‘Stop f***ing around and be true to yourself: how to make a living from art.’

Short on time, skip to the juicy bits:

• Dave’s journey to becoming an artist full-time. 0:00

  • Journey to becoming an artist full time.

• When did you first realise the value of integrity in your business? 2:20

  • 0.3% of work gets signed off the first time.

  • Why turning 50 was a trigger moment.

  • Identifying as an artist.

  • Selling his first piece of art.

• Why screen-printing is important? 7:33

  • Why he started screen-printing.

  • How he started working with galleries.

• How did you get started in the business? 10:16

  • The process of developing a new style.

  • How to figure out what it takes to be an artist today..

  • Exclusive deals with galleries.

• How do you work out pricing your work? 15:51

  • How he works out his day rate.

  • How important it is to create a brand as an artist.

• The power of polarising your work. 18:52

  • Creating niche audiences and risks.

  • Having an element of personality in his work.

  • Challenging the status quo.

• What was your benchmark for success in advertising? 23:14

  • Success criteria.

  • Finding a balance between personal happiness, creative fulfillment and commercial reward.

• The cathartic process of crafting with your hands. 28:41

  • The cathartic process of making something with your hands.

  • Make your own opportunities.

• How do you create your luck? 30:45

  • The liberation of being a solo artist.

  • The importance of having an open mind.

  • The importance of having an itinerary of things to work on.

• Advice to your younger self. 36:03

  • Find a network of people to share and support each other.

• Career highlights and overcoming hurdles. 38:21

  • The Peter Blake story.

  • How Dave gets through creative block.

  • How Dave deals with pitch fever.

• How important are digital skills for screen printing? 43:15

  • The importance of digital skills in screen printing.

  • Creating unique prints vs limited editions.

• How to monetize your art? 46:00

  • How to monetize one-off pieces of art.

  • The importance of not relying on one thing to solve all of the financial issues.

• The importance of mentoring. 48:56

  • Why mentoring is important to Dave.

  • The impact mentors have had on Dave’s life and career.

Full transcript

Emma Alexander 00:00

Okay so Dave, honestly you, thank you so much for coming and joining me today. Thank you. What's one good thing that's happened to you today?

Dave Buonaguidi 00:15

I slept. I actually slept last night. I had acupuncture late last night and for the first time in about four months more I slept from about 11 o'clock till about 7:30 Perfect. Normally I'll wake up at about four o'clock so I slept which was good. I feel really knackered as well which is really odd. You think I'd be alright, but I feel

Emma Alexander 00:41

really slightly Well, let's dive straight into it. Tell me briefly about your journey. When did you make the leap to sort of being an artist full time and why? What was the driver for you making that change?

Dave Buonaguidi 00:55

It was quite a contorted story because I was working at in all the agencies I've ever worked at. I've always done art stuff on the side because, you know, I was lucky enough when I started in the 80s the ad business was still pretty creative and I was you know, had lots of energy and I was doing lots of stuff. Painting and making stuff I didn't really know I didn't have much of a direction at the time, but it was just something I did on the side. I actually found that the more stuff as as work got more meeting heavy. I actually found that my creative output as an artist or maker started to quadruple because I had a studio in my place a basement room in my place and split the fields for years. And when I was working at Channel Four, I would spend most of my time in meetings and and so at night when I got in and on weekends I would just be making stuff and I noticed that I was making more stuff when I was being more corporate. I think there was some little signs there. In the various agencies that have worked out when I set up calm Rama obviously the first few years I was crazy busy as it got bigger and bigger and you employ more people. It became a little bit easier for me to do more stuff. The thing I've really genuinely found really frustrating was in advertising. The longer I stayed in it, the less opportunities I saw for producing creative work. And you would notice that the amount of work they would have to produce to get one piece of good work through. We just be extraordinary. And I think we did a survey when I was at karma, and I think we discovered that it was something like point 3% of the work we presented would go through first time which is an appalling Wow, looking kind of stuff stat that just shows you that you know that's that's pretty intelligent planners, creative people, internal people as part of the structure when the client sets a brief and you still only get it right point three of the time. It's appalling and I just thought it's just such an appalling waste of talent time. You know, so then you start to think, well, if you're running the business, how would you do it, you know, you've got to hit, you should be hitting 50% Rather than point 3%. And I just looked at the numbers it doesn't and none of it made any sense because it should be moderately straightforward now and it's still as complicated as it ever was. The briefs are useless. The work is terrible. Why is it still such a struggle to get work through clients? And it's because you've got 20 people in the agency 20 people on client side all of whom want to have an opinion they all want to shoot their mouth off at some stage and put their mark on it. And also everyone's desperately fearful of upsetting anybody. And so the work just ends up being vanilla ice cream. And when I look at them when I looked at the numbers of so here we're doing 100 ideas every day that I have to throw away 99% of them I found really, really frustrating. Whereas when I when I was making stuff for myself, I couldn't make all the ideas that I come up with. And I think it was just that continuous. Constant. You know, when I'm an artist, I get to make everything when I work in advertising, I get to make nothing. And I think it was just that trigger moment that I just when I just got so frustrated. I just I just started doing it more and more. I happen to be going through a breakup of my marriage. So I have lots of time, weekends and evenings and mornings before work when I was working unlimited and Crispin Porter. I could just go in and do stuff all the time. And then I just think it was always that fear of stepping off one. What one motorway sort of street and knowing how to make a living. I've been doing it for a long time to suddenly switch over to another road can be terrifying. But I think for me I looked at the numbers one day and realised that I was making more money doing it two days a week than I was to advertising six days a week. And I just thought, I just need to take that job. So I was 5054 when I decided to do it and I'm not getting any younger and you know I'm running and when you're 54 and advertising it's all a bit sad. Yeah,

