Welcome to The Idle Hands Society

Brother and sisters, I'm pleased to welcome you to the Idle Hands Society. 

Let me introduce myself. I'm Dan Higginson, I've always loved art. I was in originals bands since I was 14 years old, and begun studying photography when I was 16. At the time of writing this, I'm about 18 months into launching a photography business. More about that another day!

I believe art makes us human. It transcends language and crosses cultures. It can convey ideas and ideals. It's not hyperbole to say it's the most important idea we've had as a species.

I've got big plans to slowly build a real community here. Our roll-out will take a few years to complete; Plans will become apparent in the fullness of time. Meanwhile, we're posting plenty of articles focused on the philosophy and process of creativity. We'll also have some of our work up for sale.

I don't want this to all about me. If you have any ideas for a guest post, I'd love to hear from you. Get in touch using the contribution page.

Diverse community

While many of us focus on just one or two creative areas in our own work, most have much broader tastes in the art we enjoy.

I hope this will become a place for you to network and collaborate with other creatives, engage in discussion about our artistic processes, and learn from your peers.

You might be a filmmaker looking for musicians to extend your portfolio with a music video, a fashion designer looking for a photographer to capture your latest line, or a painter looking for a writer to help launch your next exhibition. Having a network of artists will help you complete more significant projects and potentially earn more from clients. Just this week, I had an enquiry for a photography and video job. I had to turn down the video side because I don't have anyone I can work with on that kind of project.

Learning from each other

We've all learned many lessons we take for granted. And some of them could be used by others in a different context. I want to build a society of like-minded people to support each other, share their experience and collaborate on projects outside of their comfort area.

There are a lot of lessons I learned from being in bands that I've applied to photography. I'm fascinated with learning as much as I can from other disciplines to improve my own work, I don't think I'm alone.

Meet-ups and training

This isn't a community if we don't know each other. Unfortunately, It isn't safe for us to in real life right now, but that shouldn't stop us meeting digitally. Making new friends and allies could change the game for many of us, opening our eyes to new possibilities we hadn't considered before.

Using links we build, we'll offer affordable education to those looking to learn or hone a skill. 

Supporting the community

So many of my friends have struggled with an online presence to sell their work. I want to provide a curated platform for people to support artists. Because of the diversity, the shop will be a great way of finding new work to enjoy.

As much as it's viable, we'll reinvest some of the money we make back to supporting the community by manufacturing more work. We'll build links with different creative industries to assist community members as much as possible. 

I'm excited to see what the future brings and hope you'll get involved.