Up With The Lark And

A conversation with Imogen Royall, co-founder of Nothern Pasta Co. A case study in doing simple things well and with determination and joy. 

Welcome to Up With The Lark And, a podcast and substack for creative entrepreneurs hosted by me, Calandre Orton. I am a business advisor in the arts and creative industries and have always worked at the intersection of the creative and the commercial.

For me, being “Up With The Lark” is all about starting a new day well. My approach to creative entrepreneurship is to embrace new ideas, new beginnings, new growth, new plans and new perspectives. And so as an early riser and lover of breakfast, I offer this series entitled ‘Breakfast With’. It an opportunity to start your day alongside creatives I admire and consider to be ‘up with the lark’ sharing their thought for the day. We will explore ideas about important teachers, places that inspire, the role of luck, originality and business lessons learnt over the perfect breakfast.

Today, we are joined by Imogen Royal co-founder of Northern Pasta Co. Their story acts as a case study for many of my favourite themes. The first is that it is a tale of doing simple things well, really really well. Secondly, it’s about seeing and understanding a gap in the market and dancing your way into it. And finally, joyfully, packaging. Oh how I love excellent packaging. Imogen has wonderful wisdom to share. I do hope that you enjoy it.

Northern Pasta Co: www.northernpasta.co.uk

In this special episode we are joined by British painter Emily Ponsonby to explore the importance, the relevance, the power of place - here you work, where you exhibit, where you travel, where your work finds home.

Before we go any further, if you aren’t familiar with her work I really would encourage you to take a moment to look her up here so that you can have her work in your mind’s eye. 

The work of Emily Ponsonby is an invitation. It is an invitation to remain still. It is something revealed and something hidden. It is onion layers making your eyes sting, leaving the board littered with skins both crisp and yielding. Once seen, these captures of togetherness remain. I want to pod peas and hear the conversation. I want to be in the picture not stood in front of it, an outsider to its beeswax scrapings. 'Place' sings from the canvas and from Emily’s story.
 
It would be easy to focus on the life of an artist as one about looking and telling stories and truths and one of canvas and paint and technique. We could happily, and fruitfully, spend our time wondering how Emily elicits life from the page but, for me, the commercial side creeps in. Working with galleries, applying for residencies, pricing your work. It all has a part to play. I have known Emily for some time and have watched her navigate both the work itself and the commercial side of things with energy and honesty, with courage and with trepidation. We all have a great deal to learn from her.
 
And so, let’s explore the settings within her work, her studio space, her travel and explorations, where her work ends up and the importance of her latest exhibition, A Warm Life Through Butter at Gillian Jason Gallery. 

Emily Ponsonby
Gillian Jason Gallery 
Up With The Lark

A conversation about leaderhsip with Sandrine Zhang Ferron, founder of Vinterior. 

In this episode, a topic that creeps in to most of the work that I do with founders. It is leadership. Are you a leader? What ‘qualifies’ you to be one? What arena, idea, business or group of people are you leading? What is your leadership style? Is it working? And why does it matter? In the social media age, spend a great deal of time discussing ‘following’ and ‘followers’. But I wonder if we spend enough time considering ‘leading’ and ‘leaders’.

It brings me real joy to say that in this episode, we are going to adventure through this very concept with someone more than qualified to do so. Sandrine Zhang Ferron is the founder of Vinterior. This vintage furniture site is an excellent ‘what if we could…’ put into practice and I can’t imagine you haven’t browed its pages at some point. It is sustainability as a doing word, a verb rather than a concept or aspiration or guilty niggle. It has purpose and style woven in and Sandrine has big ambitions for its future. We are going to consider what Sandrine learnt from her years working in finance, how she got the idea off the ground, what it means to be a leader in your industry, a leader as a founder and a leader of a team. 

Vinterior: www.vinterior.co
Up With The Lark: www.upwiththelark.com

A conversation about brand, branding, brand expression and the role of discipline in executing this well. 

Brands are everywhere. Never was there a time when so many of our interactions, both creative and commercial, were interlaced with brands and their branding. The history of intellectual property law, the TV series Mad Men, the Royal Warrant, what we purchased in the last 30 days all point towards the importance, relevance, culture and complexities of brands.

To explore this is Jack Lewis, founder of Sowvital. Their mission is to inspire, kindle and nurture a love of plants and gardening to all who want to embrace greenery in their lives. Jack has tackled his branding with lazer focus, a strong budget and vision, confidence and consistency. It is a good example of the power of discipline when it comes to branding.

So, we are going to debate how creativity and discipline can act together to enable your branding it to reach its fullest potential, what to consider as your business grows, what to do when the needs of branding conflicts with the pragmatic needs of the business and how to keep a sense of the human and play alive.

So welcome to Up With The Lark And Sowvital. I think that we will all find ourselves scanning over our colour palates and typography and wondering, am I using this to its best advantage by the end of this one.

Sowvital: www.sowvital.com
Up With The Lark: www.upwiththelark.com

A conversation with Beggars Run, purveyors of suits and interesting ideas, about their story and their move over to New York. What can we learn from the American Dream?

Welcome to Up With The Lark And, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs hosted by me, Calandre Orton. I am a business consultant working in the creative industries and my career has always existed at the intersection of the creative and the commercial. This podcast captures conversations built on curiosity, optimism and the nitty gritty detail of what it actually takes as a creator and entrepreneur. 

A few years ago I had a conversation with Taymoor Atigetchi, founder of Papier, about the impact of his Iranian roots on the way that he does business. The thought stayed with me and stayed with me to the point of preoccupation. And so now here is the fourth in the series of interviews with entrepreneurs working in and influenced by a variety of countries and cultures. 

In this episode, the United States of America. The UK and the US share a long and complex relationship filled with significant trade, cultural exchange and "Love Actually" style cliches. What can we all learn from the promised American Dream?

I am delighted to say that we are joined by Cian McAuliffe, co-founder of Beggars Run. Raised in the Irish wild west (his words, not mine), clothes were the source of self expression and adventure and he was propelled around the world before landing in the Big Smoke. He observed that it was not possible to buy a well made suit in an interesting fabric that did not cost the earth. So he decided to make some and did so above an East End boozer. The suits cut a fine figure and so did their growing client base. A creative, non-conformist, confident crowd gathered. And that crowd wore suits of the highest order. They hot footed over to the US and Beggars Run opened in New York in 2023. 

We find out about the cloth, the craft, the cut and the life of a tailor. We hear about Shoreditch in London and Nolita in New York. We compare and contrast the style, the customer and the ways of doing business. 

So welcome to Up With The Lark And Beggars Run. 

Beggars Run: www.beggarsrun.com/uk
Up With The Lark: www.upwiththelark.com