Emma Alexander 05:03

I must admit I do love that part of your book. I'm gonna bring out this book here, blah, blah, blah. You know, we said about I realised I was kind of over halfway through my innings and actually got to make a count. So when did you first realise that you actually identified as an artist did you have like a penny drop moment where you were like,

Dave Buonaguidi 05:23

well, I mean, I've kind of you know, when people asked me if strangers asked me, what do you do? I used to say I was embarrassed to say that I was in advertising because it was a it's not a very worthy business. I'd set up lots of businesses, you know, with co founded agencies calm Ramas loops that were all based on really strong values and you know, lots of integrity. But I always still felt a bit embarrassed about working in the business and people say what do you do? And I'd always laugh about it. No, I'm an ad. I think that basically summed up, you know, probably one of the more moral ones if there's such a thing. But when I sort of identified as an artist, the minute I've when it was when I sold my first piece and I remember I did a whole load of pieces in 2014 and sold them and I suddenly thought hold on there's something in this there's something about it was actually a piece that I did when Charles Saatchi strangled his wife and it was when I was working at camera I built a full size model of Charles Saatchi with a red head with horns that the cover of his book, went down to TK Maxx put a suit on it. You had an interactive arm so you could take a selfie of yourself getting strangled by Charles Saatchi and we're going to leave it outside the Saatchi Gallery. But the agency at the time was absolutely scared about doing anything like that. I sent it into I sent an email to three galleries, saying Do you want to do something naughty? One of them responded within three minutes it was Dario at jealous who just said yeah, what is it? I didn't even send him a picture send him a picture. Saying this is what I want to do. He said where is it? I said it's at home. He said can you get it to the gallery I put it in a band gallery. Three days later, I was on holiday in Italy picked up a copy of the sun and it was on page five and that's an it said a young unknown British artists and I thought well artists young take that. I'll take that. One of those things where I think suddenly that was the kind of thing that I was really struggling to do with my clients. Get them in national press talk people talking about it because you've done something that's interesting not just because yeah, the hell out of India some useless ad and suddenly being called an artist made me feel like wow, I am am I an artist? I can be I shouldn't be and I want to.

Emma Alexander 07:34

Yeah, why don't you work mostly most known obviously, it's not your screen printing. So why screen printing and how did you really drill down your style because obviously you have a really recognisable signature style now I think I think when we originally started talking we talked about typography and colour are used to funds but that's you know, less is definitely more we know that so how my screen printing and how did you drill down on this particular signature?

Dave Buonaguidi 08:01

I think it was when I left camera they put me on gardening leave for a year I was going to set up another business they stopped me from working for a year. I went and did the course of print club for literally two days after I've left Yeah, great. And sort of saw the process was reminded that process because I've done it when I was at college back in the 80s and suddenly thought Hold on. There's something really interesting about this that it's printing, which is like the printing world. I'm from advertising where the work I do gets printed and mass produced. I have a chance to sort of actually make something because that was one of the frustrations in advertising. If you came up with a good idea, you always have to give it to somebody else. And and so it was this sort of reason I love printmaking is because we live in a digital world. We produce everything on our computers, but with printmaking, you have to get pots of encounter and spatulas and squid and squeegees and you make a mess and the machines are great thing. Heavy, you know steel machines that have been around. They're probably the same sort of thing that we're carrying around in the 40s and 50s. And so I love that kind of slight harkens to the past. And also it's a trading skill that you have to learn so I fell in love with it immediately and saw it because of the mass produced nature of it. I saw it as a very good vehicle to be able to come up with concepts and ideas and then mass produce them and then ideally sell them to lots of people.

Emma Alexander 09:23

Well that yeah, that's what I really want to talk about us. So your work obviously on your website through and through probably through Instagram as well. You obviously sell through a lot of jewellery, a lot of galleries you talked about jealous before. How did you start working with have you worked with several galleries? One How can you work with several galleries? I didn't know you could. How do you start working with them? How do you forge those relationships?

Dave Buonaguidi 09:46

Well, I mean when I was I started off working so obviously sold a couple of things to jealous the statue was one thing and then I started showing them some of my friends that happened to coincide when I was on my gardening leave. Year. I was I took deskspace at print club so they have guest space area next to the studio. So I was using that as my base and then printing. It took me a year. I mean I was naively hoping that in a year I'd be able to go from being an ad fund to an artist and segue very neatly. It didn't it took a lot longer than that. But I just started printing and making stuff as quickly as I could. And I was looking at a lot of the artists who were working in there and just notice how slow they were and also how how kind of they sort of seem to be no master plan in the work that they would produce. Whereas in advertising, obviously, you know you're working in a very, very finely tuned machine where you've got a strategist, account director, project managers, all of whom are kind of coming together creatives, all of whom are coming together to create this piece of work that is the Faberge egg that is going to transform this client's business.

