Ullapool artist joins 'the magnificent seven' in trailblazing challenge
A WESTER Ross art graduate has been put in the frame as a member of a modern-day “Magnificent Seven”.
Freelance illustrator Kim Richards, a graduate of Glasgow Art School, has been selected to be part of a first-of-its-kind educational and creative initiative which aims to help artists make their work more commercial.
Twenty-seven-year-old Kim, who studied visual communication with a specialism in illustration, currently works between Ullapool and Glasgow.
She’s been chosen by the owner Boxwood, an arts and interior boutique in Glasgow, as one of seven artists given the opportunity to reinvent that city’s coat of arms and motto, “Let Glasgow flourish”.
The project has been set up to help provide both a platform for the final artwork to be sold — the creations by the seven artists will be unveiled in an exhibition later this month — and also to offer advice on the business skills required to sell work to retailers.
Boxwood owner Jill Stewart (40), explained, as an art school graduate herself in the early 2000s, she became aware of “a distinct lack of business advice throughout my training”. She added: “From speaking to students, past and present, it is clear that there is still a lack of business skills being taught – something which, especially in the current economic climate, is hard to understand.”
She said: “I have met hundreds of talented graduates over the years who have trained for four years but don’t know how to make money from their work.”
Kim, who enjoys working with texture, colour and line, often creating abstract imagery, has come up with a digital illustration which she hopes gives the coat of arms “a more positive feel, representing the fact that Glasgow is a flourishing and growing city”.
