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Making Art Accessible – a conversation with Art Cycle founder Olivia Buckland
11 Plays9 days ago
The opportunity to be creative plays an important role in a child’s cognitive development. But in UK 3.7 million children live on or below the poverty line. That is about 30% of people aged under the age of 18. For those children art resources are often an unaffordable luxury.
During the COVID lockdowns when schools were closed children continued their education at home. Completing the projects they had been set was impossible in homes without access to art resources.
In this episode of the Abeceder work life balance podcast Rest and Recreation Olivia Buckland explains to host Michael Millward how connecting these two facts became the inspiration that led to her establishing Art Cycle.
Olivia recounts the experience of setting up Art Cycle and how quickly it grew. She explains the process of preparing an art kit from recycled resources and how they are distributed.
Now that Art Cycle is a reality Olivia explains the need for funding and her plans for the future.
Olivia is always interested in hearing from organisations that are rebranding or changing a logo and have branded items, like paper pads in all sizes, notebooks, pens, pencils, pencil sharpeners, etc that are no longer needed.
Instead of discarding those items Olivia asks that organisations send them to Art Cycle.
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Transcript
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencastr.
Introduction to 'Rest and Recreation' Podcast
00:00:06
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Rest and Recreation, the work-life balance podcast from Abucida. I'm your host, Michael Millward, the managing director of Abucida.
00:00:19
Speaker
Today, my guest is Olivia Buckland from ArtCycle, art kits for children in economic deprivation. As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, Rest and Recreation is made on Zencastr.
00:00:33
Speaker
Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make every stage of the podcast production process, from recording to distribution, so easy.
00:00:45
Speaker
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr, visit zencastr.com.
Podcast's Aim on Work-Life Balance
00:00:50
Speaker
All the details are in the description. Now that I have told you how wonderful Zencastr is for making podcasts,
00:00:57
Speaker
we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to. As with every episode of Rest and Recreation, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think.
Olivia Buckland's Journey and ArtCycle
00:01:12
Speaker
Today's Rest and Recreation guest is Olivia Buckland from ArtCycle. Olivia is based in London, an expensive place to visit. So when I visit I always make my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club because that is where I gain access to trade prices on flights, hotels, trains and all sorts of other travel related purchases.
00:01:35
Speaker
You can also access those trade prices on travel by joining the Ultimate Travel Club. There is a link in the description. Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of Rest and Recreation.
00:01:50
Speaker
Hello, Olivia. Hi, Michael. Thank you for having me. Oh, it's a great pleasure. I'm really looking forward to this. I'm intrigued as to what it is that that you do at ArtCycle.
00:02:02
Speaker
I'm sure you did lots of things before you you started setting up ArtCycle, so please tell us, who is Olivia Buckland? Michael, my background is in education. I studied child psychology, development and social policy at Cambridge University. I did an undergraduate degree in education and then I returned a few years later and studied for a master's in creative arts and arts education, what that looks like around the world and specifically in the UK. So I've always seemed to be interested in how we access art and how children are
00:02:38
Speaker
given the tools in and outside of the classroom. In between studying, I've had a bit of a varied background. I worked for a health
Challenges of Launching ArtCycle
00:02:46
Speaker
tech company for a while, a startup, which definitely that was a baptism of fire and showed me how how the hustle works, which has stood me in great stead for now.
00:02:56
Speaker
And I spent some time working for a family office as well for social impact and working with children. I've had some quite varied experiences, but I I launched a pilot of this programme during the COVID pandemic and then went back to work for an education company after the pandemic and sort of put the project on the shelf like a nice candle, thinking that would be nice to do one day. I really enjoyed it. but People like me don't really start charities. I don't have a huge network. I don't know many big players. I wouldn't know where to start.
00:03:30
Speaker
And recently realised that in the job interviews that I've been doing, every time I talk about Aloha Boxes, it was, and now ArtCycle, I light up and I'm so proud of what we achieved.
00:03:43
Speaker
During the pandemic, reaching children who were really struggling due to their socioeconomic background. And I'm going to have a go. I've got real drive and ambition to make this a successful charity.
ArtCycle's Impact and Reach
00:03:57
Speaker
It's one of those interesting things. As an HR professional, you talk to someone in a recruitment interview and you can tell when they're answering a question that what they're talking about is something they're really proud of, something that they really enjoy.
00:04:10
Speaker
They do sit there and lights come on, smiles happen. ah You can see the difference. And I think it's brilliant that you've this is what floats my boat. This is what I smile about when I talk about it. though So it is something you've got to do.