Emma Alexander 10:52

It's so it's such a singular goal on that there's such a solid particular outcome that that work needs to

Dave Buonaguidi 10:57

perform. It has to perform. There has to be done on time because if it's not, you don't get paid, you get sacked and so you've got to work within a budget. And so all of those disciplines were really really useful. To me. And then second nature because working back from a timespan is essential for me. So I sat down with the galleries of a went to print club, I didn't really know what I was good at. I was doing variety of different things, most of which were funny ideas that I thought might work. But there was no kind of cohesive look and feel about anything. I sort of talked to the galleries, I sat down with two or three galleries and just said techniques. If you'd give me an hour we take me through the top five selling 10 selling artists in the gallery. Just I'm just genuinely interested. And they were all quite surprised because I said no artists has ever come in and said that. So as a wind. I mean, it's our job. You need to know and strategists are creative will look at all of the competitions he was up against. And so I just sat down with him looked at all the stuff that was working, looked at all the trends, looked at the stuff that I like to sort of do and then gradually formulated my style. That took me a couple of years to sort of get that nailed with the pink font and the red drop shadow and all that kind of stuff. But again, that's something that comes second nature to an advisor where you know that you have to have a sort of kit of parts a language and a sort of Brand Book that would you know, when somebody says I want to be in a position of when somebody sees 100 pictures on the wall, they know which one's mine. And I think they do I think it did. It did take a long time. But it was one of those things. Again, unfortunate that I've had a lot of practice and advertising and trying to do that for clients and and so, you know, applying that to myself was a little bit easier because I tend to say yes to everything I suggest the clients I work for would often say no.

Emma Alexander 12:49

And so importantly I think probably what people really want to know today as well is when you work with galleries, how do you work out what to charge? So how did you actually come up with figure in your head? And what do you need to factor in like, obviously their fees, your overheads, but how do you come to this overall figure?

Dave Buonaguidi 13:06

Yeah, I mean, it's sort of just takes a bit of practice because as an artist you're completely on your own. And so you're terrified of our Bice 100 sheets of paper, I'll print 80 pictures that will be alright, because I'll fuck up 20 of them. And then you're hoping that I need to sell all of them. I want to sell all of them because there's a moment when you sort of if I'm not selling them, I'm not a success. And if I'm not if I'm not a success, and I'm not making money and then you get into this terrible routine where you're just chasing the cash the whole time trying to kind of find a way of making money, which is a shortcut way of doing it. I think also I looked at the different galleries that I worked with so you know jealous Nelly DAF and bring club are all very, very close together in East London but they all have a slightly different vibe so jealous. Print club is got a certain style jealous has got certain style, Millie Duff is a little bit more straight up. And so what I tend to do is try and keep all of them sweet. And if you can imagine being a sort of Chinese emperor where you'd have multiple concubines you've got to try and keep without suddenly coming to senses. We got to try and keep everybody happy. It's like you've got 10 Kids, all of whom want to do a different thing. And so I would sit there and come up and try and have regular meetings with them. Look at the sort of style of work that I've put in different galleries, and then when I come up with a new idea it's kind of go this one will be perfect for that gallery. And these ones would be perfect for that gallery and then also having constant stock that you have with a lot of these galleries where they call up sale. We sold those comedians some more so you've got old stock and then new stuff that you have to just divvy up and when you give them all different things that does tend to keep them all sweet because the minute you start selling one thing with somebody that you're selling to somebody else, they will get a bit bitchy and and sort of don't really understand why you're doing that. And, you know, ultimately, you're gonna make money and then sell it in three places than one and sometimes you can do exclusive deals with galleries where you can give them you can give them the first sales for the first six months or five months, whatever it might be, or if they help you pay for some of the upfront costs, which they should do sometimes because you're the one is putting in all the work thinking up all the stuff, buying all the equipment printing it all which is a bit of money.

Emma Alexander 15:19

So you have massive,

Dave Buonaguidi 15:22

huge overhead so when I'm just about to do some stuff for this gallery down in Cornwall, where it's costing me six grand, just to print 40 of them. Gold leaf and the great big GK prints, but that's six grand so when they take 50% straightaway off all sales 50 to 60% some of them you know I've got a I've got to sell quite a lot to make money just a couple miles. So with them, you can do deals where you can get them to pay for half the cost upfront to help you out and stuff like that. But it's kind of I think it all comes down to how you work out your time. You know, in advertising, we would have a daily charge out rate so it might be 250 400 600 and 1000 pounds a day. You work out what you're most comfortable with or what you think you're worth and then you kind of look at you can do a simple arithmetic thing where you go this is how much paper on buying so much income using and you know the the prints will come out at a certain price. And obviously when you do 100 They come out slightly cheaper. But you just have to sort of also feel comfortable about how much an idea is worth and this is one of the things that has always been a struggle with advertising people is charged for an idea you can't because sometimes an idea can happen very, very quickly. And sometimes it can take months and months and years. And so I think you've come to an overall number but let's also look at other people's work and see what you think it's worth and see what you pay for it and then ask your friends and do just do a bit of research and get a feel for it. But don't undersell it. I mean I can be really clinical sometimes and go if I'm using three screens, then I'd kind of go then I should go 100 pound a screen and then my day right. So then you sort of go if I'm going to take if I'm going to print 100 often my day rate is 500 pounds a day what I charge my is what I kind of charge and then I'd go 800 quid and then you divide that by whatever and then you can kind of give yourself a couple of notes on it and you can have a

Emma Alexander 17:19

cost plus model

Dave Buonaguidi 17:23

one of the mistakes is people always undercharged because they think it's more important to sell. I think it's more important to create value in your product so that people understand that when they're buying it. It shouldn't be the decision Should I buy two cans of beer? It should be my feeling is it should be should I go on holiday? I don't think many you think of it or you upgrade like that it creates a different selling.

Emma Alexander 17:52

Yeah, that brings you to the last question around your sort of level of success being around you're around people going into the look and feel of your work obviously but also your brand. Now don't still have a bit of silly question, give it a background but how important do you think it is to create a brand as an artist?

