the Creative Life

OPs using their creative talents to make a difference

Many Old Perseans have pursued a career in the creative industries. Here four of them tell us about their work in the visual arts and media.

georgie howling (2009)

Between 2006 and 2009, when

The Perse was still primarily a boys’ school, our all-female A Level art class proved to be a bit of a retreat. We used it to create art, chat and hide away. I remember a lunch time dressed as characters from famous portraits in order to try and get into the mindset of the artist and understand the muse. Everyone enjoyed themselves and the school provided a great creative platform. I began experiments with different materials, such as orange peel, burning canvas, soapstone, painting, leather, as well as beginning my learning with silver. I was lucky enough to make it onto the first school enrichment jewellery group and it was here that I developed a real interest in the processes involved and sculpture for the human form.

I went on to study Fashion Jewellery at London College of Fashion after a year at Cambridge Regional College and really enjoyed the combination of experimentation

and technical understanding. I focused on working with paper and used both hand cutting and laser cutting in order to develop a set of necklaces that the customer put together themselves. I was very interested in the relationship we have with our jewellery and this formed the focus of my studies.

LCF provided me with a platform to work with others and I combined my new cutting skills with the talents of both a fashion student and a print student, in order to create an entire collection of dresses and large hats for the final year runway show. It was a fantastic experience and I still remember the hype of the show.

I continued to develop my skills with different materials when I took a place at the Royal College of Art studying Jewellery and Metal. I explored hand crafted design and began to make leather and metal pieces that were made using weaving, focusing on the material characteristics, such as the flexibility of the leather and natural spring of coiled steel. I WAS INTERESTED IN COMBINING MY PRACTICE AS AN ARTIST ALONG WITH TEACHING AND I AM NOW VERY GRATEFUL TO THE PERSE FOR PROVIDING ME WITH THE PLATFORM TO SHARE THOSE SKILLS WITH STUDENTS.

It was during my MA that I began to explore teaching, sharing my understanding of materials with students and artists. I was interested in combining my practice as an artist along with teaching and I am now very grateful to The Perse for providing me with the platform to share those skills with students.

Everywhere I have studied has given me new direction and enabled me to explore how jewellery can range in size, material, style and durability. I am now lucky enough to work with a range of clients: they either commission me to design and produce jewellery pieces for them, which is my perfect balance of designing, problem solving and most importantly making, or I help them make the work themselves, taking them through the process to make a wedding band or similar. I love combing this creative side with teaching, where I get to share knowledge and encourage others to explore their own creativity. going to the Perse for sixth form

was serendipitous. We were driving past the School and noticed an open evening: as my mother knew the School’s great reputation for the arts she suggested we stop for a peek. A few months later I was in at the deep end, spending every spare moment in the art studio and making friendships that I have kept for life.

I started my career as a graphic designer working in advertising in Bahrain. With a client list of oil companies and banks, I found the work unfulfilling and decided to use my skills in ways that directly help people. This led me to freelance for a variety of non-profits around the world, from global giant Oxfam, to a local outreach programme for Aboriginal children. After travelling extensively, I chose to raise my family in New Zealand, where I live just a few minutes’ walk from one of my closest friends from The Perse.

The power of graphic design is often undervalued, but it can literally change lives. For example, I redesigned a series of hospital

patient charts with the aim of highlighting early signs of health deterioration. It was a massive undertaking with 18 months of trials, but it was an incredible feeling when data showed that the charts helped reduce in-patient cardiac arrests by 30%. The charts are now used by hospitals across the USA, UK and NZ.

For nearly a decade, I have been on the Communications Committee at Malaika, a nonprofit grassroots organisation run by a team of 20 core volunteers, that empowers Congolese girls and their communities through education and health programmes. When I joined, Malaika operated on a very small scale, supporting 16 girls in orphanages, but I implemented strategic brand development, which dramatically increased our fundraising capabilities. Since then we have built nine wells supplying fresh THE PERSE GAVE ME A WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY TO LOOK BEYOND LIMITATIONS THAT I HAD PREVIOUSLY IMPOSED UPON MYSELF.

water to 16,000 people; partnered with FIFA to build a community centre offering education, health, and sports programmes to 7,000 youths and adults; and our greatest achievement – a world-class school, that currently gives 310 girls a free, accredited, holistic education. It is incredibly rewarding to build relationships with each of the girls, and watch them grow up to become happy, healthy and confident in their abilities.

The effectiveness of Malaika’s work has led us to international acclaim. We have been invited to share our story with the UN and the British Parliament’s International Development Committee, as well as being featured on CNN and the BBC.

The Perse gave me a wonderful opportunity to look beyond limitations that I had previously imposed upon myself. It taught me that we all have power as individuals, and anything is possible if you put your mind to it. I have carried this philosophy with me, and it has led to some very interesting places. I am honoured to instill this same sense of excitement and hope for the future in the girls at Malaika.

