Rosalind Freeborn
There are two ranges of cards - summer and winter. The summer cards celebrate the glorious of the English seaside holiday with images of icecreams, chatting on the beach and the bucket and spade experience we can all remember. The winter cards conjure an impression of skating at the wonderful open air ice rinks which are set up in wonderful landmarks during the festive season.
Freeborn Art is a small greetings card business which makes cards based on the artwork of artist Rosalind Freeborn. Rosalind is renowned for her cheerful and colourful collages made out of fragments of paper. The pictures are figurative and painterly yet, when you look closely, you can see they are made of thousands of pieces of torn magazine pages, tissue paper, wallpaper, sweet wrapping... anything which will work well.
There are two ranges of cards - summer and winter. The summer cards celebrate the glorious of the English seaside holiday with images of icecreams, chatting on the beach and the bucket and spade experience we can all remember. The winter cards conjure an impression of skating at the wonderful open air ice rinks which are set up in wonderful landmarks during the festive season.
NEWS
18th October 2007
Woman & Home magazine
Businesses that started in the spare room / New Directions - Business as art Ros Freeborn, lives in north London with her husband Simon, a film editor. They have four daughters. “It was quite a throwaway comment which set this all in motion. I was busy doing one of my many art courses when my tutor said: “You’re so good at this, why don’t you develop you talent and go to art school”. That was like permission to do something I’d always dreamed of. I explored art schools and was lucky enough to be offered a place at City & Guilds of London art school to do a post-graduate diploma for a year. I had just enough savings to see me through and keep the family afloat. I knew it would be tough financially but I filled the house with lodgers and took on extra professional work – I’m a PR consultant. The course put me through the wringer, but it was just what I needed – the ultimate fast-track to finding answers and developing skills and understanding in a field I’d always loved. And one good thing about doing this kind of thing later in life was that I was filled with total conviction that it was the right thing to do, never missed a single day of college and worked harder than I’d ever done before.After I’d graduated and had my first show of the work I’d done at college I approached galleries to see about having shows. Ultimately, my goal was to work full-time as an artist but I knew it wouldn't happen overnight. I set up shows and discovered that people kept asking if they had postcards of my work. That planted an idea in my mind. I investigated print costs and decided to take the plunge. I printed 2,000 cards of each of my 16 original designs for. Selling them was the next hurdle. I took at stand at Top Drawer, a trade fair for designers in Olympia in September 2005 and orders for my cards piled up. But just after the show, Simon was diagnosed with bowel cancer. That blew everything off course and was a tremendous shock. He had to have an operation and then a six month course of chemotherapy. He couldn’t work so I went back to working full-time to provide a household income. I’m very happy to be working at the charity Jeans for Genes, which raises funds for research into the causes, treatments and cures for rare inherited conditions. Eventually Simon got his all-clear which was such a relief. After a year of hardly doing any art I was able to start again. A few months later, John Lewis wanted to buy some of my stock and put the cards in its Oxford Street branch. Best move Getting intensive training at college. Worst mistake Going to a trade fair without bright enough lighting. Visit in advance to plan how you can display your work. Top tip Research how quickly you can raise an income.
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