Dave Buonaguidi 18:09

I think very important I mean, again, you look at all of the you look at all of the all of my favourite artists, you could literally put them on a wall and you'd spot their work above and beyond anybody else's. Now you know, there are for every huge success as an artist there are hundreds and hundreds of 1000s of near misses and no successes. I think having a brand just helps a little bit, you know, but it is it again, it's sort of I feel slightly guilty because I've had such a head start on it because obviously having had a long, long practice in advertising where I can do that kind of stuff and it comes second nature for me. I think also one other thing that I've still don't really understand why they don't do it. I think there are very few artists that do do it successfully. I think Damien Hirst is one of those who's got that I had a brilliant story. I used to work for a guy called Jay Childs, who was the owner of giant Bay, and we had a meeting with him once and I remember talking to him about art. He was a huge collector of Damien Hirst early on and he said the thing I love about art is in my job as an advertising man, I have to create one idea that millions and millions of people that I can think of and I'm a failure, whereas in art, I only have to make one piece and the million people can hate it. So like Damien Hirst, for example, that Jake and dinos Chapman, they purposely go out to create work that polarises, which I think is something that I was brought up on in advertising working how Henry and St. Luke's the work that we would produce there was purposefully done to polarise opinion, and create niche audiences and risks between people. You can create a piece of work that everybody hates you only need one person to love it and your success and so the odds are much greater in favour of the artist and I think that can be driven by your personality, your persona, your output the way that you use your channel. So for example, the way that I use Instagram is not purely as a selling tool for my work it's more about is somebody described it as like watching an old man fall down a metal fire escape into a pit of insanity. And I've got a full Yeah, you know what, it's not a million miles away from the truth, but at least I can sort of I don't want to show people what I had for dinner last night. Instead in showing me and my mates out on the piss. I would rather share stupid anecdotes and stupid thoughts and, and use it as a kind of an entertainment tool. I find it a really good release for me to get a lot of shit off my chest. But also it's very liberating to be able to think something and put it out and share it. I live on my own. And so I work on my own so I don't have a huge opportunity to chat shit to people. And I use Instagram as just my sort of sounding board and it's just gonna be fun. I think that adds to having an element of personality and allowing yourself to not take not take it too seriously and in a way, that's what I want with my work is it sort of needs to be I want it to have a reaction that's positive and fun rather than changing up. That's so deep.

Emma Alexander 21:05

Well, actually interesting. Going back to your book. And one of the chapters of your book is seek danger or die. Yes, I love what a classic Yeah, classic sort of catchy intro to a chapter. How important is the view to still be challenging the status quo because you said it camaraderie. You made this you know, Charles Saatchi kind of you know, pretty cool. Statue as it were. There's kind of crazy interactive. What does he some of your work is quite provocative. Some people might be familiar with the massive rally that happened was saddles when saddles the association ripped off some of your work or an ad agency is ripped off, ripped off your work and the back and forth, who? How important is it for you to keep challenging and pushing the status quo?

Dave Buonaguidi 21:52

Well, I think I mean, it's an old cliche but that thing of like, you're not doing anything that scares you. You're not trying hard enough. Again, I was groomed in agencies like how Henry St. Luke's lots of agencies were we in China they were producing, aiming for a 10 out of 10 was standard was now in most ad agencies. You can smuggle out three out of 10 You're welcome to take the rest of the year off. And so I love that kind of having to work really hard. I mean, it was just the way that we were, we were drilled and so therefore that whole thing of doing stuff that's a little bit dangerous, trying to push the boundaries challenging you know, when you've got bosses who are demanding of you it's a wonderful place to be and and so I kind of feel the same in my work. I don't want to do stuff that I'm too old to be doing stuff and I'm not famous enough I'm not famous at all to be doing stuff that's a bit shit that people just like because I'm famous, I want to do stuff that creates a reaction and sometimes that means you've got to do something that pisses people off. And I don't have a problem with that. Because I think we're all allowed to have, you know, we're all allowed to have opinions. And especially through art as long as you don't upset people, which I think would be stupid. But you can still have an opinion of this stuff that's got a tone to it. And I think that's hugely valuable.

Emma Alexander 23:14

And actually, I want to ask you quickly about your about success. So there's a lovely story in the start of your book about your dad's restaurant that had a restaurant and Italian restaurant. Or all the anyone is anyone in the advertising industry would come into this restaurant and eat there. Were they're all men as long as at that time, men with beautiful women, and they always wore Gucci loafers

Dave Buonaguidi 23:38

on the shoulders

Emma Alexander 23:39

Yeah. Amazing. Look, bring that back

Dave Buonaguidi 23:43

there as well. There was a great there

Emma Alexander 23:47

was another chapter was Gucci loafers. I've got to ask you, that was your benchmark for your kind of success when you started advertising. When I bought Gucci loafers. I will have made it one did you ever get the Gucci loafers? No. Okay.

Dave Buonaguidi 24:03

You put me in really nice clothes, I'll destroy them in 30 seconds I would wear a suit to the print studio and just think I'm just gonna do something little and come out covered me. I'm just now I'm in the lovely position where I can just I've not worn any other anything else but dirty T shirts, overalls, and dungarees for the last two, almost two years and it's a very liberating about not having to wear colours. So yeah, yes, in those days I think it was because I was institutionalised in advertising I wanted to be something you know, aspired to be those guys, Frank Lowe, who used to go into my dad's restaurant a lot. I'd watch him thinking the fact is this guy is amazing. That a god but I soon realised that it's just not me. My success criteria now. I mean, when I had when I had calm Rama, you know it was it grew to the very big size. And people were talking about it in a nice way. And so it was, you know, you would sort of enjoy the the good publicity when you've got it, I think with with with the pandemic. Now. I think it's for short and everything. I mean, you know, five years ago, I would have five year plan. I remember when I started doing the art in going full time in 2020. I genuinely sat and thought amazing 2020 It's going to be this great year matching numbers. It's never gonna happen again in my lifetime. Seeing clearly backing out it's going to be great. I've been waiting all this time and then two months later, I was in bed with a virus the whole world of change was on its head. And I think, you know, my plan, I had sort of two year plans back then where I can look at the fares that I wanted to do and if I did a fare in Brooklyn or a bit of fare in London, would that lead to more galleries, more clients, more customers, more commissions. Now if I get to the end of the week, and I haven't started doing crack, or I've still got enough food for a takeaway, kebap

