My name is Eleanor. I’m a writer, artist, tutor, speaker, coach and consultant.
And I’m on a mission: to spread creativity throughout the world.
When I was a kid I loved everything creative; I was imaginative, playful, always dreaming and doing … and as an adult, I was this close to losing all that.
As a child, I loved art. I loved drawing, making, reading, dancing – anything creative! I’d make witches’ potions from flowers, faces from fruit salad and spend a lot of time putting together the perfect outfit to go to the supermarket.
I worked hard to get to art college, then to art school and then onto an MA in History of Art.
And then … I went into the ‘real world’. I forgot about how much I loved art.
I forgot about my little creative child.
It just seemed so much easier to do something acceptable and proper and get a ‘real job’. So I ended up working in marketing.
I worked in marketing for big clients like Marks and Spencer, Lloyds TSB, Unilever, New Look and BMW. I wrote, pitched and won a £1.5m communications strategy for a national telecoms provider when I was just was 25. I worked hard and fast and … forgot about the person I used to be.
I forgot what was really important to me: Creativity. Connection. Changing the world.
I was so busy pumping out work for big brands that I’d forgotten about that little creative child who loved reading, who loved dressing up – the little child who was so very happy being creative.
I was unhappy and stressed. Worst of all, I was unconscious of what was happening.
One day, after a particularly shitty week at work, I looked around at what I was doing.
And it came to me like a firework inside my brain.
All of my creativity was being pushed into just a couple of outlets: the clothes I wore. The little blog I ran. The tiny bits of travel I managed to book.
I was ignoring the thing I loved most in the world and cramming it into tiny spaces where it couldn’t be big, bold or world-changing.
I was on the treadmill to wake up in twenty years and wonder what I’d done with my one wild and precious life.
So I packed in my job.
I set up by myself.
I helped other creative people to build interesting, enjoyable businesses.
I became a university lecturer so I could support the next generation of creative people.
I started writing poetry and performing it (and winning awards).
I travelled – a lot!
I started honouring that creative child.
I started living.