00:04:24
Speaker
It's part of your purpose, I suppose. Well, what's the problem that ArtCycle is trying to solve? So in a nutshell, I'll hit you with the hard facts first. They're quite difficult for me to digest.
00:04:35
Speaker
ah Hopefully it will cause further discussion for your listeners. There's 3.7 million, not thousand, not hundred thousand, million children living in what's known as absolute low income or material deprivation in the UK alone.
00:04:52
Speaker
So that's about 30% of children up to the age of 18 across the country who, because of their socioeconomic background, limited access to resources that many other people might take for granted, including arts and crafts material or stationery.
00:05:09
Speaker
And this was 2023. twenty twenty three That was the Department of Work and Pensions released that figure, the 3.7 million. But there doesn't seem to be much happening by way of supporting those children.
00:05:24
Speaker
and I know we had the Sure Start Centres and there are other initiatives and brilliant social workers and care organisations, but access to art materials is diminishing in school as well.
00:05:37
Speaker
The classrooms are changing, technology is taking a sort of a more prominent footing in terms of the curriculum. From my academic background, I really worry that children are in need of access to these materials, which is what launched the initiative in 2020 when children were at home and they were yeah prescribed online learning, for want of better phrase, and everything was on screens.
00:06:04
Speaker
Primary school children, lower secondary were also being given projects to do by classroom teachers, of course, that they would do in in normal school days. But many of the teachers that we spoke to through teacher friends that I have and people that I reached out to said that they were really aware of children struggling to complete these tasks because they just didn't have access to the pens, crayons, glue sticks, scissors, whatever it was at home, which got me thinking that we all have things in our cupboards. We all have extra pens, paints, or at least
00:06:36
Speaker
The people that got in touch and engaged with our pilot program did. And we received a lot. don't what the weight was. Several hundred kilos of materials were sent to us.
00:06:48
Speaker
And as it us, my sister and I launched a pilot and set up a pure box, much to my parents' dismay. We didn't tell them until things started arriving in bulk like we couldn't imagine.
00:06:59
Speaker
um Just boxes dumped in front of our house full of art materials. And we got to work. And we made up to 500 art kits of this surplus material. Everything was reconditioned, repurposed, made to look brand new. And if it wasn't working, we didn't didn't send it. We sent these art kits to 500 children across the country from Lothian in Scotland to Plymouth to Birmingham. We plan to to do it again, but on a much bigger, more ambitious scale, because there are 3.7 million children who could be supported in their learning and development. Let's talk about those 3.7 million children for a moment and put the lives that they lead into a bit of perspective. You know, when you talk about learning during the pandemic went online, I'm imagining that the vast majority of those 3.7 children probably wouldn't have access to a computer, so they could actually do that online learning.
00:07:55
Speaker
Having been a secondary school governor, I suspect that those will be the the children who don't have their own bedroom, don't in some cases won't have their own bed and could actually not know what they're going to be eating.
00:08:11
Speaker
in any given day. yeah But the things that the majority of children may take for granted because they have two parents in work yeah and live in nice middle-class homes would just not exist for those 3.7 million children.
Future Plans for ArtCycle
00:08:27
Speaker
So The sorts of art supplies that you were talking about there, pens, pencils, glue sticks, things that people with money who aren't in this economic deprivation situation would throw into their supermarket trolley without a thought might actually be a major expense for the families with those 3.7 million children. Oh, completely. And to just go back to your point about the access to technology, I'm very, very aware that the lots of the but a large proportion of those children were struggling for access to the technology, as you say. And the campaigns, I remember on the news about people sending laptops and sending iPads.
00:09:07
Speaker
to to be spread for the surplus to be shared for children to access. That technology was incredible, but there was nothing about the other materials, as you say, are an expense and it does add up.
00:09:20
Speaker
if you don't have any spare cash in your budget to to spend. And that then makes having paper, having notebooks really precious.
00:09:30
Speaker
And children then become not necessarily afraid, but they don't want to risk ruining the pages of the notebook by exploring exploring you know drawing something that they're not completely happy with because the resources are so limited. That's why we want the art kits that we make to be completely free at the point of access for these children so they don't have to worry about their parents having spent hard-earned money.
00:09:55
Speaker
on materials that they might use and make mess of yeah so art cycle is a charity or isn't a charity at the time that we're speaking but by the time that this episode is broadcast we're hoping that art cycle will be a charity at the moment there is a website for art charity what is the web address the website artcycle.co.uk An art cycle is all one word. It is one word. It is all one word. Yes. I don't know whether it's going to become a ah verb. People will be art cycling at school.