Emma Alexander 25:56

I'm original, winning it live. Excellent. Well, I know. Again, just going back to when you say that happiness actually underpins a lot of your decision making now, which I love. I love this idea that actually a marker of success can be your own personal happiness and the gratification. How do you find the balance between you know, personal contentment, creative fulfilment, and then kind of commercial reward as well? How do you find those three things?

Dave Buonaguidi 26:20

Well, I'm kind of fortunate at the moment. They're all exactly they're all in exactly. The same place. I mean, if you were to do end diagram, they wouldn't even be overlapping, they would all be on top of each other. You know, I made the decision to only when I was 50. I was in a not very good marriage. I was working in my own agency and I hated it, calm Rama and I thought wow, it's kind of weird. You know, I mean, probably the one the top 1% of people on Earth who have choices, you know, I can choose where I live, what I do, what I eat, where I go, what I how I dress, I've got all these incredible choices, but I'm still miserable. And all of those decisions that I've made that made me miserable or things that I was in control of. And so I just sat there and thought, stop going with the flow, which is one of my issues. And I'm just going to say no to a lot of things, and one of which is my job. So I walked out to do something else. I left my wife and it became one of those things where the only thing I wanted to do was to be selfish but in a positive way, and only do things that made me feel good. I was 50 at the time. You know, we've talked about this before where I've got this theory that you get eight summers if you're lucky. The last 15 of which are you going to be me stumbling about in my pants on the street, yelling at dogs and trying to buy cars. So when you're 50 that doesn't that leaves me like 15 years where I can sort of do stuff and be happy. That's not an awful lot of time. When you're 20 You think you're indestructible you think you've got a huge your 100 years ahead of you. And so I just thought I just want to do stuff that makes me feel good. And it makes me feel good. It will make the people around me happy as well because I won't be stressed or depressed or upset or anything. And to be honest, you know, the whole positivity that you get from doing something that makes you feel good, is hugely infectious and massively rewarding because you if you can find a way of selling stuff and making a living out of it, it's the most wonderful life to live. You know, I get to do things on my own. I get in people if I'm lucky people will like him enough to give me some money and it's a very nice feeling. So all of those that contentment and reward as an artist is all baked in. I mean, it's all part of the same thing.

Emma Alexander 28:41

I think there's something go back to what you said at the beginning. There's something really lovely about making something with your own hands as well that really kind of cathartic process theoretical book a few years ago. I think it was something like why making stuff with your hands is good and other stuff is bad. But yeah, the premise is that idea of really crafting something is hugely fulfilling and if you can make that part of your

Dave Buonaguidi 29:05

recommended I'd recommend anybody to do the course of print club. It's amazing or any course where you can go in there, whether it's printmaking, pottery, needlework anything where you're physically doing something that's a connection between your brain and your hand and an object and you're making stuff I mean, it's it is hugely rewarding. Even if you don't sell making something that you can hold in your hands say I made no different from cooking. You know, when you make a beautiful meal, there is something incredible about that. And I just think if you can then transfer that into a career that allows you to be in make a living out of it. I think it's it's double double good scrape.

Emma Alexander 29:48

And the last last reference to your book I want to make is the other chapter which is called Make your own fucking luck. Is what my granddad always say what granddad never said the F bomb but my grandmother was from Canning Town of course, it's this idea that you create your own opportunities, you know, as an artist working predominantly on your own or for people listening who might be creatives working predominantly on your own as we so often do. When you're freelance, you might have a studio but we live day to day running your business and growing your own craft is on your own. How do you go out and create opportunities and what were the kind of key takeaways I think you need to

Dave Buonaguidi 30:31

be is a good thing is stepping out of the advertising world where I had I'm surrounded by partners, people that I'd employed people I'd Shared Equity with who were only concerned about trying to fuck me over. Suddenly, when you're out of that situation. I'm on my own. I can make a decision. I don't have to ask permission from anybody. I don't have to put it through research. I don't have to ask the client to pay me on time. It's very liberating. That kind of liberation gives you a huge surge of energy because like I said, I can be lying in bed 100 metres up the road, come up with an idea. I can go to print club and get my positive I can come into the studio I can print it. I can be selling it before lunchtime, which in advertising, it would take you three weeks just to get the five fat middle class white boys back from the second home in Norfolk just to have a meeting so you could discuss what the brief was via the brain everything is really slow and that's the model is created. It needs to be slow. It needs to be ineffective. It needs to be bad so the clients will continue to pay huge sums of money for a terrible service. They're not going to get good service anywhere else. So it's like you move from one sheet agency to another one is just same same so that it's a losing game for everybody except the ad agencies. As for what's the question again?

Emma Alexander 31:49

How do you create your luck? How do you create these opportunities you create your own?

