Photos of children making art with older people
Articles

If I were 22: Katherine Brown

Spend some time chilling out in a supermarket car park, arts and health project manager Katherine Brown tells herself at 22.

Katherine Brown
4 min read

Seems like a good place to start! That to-do list isn’t going anywhere. Turn your back and it’ll have doubled in size. I must keep the post-it note industry going with one for every day, optimistically listing my five most important things to get done. It works too, unless something breaks down, or that cheque didn’t arrive. Maybe it should be three things. Just breathe, it’ll all work out OK.

My email signature says that I do my best thinking in supermarket car parks. It’s true. Sometimes I don’t even go in to the shop, I just sit there, in my little metal box, mulling things over and making plans. Finding that space to reflect has enabled me to take control of those times when you’d like the world to stop so you can get off for a while. Pulling on a pair of muddy boots and taking my rescue greyhounds, Storm and Mabel, down to the woods comes a close second.

Honestly, trust yourself. Over the years, tuning in to the kind of people I want to work with and the type of projects I can add value to has been tough, but well worth the thinking time. What’s important is working on something that will make a difference and that’s why arts and health is the perfect area of work. Surround yourself with problem solvers, not problem makers, with doers, not talkers. You’ll soon work out who fits where.

I wouldn’t consider myself to be a big risk taker. I’ll wait patiently for the green man and double check the straighteners are off, but thinking back I have taken some business risks, albeit calculated. That comfort zone is great, but pushing its boundaries, in whatever way suits you most, is good. Listen to those little ‘what ifs’ and you never know what might happen.

In the past few years Beauty and Utility Arts has taken on ideas and projects that would’ve terrified me just a few years ago, but now I trust experience, hard work and an open mind will help me do the very best job possible. We will soon launch a crowdfunding campaign for A Book of Me, a creative life story and information resource for people living with a dementia. That’s something I’ve thought about for years. Now it’s happening, fingers crossed more of those ‘what ifs’ will start to take shape.

Working for yourself can, at times, be feast or famine, all or nothing. You have to work when the work is there, and often that leaves little time to stop. Thinking back, that basic Nokia phone was the best phone ever: a light, snake and buttons that make a noise like a child’s toy. Having access to emails, social media, apps and more may make your working days feel streamlined and connected, but they’re all still there when you’re trying to have a day off, blinking, flashing and beeping away in the background. Stop worrying that someone else will get ahead of you, you’ll miss out on something or you’ll need to justify to the nosey woman across the road why you’re having a holiday… just do it. Go somewhere you love or somewhere new and be inspired. It’ll only improve you.

If you can’t quite get to taking a day off just yet, I highly recommend that car park. There’s a great Asda just down the road from me.

Katherine Brown is Founding Director of Beauty and Utility Arts.
www.beautyandutilityarts.co.uk