Welcome to Up With the Lark And – a podcast for creative entrepreneurs hosted by me, Calandre Orton.

One of the areas of creative business that intrigues me most is how creatives work together. How do great partnerships, collaborations, commissions, pairs and teams work? How do we know if an endeavour will be challenging, stretching, engaging, enriching, effective, adventurous? How can we all understand ourselves better in order to work well with others? Does there need to be a commonality of outlook, aesthetic, humour, approach? And how about the practicalities and those inevitable moments of difficulty? This topic offers such a rich vein of discussion that I plan to return to it again and again across different industries, personalities and projects.

Today we have one such collaboration – Arthur Cole, Head of Programmes, at The Newt in Somerset and children’s author/illustrator Emma Van Zeller. Together they have recently published a book entitled ‘The Spitting Toads’ which is simply charming. The Newt is a working estate in Somerset comprising splendid gardens, farmland, woodland and orchards. An exquisite hotel, restaurant and shop are matched only by the programme of events celebrating seasons, the landscape, creativity and innovation. All of this done with a sense of whimsy and imagination. Their apple display at Chelsea Flower Show will forever have a place in my mental scrapbook! And I think that it is just that sense of childlike whimsy alongside an Allen Alberg sense of detail that is where these two creatives meet. Both encourage us to slow, pause, observe and look look and look again. We are going to find out about Emma’s creative practice and style, why she approached The Newt to work together, the story of The Newt itself and how they worked together to bring this project to fruition.

Emma van Zeller: www.emmavanzeller.com
The Newt: www.thenewtinsomerset.com
The Spitting Toads: www.shop.thenewtinsomerset.com/uk/p/2867/the-spitting-toads