Dave Buonaguidi 31:54

By having an open mind thing, the thing when I worked in the corporate world is your mind closes because every time you do a piece of work, I know that it's the piece of work that I want to make. It's never gonna happen. And so you become more and more clinically and work related depressed because every time you make something, you know, you have to throw it away. And the one idea that you're gonna make is the shittest. One is the one that you are most embarrassed about is the one that's the safest, the least interesting and whatever. When you're working on your own and you have that ability to sort of flourish constantly, ideas and opportunities spring along all the time. So as an example, a guy got in touch with me about two months ago, sent me a photograph of him at a flea market that we used to do together. It had a picture of a bomb the bottom half of the bomb in it. I think I showed it to you when he came around and he said I'm at the market you're not I said that's a bomb in the background of the picture. So I bought the bomb. I thought what I could do with it within I mean now it's currently being built. It's a huge seven foot bomb that has been sprayed gold. I found the top half in a in a salvage yard. The big heavy business end of it in the salvage yard in Devon, it costs me a huge amount of money to buy it to get it shipped up here to try and ship all the concrete out. It's been a fucking drama of biblical proportions. But that stupid idea, I think will lead to a show it lead to an object that I'll be able to sell and the thing I love about that was I have a kind of an itinerary of things that I'm currently working on. That photograph tripped me up because I then suddenly stopped thinking about all those other things. And I'm thinking about that. But if I worked in any other business, somebody would have stepped in and said, No, don't do and I'm going to end up with something that I think I'm hoping will be remarkable. And even if it isn't, at least I did it. And that's the thing that I love is that I have the ability and all artists have the ability to go, I'm going to do that and they think about it see the opportunity and the thing is, as you become better and more confident. You see those opportunities everywhere. And it could be everything from somebody wanting to do a commission to selling your own work becoming more confident about that, which is an important thing for a lot of artists to do become more able to talk to people and share their ideas with people and then try and work out ways of being more productive and making more money. I mean, that's that's our job is our business is to make money. The good thing is we're in a loving position where we get to do what we want to do to make that.

Emma Alexander 34:19

Yeah, I must admit, I was on a panel a couple of years ago and one of the key one of the key takeaways from the lady I was talking with, there was lots of back and forth people from Facebook talking about this and people from Dell and then she just said just fucking do it. And that was the key and I saw it all over Instagram. Everyone was like you know what, just walking, do everything. Perhaps making rapid opportunities comes a bit like that. I want to

Dave Buonaguidi 34:44

do it. What's the worst that's going to happen? The worst is going to happen is you're not going to do anything that'll happen is you'll do it and something good will come the middle bit. It doesn't really matter shit. So you apply and do it and it won't work. Well. It's better to try than not. So I think it's just one of those things where, you know, again, in advertising when you've had 35 years of being told that 99% of the ideas you came up with that day a terrible you get such a thick skin. I don't give a fuck if anybody likes my work or not, you know, I know what I try and do. I like what I try and do I know there are some people who like it as well. But I don't get that constant. Yes, yes, we really like we think it's kind of interesting. We just don't like the picture or the heads to get an answer. Let's do that for year two, all of that kind of shit that you'd get all the time. You just become a little bit less. You know Fe about stuff. You just go you know what just ride it. It doesn't matter if you don't like it, I really don't care. But when you have that sort of slightly indestructible quality, it breeds confidence because then you just sort of go you know what, I'm not gonna do that. I'm going to do this. And the minute you believe in something you're gonna do, it takes on a different shine, it becomes much more interesting because you're passionate about it rather than you're just trying to sell it because there's another agenda somewhere in the background that you've got to fulfil. And I think the con is that confidence is just finding that confidence.

Emma Alexander 36:03

Lovely. I love that. I think yeah, I think that was absolutely on the head. And I think we do you're right it's so difficult when you work on your own sometimes to to always have this slight surge of positivity and confidence about your work but as I guess my only input with that would be to, to find groups where you can share as well find, find a network of people sharing and get feedback and support each other. I think that's really important and being in

Dave Buonaguidi 36:26

a space. You know, I was lucky because I was in a space where sharing lots of other artists Yes, boom when my competitors you know we would be competing. We would all because we were all single objects. We would sit there and someone would come up and look at what you're doing. And they would say, Oh, that's really good. That's, you just need that every now and then somebody would come up and tell you that they like what you're doing. It's amazing. Yeah, absolutely not doing the same. And once you're in an environment where you've got lots of other creative people around you, everybody needs that moral support and that physical actual support. And having that moment when you can all sit and discuss stuff and share conversations is really valid.

Emma Alexander 37:04

Then what advice would you give your younger self going back now?

Dave Buonaguidi 37:07

Whoa. I mean, to be honest, I think I'm dumb enough to think if I went back and did it again and I've made some horrendous errors and calls a judgement. But I would do them exactly the same because they've all they've all led me to where I am now. There's two or three people that I definitely would have punched really hard on the way up to in particular that I think I've got a theory that when I get too old to worry about going to jail, and I know my kids aren't gonna look after me. I will do something that will put me in jail, which will be fine. It'll be okay. They'll just be funny to see to octogenarians fighting in the street. But as for any other advice, I don't know I mean, I'll just kind of, you know, good and bad. I think the thing about decisions and episodes in your life good or bad, is that they all help add to the flavour. And I think I've probably learned more things from some of the horrible horrible things, the stupid things that I've done, and the mistakes that I've made than I would have done through things that have gone very well. So no advice. Really.

Emma Alexander 38:09

That makes sense. That's great. And if you could spend an hour with somebody who really inspires you, who would that be?