00:10:27
Speaker
Who knows? That would be great. Who knows? You will find out, though, at some point in the future. The problem that you're trying to solve, I suppose, then, is that there are too many children in this country, the United Kingdom, who don't have access through no fault of their own to any type of artistic expression,
00:10:46
Speaker
Firstly, because it's not taught as widely in schools as it once was. And secondly, because if they do have a desire, a wanting to do something artistic, they don't have access to the facilities that would enable them to do that.
00:11:01
Speaker
And that can mean... you know, just simply coloured pencils, crayons, wax can bikes crayons, or whatever it is, they do not have access to it. It would be a major expense for their families.
00:11:14
Speaker
So what ArtCycle is trying to do is to take things that people no longer use and make them available to those children in free at the point of need, free at the point of use, art packs.
00:11:27
Speaker
Yes. It all rolls off our tongues very easily, doesn't it? yeah Oh, yes, let's do this. This sounds like a great idea. Don't tell mum and dad about it. But, you know, all these parcels start arriving. And then we're going to to set up a little bit of a production line to make sure that everything works or the pens work, all this sort of stuff and and get them out again.
00:11:46
Speaker
I can only imagine that it must have been and is a major, major exercise to sort get everything organised. Absolutely. Absolutely. Tell me what was it like? You know, you've taken something on, but it doesn't sound as if you'd take this the right way, please.
00:12:02
Speaker
Yeah. and But it doesn't sound as if you did an awful lot of research into what was actually involved before you opened this Pandora's box of we're going to try and do something about this issue. ah You're right. And I think that's almost the way to do something like this is to go into it slightly naively.
00:12:18
Speaker
i think i'm ah I'm very glad that my younger sister, who is had her GCSEs cancelled, was as naive as me. and going into it because I was able to rope her in. And once once she'd gotten involved in the organization and designing the stickers, we were away. COVID was a funny time, wasn't it? We had lot of, well, an un uncapped length of time that people were going to be at home. I was furloughed two weeks on, two weeks off.
00:12:47
Speaker
My brain is very busy brain. I liked busy. i was just stirred up by the constant narrative about children being able to access technology.
00:12:59
Speaker
And that definitely stems from my academic background, but also from the way that I know I like to relax. I'm i'm an artist myself in my free time. don't if I can call myself an artist, but I make large scale mosaics. I paint murals in the community.
Establishing ArtCycle as a Charity
00:13:15
Speaker
a sell greetings cards for charities. And I just knew that If I didn't have access to those materials, whether it's growing up or at that point, I would really struggle to have an outlet.
00:13:26
Speaker
So for whatever reason, we decided that this was what we were going to do My mum was a nurse. She was in the hospital. My dad was was also a key worker during the pandemic. So my sister and i needed something to keep us busy and entertained.
00:13:41
Speaker
We were also tasked with having a clean out and it all just came together thinking, who can we give these pencil cases and sketchbooks that we no longer need because they're just surplus. We've just collected them completely by accident, but over the over time.
00:13:55
Speaker
And now that we're all at home, we're finding them just spiraled from there. And I think spiral is probably a really accurate way to describe what happened. We launched a very modest social media campaign and crowd funder that raised ah just over £2,000. People started sending us canvases and bags of foam shapes and paints and paintbrushes. And it was completely incredible.
00:14:21
Speaker
But it definitely was a spiral and it was hard work sorting through things, especially during COVID, we had to disinfect everything, make sure it was all completely clean and looking brand new, which we didn't really have any experience of.
00:14:35
Speaker
We learned quickly. i was really fortunate because of my education background. I have a lot of friends who are teachers and that network, I was able to speak to speech them and find out, was this going to be something useful?
00:14:47
Speaker
Are there children who are receiving free school meals? who we don't need to directly connect with, but if I send you 20 art boxes or however many children you teach who are on preschool meals ah art boxes, will you be able to get them to to these children?
00:15:02
Speaker
Immediately, yes. there was They were almost biting our hands off for them. you I don't know anyone in Scotland, but these two amazing teachers got in touch and said, please can we have 50 art kits each nice when you have someone saying please can we have this and we have kids who need this and they've somehow found us online so whether they're looking you know googling accessible art supplies whatever it was however they found us that was just rocket fuel i and we were away and and It was hard.
00:15:33
Speaker
I'll tell you, my sister, I don't think she'll ever forgive me for the number of pencils we sharpened, the number of crayons she had to bubble bath. At the end of it, when you look back at the assembly line, i think we did 30 boxes in a go. So we'd fold these flat pack boxes, open them and slowly layer them with all the different components, trying to give them all a equal spread.
00:15:53
Speaker
When you then stand back and see what you've achieved in these boxes that you filled, it is really gratifying. You think, okay, we've done something good and somebody is going to open this box. And everything inside it is going to be theirs and they can do what they want with it.
