 August 2022 at https://callybooker.co.uk

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