“Malaika has changed the way I dream – I used to have small ideas of what my life could be like, but now I want to travel the world and experience everything.” Rose Muswamba, Malaika School, Grade 7.

malaika.org / elenadeon.com

Oli Frost (2010)

i had a good time at The Perse.

I took the sciences as well as philosophy, which I went on to study at UCL. Philosophy’s a great subject for when you’re interested in a bit of everything and don’t want to limit yourself by committing to just one thing.

After my degree I did the Watford Advertising Course. What the course is really good at is completely breaking your selfworth and building it back up again. That gets you ready for real ad agencies, where your ideas are binned every day.

I’m now working for AMV BBDO, an ad agency in London. Some of my favourite projects have been ‘The Homeless Period’ (thehomelessperiod.com) and ‘lifefaker’ (lifefaker.com).

‘The Homeless Period’ is a project which gets people thinking about the problems homeless women face at that time of the month. When we started nobody was really talking about the issue, but once the site was out there, it all grew very quickly. It was raised in Parliament, and today it’s run by supporters all around the world. The lengths those supporters have gone to is far beyond what we did – but we’re proud to have started it all.

‘Lifefaker’ was a very different kind of project. We created a startup, Lifefaker.com, which appeared to sell photo packages that let you fake a perfect life on Instagram. However, when visitors tried to buy the photos, they instead found the site was part of a campaign by mental health startup Sanctus (sanctus. io). Feeling inadequate on social media seems like a small problem, but its scale is huge.

Outside my advertising work I’m also a professional recorder player, covering mostly the 00s hip-hop genre (youtube.com/recordaboi). As ‘Recorda Boi’ I’ve appeared on Britain’s Got Talent, where I received four no’s from the judges. Since then I’ve decided to make my own way into the music industry.

If I could give my Perse self one piece of advice, I’d say: “Do your own thing. Don’t listen to the bullies. Even if that means playing a children’s instrument into your adult life. If the recorder is you, then you do you.”

Paul Draper (1965)

i am very appreciative of the

education I received at The Perse. My time at the Upper was particularly happy because of the encouragement I received from Cecil Crouch. His Art Room was a quiet haven where I could indulge in what I liked doing best – drawing. Cecil also did something for which I shall always be grateful: he persuaded my parents that an artistic career was a viable option and that I had enough talent.

At the Northern Polytechnic in London I studied interior design for four years. There, with the help of inspiring tutors, I learned all the skills necessary to become a designer, including the ability to draw perspectives – important for illustrating the designs I was creating.

Thus I discovered there was a market for drawing perspectives for architects, which took me into the architectural world. In 1975 I was asked to go to Iran for three months to help prepare an outline design for a city on the Caspian Sea.

Back in London I was commissioned by the Sunday Times Magazine, first to imagine how Sir Christopher Wren’s plan for the rebuilding of the City of London after the Great Fire might have looked had it been built, and then to draw a view of the long lost Nonsuch Palace, Henry VIII’s hunting lodge in Surrey. Subsequently I was asked by Sir Howard Colvin, the eminent architectural historian, to draw illustrations for his book Unbuilt Oxford, an inspiring collaboration for me.

An entrepreneur called Richard Wrigley and I worked on projects to design brewery-restaurants in New York, Boston, New Orleans, San Francisco and Seattle. Richard took on the management of the Wollman Ice Rink in Central Park, New York, which we redesigned. My office there had a beautiful view over the ice rink towards midtown Manhattan. At this time I also designed a $4million mansion on Long Island and a golf resort in the South of France.

I illustrated how the rebuilding of Windsor Castle would look after the fire there, and made drawings of the proposed new Jewel House at the Tower of London. I invented my own perspective technique and could draw up an interior in pencil in four hours. As a director of two architectural firms I conceived and designed the details of Vintry House on the River Thames and designed an apartment block called St. John in Westminster with 190 apartments.

In 1999 I became chairman of Bisque Radiators and developed the brand of innovative designer radiators until the company was sold in 2007.

I live with my civil partner, sculptor and painter Emanuele Gori in Covent Garden and we work from a studio in South London. I spent a year building an etching workshop with my own hands, but it was only when I finished it and started work that I realised I didn’t remember how to do etchings. As a result I am still learning! The intention is to make etchings of the many drawings I have made over the years of buildings that were either designed but never built or built but subsequently demolished.

Reflecting on my life, I have been so very fortunate to have spent my life doing a job that I loved, and I thank The Perse for having equipped me so well for that role.

MY TIME AT THE UPPER WAS PARTICULARLY HAPPY BECAUSE OF THE ENCOURAGEMENT I RECEIVED FROM CECIL CROUCH … HE PERSUADED MY PARENTS THAT AN ARTISTIC CAREER WAS A VIABLE OPTION AND THAT I HAD ENOUGH TALENT.

PrintS oF 'tHe City tHAt Wren neVer SAW' Are AVAilABle For PurCHASe For £26 (+P&P), WitH ProFitS GoinG to tHe PerSe'S BurSAry Fund. iF you Are intereSted in PurCHASinG one, PleASe ContACt PerSeAdo@PerSe.Co.uk.