00:16:06
Speaker
Or it hasn't cost a parent, a caregiver, anything. And they can just explore. Their brains are also being supported in ways that they don't even know, which is something that I'm really, really passionate about is the cognitive development yeah aspect of creativity. So it was a bit crazy. The spiraling was real, but we had nothing else going on So I was quite lucky. My sister was trapped with me.
00:16:28
Speaker
we had a good time. Good. Yeah. Overall good times, which hopefully as we grow, will continue to be. She's ah definitely not getting involved this time.
00:16:39
Speaker
It sounds great. I can hear in your voice just what you mean when you say that when you're in interviews and you talked about this, that the passion for it came through. i can totally understand what you mean by that and hear it in your voice.
00:16:53
Speaker
It's great that you've had a very positive impact on lots of people's lives and you've got lots of people involved in supporting it. That's fantastic. but from a practical perspective did it initially with your sister she's no longer involved my sister at uni i'm doing her third year exams so i have to be careful with her she's actually studying for international relations oh a diplomat well exactly and and we do a lot of this art cycle is based around the un sustainable development goals and UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
00:17:24
Speaker
So I'm hoping to rope her back in with that somehow. What are the sort of practical issues that setting up this type of organisation and applying for a charitable status and all those sorts things, what are the practical issues that the one that you've got the most wrong or you wish you'd done completely differently from the get-go, what are the lessons that you've learnt about running an organisation from this? That's such a good question.
00:17:49
Speaker
and Challenges. The challenges that we have faced that I faced in launching this, it's almost a chicken and egg situation. Trying to get funding is definitely, I think, the number one.
00:18:01
Speaker
aspect that all charities are facing and there's such a crunch at the moment across the board so if you're applying for grants or sponsorship there are several organizations that I've come into contact with that will require one year's audited accounts so they're sort of out until next year and then others require you to be a registered charity it costs money to to get that all sorted and going and to find the trustees and to convince people that what you're going to do.
00:18:32
Speaker
you're not linked I'm not linked to a and limited company or an organisation that has the financial security and stability to support this from the beginning. So it it's finding your feet, getting people to trust your idea. It's almost like, guess, launching a start-up, but the product will bring no revenue to anyone, but it will do good and it will produce inequality, hopefully, and reduce waste going to landfill.
00:19:00
Speaker
So it's definitely... trying to convince people that this is something they should get on board with, and that I'm not going to drop the ball, I'm not going to let it down. And then we can apply to the Charities Commission And once you've got that, then you can get your open your bank account and people can then start to donate money. So it's this precarious early, early phase. And I've been so lucky that Michael Norton of Siva has given me some great advice and just said, form follows function, Olivia, just go for it.
00:19:32
Speaker
And the rest will, will it will happen. You just have to every day keep cracking on. That's been such sage advice because
Charity vs. Startup: Challenges and Insights
00:19:40
Speaker
I really was having a wobble recently thinking, how can I How can I wait for the charity number I need to to start spreading the word and it it all the moving parts have to come together.
00:19:52
Speaker
So that's been tricky. I think I don't know if that even answers your question, Michael. I think it does. What he's telling me, I think, is that setting up a charity is just like setting up a startup and you've worked in a startup business. Yes. now you're setting up your own startup. It's just that it happens to be an organization that isn't going to be generating a profit.
00:20:13
Speaker
It's going to be generating social impact rather than political profitable impact. Mm hmm. But you still have the pressures of making sure and probably even greater pressures of making sure that every pound that you spend is a pound well spent and is invested to deliver on the results that you achieve. Completely. And as with business, but it also has to be, every pound has to be accountable.
00:20:38
Speaker
Yes. When you're funded by grants, they'll ah grant will generously give you ah specific sum of money and they'll say, it and we we require an impact report in six months or a year. We want to see exactly where our 2000 pounds went. And that is definitely in the beginning, there's a lot of core costs that need to be covered.
00:20:58
Speaker
You know, there's premises to be found, or there's buying the website domain and paying for different licenses and insurances that lots of grant makers are hesitant to fund.
00:21:11
Speaker
So it's also figuring that out and ensuring that I can have that all lined up before we go to the Charities Commission, which is, it's a funny, a funny space to be in. There's,
00:21:23
Speaker
There's not much support to launch a charity in the same way that there is and venture capital or angel investing, I guess, team to launch a startup. Not many of the banks have a startup charity support person who can come in and and guide you through everything. No, not that I found, which is definitely a gap in the market if there are any banks listening. I'd love to see a guinea pig.
