It’s been a bit quite on the Milomade blog recently and this hasn’t just been because I’ve been on holiday. I’ve also been really busy thinking about the future of Milomade. Sounds daunting and I guess it kind of is, but now less – read on…
I’ve been thinking about this since I gave birth to Milo over a year ago, but its taken me all this time to come to certain realisations and certain conclusions too. But all this thinking has also got me into quite a muddle as well. I feel that Milomade is a little lost and needs a bit of rethinking and restructuring, so I put some feelers out recently for help and advice from friends, colleagues and also FCA&C who have helped me with Milomade development since the beginning and got some great feedback – all positive I must add – so I’m feeling rather optimistic about the future of Milomade now.
All advice led to me applying for the Next Steps Programme put together by Fife Cultural Trust, Fife Council, Crative Scotland and Fife Contemporary Art & Craft. It’s for Fife based craft and visual artists and is a programme that will run for up to 12 months and be tailored to the individual selected and include 1-1 mentoring. The Next Steps Programme also provides funding up to the value of £6000 that could be put towards research/travel, development of skills, training, creation of new work and much more.
Sounds perfect for me and the stage I’m at with Milomade.
I normally hate application forms and they always take me so long to write, but this application form was quite easy to complete, although I still got a little stressed with it. When you’ve thought about something long and hard for over a year it’s quite easy to put all those thoughts down on paper – it’s just hard to know if what you put down on paper is right for the application and whether it reads well. I tend to go on and on and on and repeat myself a lot, so it was a nice suprise when I got my draft application back with only a few suggestions for changes here and there. I spent a few weeks writing about where I’m at now, how I got here and where I want to be be in 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, and refining my text over and over until I was happy with it.
The hardest part of the application was selecting the images! I could only supply 6 images and it was really difficult to choose a range of images that encompassed the Milomade product range. If I was JUST a jeweller I could’ve easily just selected 6 stunning images of my antique silverware jewellery, but as I also make stationery, accessories and decorations, I had to select a range of images showing my different products and hope that as a colelction they didn’t look weak.
Anyway, it was all signed and delivered last Friday and I now have an agonising wait before I find out if I’ve been selected. The committee meets on the 27th August and I will be notified soon after that.
It’d be fantastic if I got it as it would really help me move Milomade forward and keep me motivated to work hard and achieve my goals with lots of support and guidance along the way. But if I don’t get it that’s not such a bad thing either, as I could always apply again next year, plus there are so many other resources I could tap into to help me move on with Milomade, it’d just be a bit more work for me and I’d have to motivate myself a little more and set myself definite goals to aim for and promise myself not to let things slide, which I think I’d be able to do if I set my mind to it.
So fingers crossed – will let you know if I have good or bad news in Spetember!