Dave Buonaguidi 38:16

Wow. I think it would be. I was lucky. About three weeks ago to go traipsing around the West End Meeting or looking at art galleries and I bumped into we went into one of them and Peter Blake was doing a book signing and he had a load of launch of some new work that he'd done. Which I didn't really think was I didn't really like his new work. But you know, I love the stuff he's done. And he is somebody I've just found massively inspirational. And we got, I thought, I'll take this opportunity to sign up to get the book signed. And I said, I said so he said to me, he's very old now and he said, What would you like me to write? I just said it could just write Sonny Listen dear Dave Sunny, listened loves you. And he said, Why join me to write that? And I said well, because I did some filming once in his house in chyzyk. But I didn't know it was his house. And I was snooping around because it's a nice big house and they also there was a room huge weight room that had lots of easels with shapes over them and I was trying to have a little peek and in the corner, I just saw the top part but it's bloat, staring at me. Fuck so I left it. I went in there about 20 minutes later I thought I'll have another little look around and this bloke was still there. As you see the top of his head was fucking out. So I left again and then the third time I went back and I sort of thought I was actually said, mate, what's your problem? What's your problem? Why are you staring at me? And the week later, we're looking at the edit of the commercial and somebody said, Oh, what did you think of Peter Blake's house? I was like, what's that? And I said, Yeah, we repeat the details you've done the kitchen. I was like, Oh my God, I didn't know. And then I suddenly realised that the top half of the flow was a huge model that Peter Blake had made of Sonny Liston, the boxer. And it was just a huge statue that you had in the corner of his bedroom. So that's what freaked me out. So when I told him that story, I felt as a Catholic I felt really cleansed because I told a man that I've been snooping around his house. But he looked at me like I thought if they'd been security there, they probably would have given me a good hiding. He sort of looked at me and didn't just said this, that's very nice. And then just wrote the message. I would love to spend more time with him. I think he'd be a fascinating person. I think he's a real class act. And but I mean, there's lots of other artists that I would love to hang around with, but he in particular is really

Emma Alexander 40:41

amazing. Yeah, absolutely. David, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a it's been lovely. Guys. Dave is now a mentor on Weizen mentoring platform for creators. So if there's anything you would like to pick up on that we've talked about today, or something we haven't talked about today, you can go on there and you can go and book an hour of time with Dave we also have five signed copies of Dave's book that we're gonna give away to the first five people who, who sign up to work with. We'll get them in the post to you, and I have three. So we'll take three questions that have come in. There's lots of great things in the chat. Someone has said so anonymously. So you said, Dave, how do you get through creative block? That's a great question.

Dave Buonaguidi 41:31

And I get this a lot. I get this sort of odd moment when I because I've sort of worked back from a timing plan. So I just did a huge amount of work recently for a show and then the date that there was something they call it I think actors get it when they rehearse and they do the play. And at the end of the play, they sit there like oh my god, my life is over. What am I going to do now? And I get that I get the same thing we used to call it pitch fever when you've done a pitch and you're exhausted and you've presented and you still don't know the result. And sometimes when you lose, it's even more damaging. Sometimes when you win, it can be just as exhausting because you've now got to start this huge new body of work. And so I get that all the time. I think thing is you just got to make sure that you listen to your body and you relax, and and then sort of switch out and go and do something that is you know, don't stare at a piece of white paper. go for a drive, go for a walk, go to see some galleries go for a really nice meal with somebody gonna have sex with a stranger. It's going to take heroin in a canal with a load of dead dogs. I mean, whatever it is that makes you feel that just switches you out. You basically got to it's almost like that thing that you do when you've got pain bow in your ankle mat. You have to turn it on

Emma Alexander 42:42

the beach ball of doing

Dave Buonaguidi 42:45

just turn it on and off and and then go and do something else and and then I think, you know, like I said listen to your body and listen to your brain and try and do something that just takes you away from where you're at. So you can kind of and then you know, however long it takes if it takes two weeks, let it be if it takes two hours and even better. ninus

Emma Alexander 43:06

Yeah, no, I agree with that. 100% And I've got a question from Lucy. You said she did the print the course at print club travel was that is brilliant. And she loved it. She's in terms of learning and doing more screen printing. How important are digital skills though she would like to do more of it, but doesn't currently use Photoshop so it feels a bit like chicken and egg in developing.

Dave Buonaguidi 43:26

Ultimately, it depends on the kind of work you'd like to do. I mean, I use a lot of my work I do in Illustrator. I do do some stuff in Photoshop. I really probably are only capable of using point 5% of the capability of Photoshop. There are lots of people that can help. There are lots of things that you can learn to do. And I think part of the process of screen printing is that it is technical. It's half technical and something you can learn to do. The other half is obviously inspiration or coming up with ideas that are going to sell and ideas that you want to make. But I think you can just learn how to do it. It's not massively essential. But I think ultimately it all boils down to the kind of work that you'd like to do and the work that you are comfortable doing. And then you'll find a kind of rhythm to it. Like theory, I mean, it's like I said, it's when it's technical, you can learn how to do that. It's not a problem.

Emma Alexander 44:16

I'll agree with that. And I'll say actually, there's actually loads and loads of free resources online. You know, you go on YouTube, you know, there's like Adobe run free master classes and stuff. So actually, you've got to get to grips with it. Sometimes you just need to suck it up and

Dave Buonaguidi 44:30

do it technically like that. Or you just get someone you know, I mean, that was up yet the people I know and just go look or buy your lunch or buy your crate of beer. Come on show me how to do this. It only takes 40 minutes but if you pick it all up. It's amazing how quickly you can learn it. Yeah.

Emma Alexander 44:46

Paul has a very good question. Actually. Last question we're going to take today. What goes into your thinking to create unique prints versus limited editions? That is a great question. How do you decide between those your runs?