00:21:44
Speaker
We can chat. I definitely would love that. and yeah trying to find a book. You are definitely a charity startup person, you know, Olivia. Take any opportunity to sort of yeah, let me let me learn from from this expert and all this sort of stuff. You you are very much a charity startup person. Thank you. I'll take that as a compliment.
00:22:04
Speaker
It is a compliment. It is a compliment. and I've never had this in any other job where I've worked. I'm so keen. i just, I want to make it work. And i think, well, there's there's so much that I want.
00:22:18
Speaker
come from this and if somebody will give me five minutes of their time to help and give me advice on where to go I'll take it okay let's hope so it's a valuable a valuable thing One of the things that you mentioned is that anybody, any organization that gives you a grant is going to want to know about the impact that ArtCycle has had already. So
ArtCycle's Achievements and Efficiency
00:22:38
Speaker
it's almost a bit like you can't get a job without experience. You can't get experience without a job. And ah totally understand that sort of scenario. But what sort of impact has ArtCycle had on the lives so of children in the United Kingdom? oh Between 2020 2020,
00:22:56
Speaker
The spring of 2021, I think March, April time, we repurposed enough surplus. I think it was several hundred tons of waste was diverted from landfill surplus materials.
00:23:10
Speaker
And we packaged, created 500 ArtStart kits. They went to 500 children across the country, not just to schools, but to some care and aid organizations as well.
00:23:23
Speaker
We worked with social workers and headteachers, class teachers to ensure that those 500 kits reached 500 children. And that was done with very little funding.
00:23:35
Speaker
We did that with just over two and a half thousand pounds. Admittedly, we took over my parents' garage, which again, they weren't thrilled. We tried we tried to use my sister's room, but it just got too massive.
00:23:48
Speaker
So we bought a trestle table and some shelves and then got to work. But it just showed that with very little, we could reach so many. So what I'm hoping to do now in the next year is twenty that impact and and go from 500 children to 10,000.
00:24:08
Speaker
Because we were doing it on a very small scale, part time basis. And now I'm ready to push it and to to really grow because I know that we can we can do that. Essentially, with funding from donations of two and a half thousand pounds, you were able to provide 500 children in the UK who live in economic deprivation with an art kit, which means that if my mathematics is correct, you're the teaching person.
00:24:37
Speaker
It cost you five pounds per art pack. Yeah. My point is that you get the donated equipment, you do all the sorting and get it all finalised and dispatched to the child.
00:24:50
Speaker
At the moment, for every £5 that someone donates, you're able to provide one child with an art pack which allows them to express themselves artistically, which contributes to their cognitive development. Exactly.
00:25:05
Speaker
Which is a big impact for for a fiver. Exactly. and And that's almost a step stepped cost, right? Once we've got our premises sorted and utilities bills paid and staff salaries and the sort of insurance is paid, then the world's your oyster.
00:25:24
Speaker
we can keep producing art packs and the cost will reduce.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:25:29
Speaker
per pack, there are some essential items that we are buying as new, and such as pencil sharpeners, glue sticks, and a sketchbook, just to ensure that every child has somewhere to create into.
00:25:42
Speaker
And that if we're sending colored pencils or pen, pens, just writing pencils, that once they've been blunted, the child can sharpen them. Because otherwise that's the ultimate cruelty. It's like putting a chocolate bar in front of someone and saying, oh, but it's sealed shut.
00:25:56
Speaker
You can never have what's inside it. Getting a present on Christmas Day that needs batteries and you've got to wait until you can buy a battery. Absolutely. So that those are costs. And of course, buying you the boxes themselves, their flat pack boxes. there But they also serve as a vessel to be drawn all over their white card.
00:26:14
Speaker
So there are some fixed costs per box. But once we've got the premises, we can keep accepting donations. And we can fill these boxes. And we can make more and more I'm, I'm not putting a limit on how many we will make.
00:26:30
Speaker
right So the moment five pounds is, is how it how yeah how the maths distills but there are costs that are divide divisible from that right so we will see it sounds great i wish you the best of luck with it i hope you're very successful you're certainly doing something which will create a very positive impact and thank you very much for today it's been great thank you thank you so much for having me michael this has been really brilliant thank you you.
00:26:59
Speaker
I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abucida. In this episode of Rest and Recreation, I have been having a conversation with Olivia Buckland, the founder of artcycle.co.uk.
00:27:12
Speaker
You can find out more about both of us at abucida.co.uk. There is a link in the description. I am sure you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of Rest and Recreation as much as Olivia and I have enjoyed making it.
00:27:26
Speaker
So please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think.
00:27:42
Speaker
Until the next episode of Rest and Recreation, thank you for listening and goodbye.