Silk scarves, handmade jewellery and colourful designs filled dozens of stalls at HSDC South Downs as Creative Enterprise students showed off their creations.
Alongside the end-of-year art exhibition, a pop-up art market was held at the College on 16 June for students to sell their artistic products including candles, stationery, upcycled plant pots and more.
All of the entrepreneurs at the event had studied the Creative Enterprise UAL Level 4 Diploma, which teaches students how to turn their art passion into a business.
A stall by Molly Kay Photography
Paul Parsons, who teaches Creative Enterprise, said:
“The course is designed to connect with the creative industries by working on real world deadlines using industry-standard software and techniques. We focus around firstly building a portfolio for future employment engagement, but secondly the students are asked to create a range of products that they could sell online, via social media and in independent shops in the area.
“To end the course we held a NOT YET on the High Street pop-up market with the intention of selling our students’ items to people visiting us, but the bigger goal was to connect these products and artists with professionals within the industry and independent shop owners.”
The first hour of the event was for industry professionals such as fellow artists, shop owners and more, with the general public and students’ families visiting afterwards.
Paul added:
“Within the first hour of the event we managed to successfully get a number of our artists’ beautiful products into local shops in Portsmouth, Emsworth and Petersfield. The course is built around the UAL Level 4 course specification but the reality is, if the course goes well for our students the journey keeps going and they need to build on these successes. After all, if you don’t build your dream, someone will hire you to help build theirs.”
Throughout the course, students have had the opportunity to exhibit their work at various markets which has provided great experience for them.
Fiona Truong
Fiona Truong, who created the brand Joyfi Designs, created a range of products including tote bags and scrunchies.
Talking about her experience with the course, Fiona said:
“You get to experiment with a lot of things here. We could do pottery and learned how to screen print, they also supported us with our business.
“The teachers are always there to help you, even when you make mistakes. The class sizes are small so you really get one-to-one support.”
Wiki Ploskonka also loved the freedom to express herself through her products created for her brand Minka Original.
Wiki, who hopes to go on to study Graphic Design at UAL, said:
“I like that there’s such a big range of everything you can do. I don’t like being limited, I don’t want a job where I do the same thing over and over again.”
Student Kathleen Bassett was surprised and pleased to receive a commendation from the course teachers at the event.
Kathleen Bassett
Kathleen, who was awarded Student Dedication of the Year, was selling a range of patterned silk scarves and handmade dresses. She said:
“I have always loved designing and making clothing. I have always had a passion for fashion design. People do seem to like them because they pick them up and look at them and ask questions.”
Find out more about the Creative Enterprise course at HSDC South Downs on our course finder.