Dave Buonaguidi 44:57

I mean, because I sort of print on to things I find. You know, even when I'm printing limited editions or numbered editions, often I'll do stuff where I can pre print stuff, so do G plays or LIFO but because a lot of things I do print on found vintage maps and all that kind of stuff is you just suddenly I'll find something I'll be in a flea market like this fucking bomb I've just made you know it's a totally one off because I never ever want to do anything like that again. But you just you just see see something and the thing that I've always been very good at, whether it was moving into an old derelict house and seeing how I wanted to fix it, I've always had that ability to visualise the end result. And so then once you can visualise it, it becomes very easy to do it because then you just systematically go through everything and go, This is what I'm gonna do. And it really helps me when I'm looking at stuff. I'll see an opportunity and you just go I know how to do that. I know what to do with it. And so, ultimately, again, it just depends on the piece that you see. I've got a guy at the minute who's trying to sell me these really weird, massive eight foot by three foot I think they look almost actual size, prints of motorcycles incredible like Harley Davidsons old triumphs. And I'm desperately want to buy them often but they're quite a lot of money. And I don't know what to do with them yet. So I'm thinking about what I'll do. I know I ended up getting a few of them. And I'm pretty wished I'd got all of them. But there's something about that, being able to visualise it and then just try and work out how you're going to use it. And then and then you end up with these one off pieces now but the one offs, it's very difficult to monetize them because obviously the value I think is sitting in high churn doing a big addition of lots of different things that you can attract lots of different people. If you're a painter, and it takes you two months to paint something. How do you monetize that? If your time is if you put your time out 500 pounds a day, suddenly it's taken 60 days to make a lot of money and you're not going to be able to charge that unless you're massively famous. So the good thing about printing is it's a cute way of getting around that issue which is you can do an addition of that painting you can sell the painting for 235 10 Whatever you think you want to sell it for but then also you can do screen prints. Which are easier to produce, cheaper to produce and you can make more often. And so a lot of people do that. And that's one of the things I'm constantly talking to artists about is don't sit there and rely on one thing to be the answer to all of your all your financial issues. I do 10 paintings a year. How do you sell more? of them because 10 paintings a year isn't enough to make a living without charging stupid money and so I think it's just look at what you're selling, and then see if there's a what's the most beneficial way of trying to sell it?

Emma Alexander 47:54

Yeah, that's interesting, actually, because when I came to your studio, you had loads of snowboards there and I was like where these come from amazing because I was no water and you're like I've gotten for free. But then to gold leaf, that massive amount actually the value goes up even though you've got that

Dave Buonaguidi 48:10

somebody, somebody last Christmas asked me to do one as a commission for a husband. I've never done one before. She gave me his snowboard. Gold leafed it printed three layers onto it when you're printing onto something that's got bends all over it and chips in it everywhere. It's terrifying because you just don't want to mess it up. Because you mess up one. If you mess up the third layer, you have to scrub the entire thing and start again. And so when I saw these guys thrown out these boards, I was like, Well, what you're doing with those isn't that were chucking them out. I said I'll have them. And so now I've got these two boards that I've printed on and they've done and I'll sell them but it's like, again, it's seeing that moment that you can just sit there and go. I can do something with that. Now just got to try and find somebody who's willing to buy it but I'm hoping that that'll be alright that

Emma Alexander 48:56

winter olympics feels like the perfect size. And actually just one final question for me before we before we wrap up. What Why mentoring for you Why why why joining men why isn't why? Why are you looking through something?

Dave Buonaguidi 49:12

You know, I was lucky I had some really good mentors when I was younger people who really pulled me out of the ship a lot of times and genuinely gave me their time. I don't think I was any more talented than anybody else but they gave me their time because they were nice people and helped me out massively. I kind of one of the frustrations that I had in in the corporate world is that you would leave people alone as an enormous amount of transition from being new somebody just starting out in the business and and sort of managing their expectations and managing their ambitions and sort of seeing how they traverse from being in the slow lane to the middle lanes in the fast lane to running a department or running a business or running their own business. You know, these are huge clinical moments in anybody's life and a career. And so it's kind of I think it's really important that people sit down with them and help them and that's the role of your boss and your managing director. Now unfortunate most managing directors in advertising are more concerned about where they're having lunch, whether they should get double monk shoes or loafers, and which are the new secretaries they're going to take to Cannes so they can screw him on the beach. Unfortunately, that's just the way it is. And I used to take a lot of pity and pain when I'd see young creators, especially who were very ambitious and wanting to be creative directors. And then you give them that opportunity and they they drop the ball and then suddenly they go from being somebody that has a lot of opportunities to not having any opportunities because they feel like they've left the team down or maybe they've had to leave or whatever it might be. And I think that that whole thing of looking at people and being very clear when you're when you're reviewing them and you know what their strengths and weaknesses are and helping them manage their careers in a more positive way rather than thinking it's all about what my LinkedIn profile looks like, which is the way a lot of people judge it. And so, mentoring, I think sitting down with people, maybe it's because I'm a dad, but it's like, you want to sit down with people and help them out and if it can make a fundamental difference to their lives which I think when you have a good mentor it will make a fundamental difference. It's got to be a good thing.

Emma Alexander 51:20

Yeah, and that personal aspect too. It's not just a video you know, you need it's actually

Dave Buonaguidi 51:25

your problem to the individual.

Emma Alexander 51:27

Well, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been amazing guys. If you want to book an hour with Dave, go on to wisened.com You'll see his profile a click on it, find a time that works for you. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you Dave you legends and I really look forward to seeing working with you more on Wisern Have a fantastic week. And thank you for joining everybody.