An interview with Char from Endless Love Creative as part of their Spring Makers Market. An insight into how we developed our practice, and what it’s like to run an independent creative business…

Folded Forest - Sarah & Ruth

What does it feel like to run your own business?

It feels really good. We both enjoy being able to manage our own time and make decisions about what to make and how to run things. It can also feel very stressful as all the decisions are on us, and we never seem to switch off! So we’re working on that. Ultimately it’s so rewarding making a living from something we love to do; every time we make a sale it makes us so happy to think people have chosen to own something we’ve created. We have such genuinely nice customers and it’s so lovely connecting with them at fairs, over instagram and email; hearing their stories and what our work means to them. That’s what keeps us going when we’re trying to wear ten different business hats at once and wondering what on earth we’ve got ourselves into :)

You before the brand, what were you doing?

We met in 2003 whilst studying Fine Art at Leeds Met University. After graduating we both went on to work at Leeds College of Art; Ruth in specialist art learning support and Sarah in the Print Workshop teaching printmaking & bookbinding. We both loved our jobs and working with students every day, but after nearly 10 years we were starting to think about what could come next and what else we might want to do with our lives. We’d both always admired each other’s art practice, and often discussed how we wished we could make more of it. We both have young children, and when they were due to start school we realised we needed something more flexible to fit around pick ups, school holidays and parent life in general. It was the push we needed to take the leap, leave our careers and start Folded Forest together! That was 5 years ago and we still feel like there’s so much to learn. It’s been a busy 5 years!

How has your business evolved?

A big step for us was renting a studio space a couple of years ago. Getting all our stock and work in progress out of our living rooms and bedrooms and into a dedicated workspace made such a difference, to our mental health and to our productivity too. We have quite short working days so it’s great to have everything set up and in one place ready to go as soon as we arrive at the studio.

We also got to a point a few years ago where we were making every single thing we sold by hand, so screen printing each individual card and folding all the tea towels, and we realised this was affecting our ability to make new work, there aren’t enough hours in the day! Our driving force is to explore our creative practice and make new prints, that’s why we started our business, but we also need to make a living. So working with manufacturers to produce our core range of cards and paper goods has really freed up our time and given us the ability to grow our business whilst focusing on the handmade prints and textile pieces we love to make.

This year has been a challenging one for us in lots of ways (as it has for everyone!) Whilst the schools were closed we were running Folded Forest alongside homeschooling our children, which was extremely challenging. We were so grateful that we could be flexible with our work; to cut out the nonessentials and fit in around them when they needed us. Due to the lockdown a large proportion of our income disappeared overnight when shops & galleries closed. It was scary but we focused on our website and thankfully online sales & events have been good. It’s been a learning curve but we’re excited about expanding this side of our business and seeing what the future holds! We feel like we’re just getting started.

Sarah and Ruth’s Maker Profile here

You can read the full interview on Endless Love Creative here, along with other weekly interviews from makers and artists sharing insight and advice on running and growing an independent business.