Anthony Morehouse the Elvish Tailor on Sustainable Creativity, Paganism, and Service

In this episode, author Thorn Coyle interviews Anthony Morehouse, also known as the Elvish Taylor, about his creative roots and how he integrates his spirituality into his clothing and textile design. Anthony shares how his love for Celtic iconography and observation of the natural world influenced his creativity. The two discuss the importance of connection to nature, and finding beauty in the small things. Anthony emphasizes the importance of creating things that are both beautiful and useful, while also being environmentally conscious. The two discuss sustainability as well as the connection between craft and community.  Thorn also explores the role of creativity in building connections and serving others, highlighting the importance of community and resource sharing. Thorn reflects on the balance between being of service and getting paid for work, and Anthony highlights the contentment that comes from appreciating what one has.

To support this podcast, please join Thorn's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ThornCoyle

Find out more about Anthony's work at https://www.theelvishtailor.co.uk/

Transcript

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Hello friends, welcome to Magic, Creativity, and Life, interesting conversations with interesting people. My name is T. Thorn Coyle and I am your host. Thank you for joining me, and thank you to my Patreon supporters for paying for the recording and captioning of this series. Let's dive in! Hello, everybody. Welcome to the next episode of Magic, Creativity, and Life. Today, I'm happy to have with me Anthony Morehouse, also known as the Elvish Taylor. Anthony was born in Yorkshire, England, to a family that has been in the clothing trade since at least 1360. He trained in fashion design, herbalism, and aroma therapy, as well as many other skills, running a shop and teaching for many years in a business started with his husband, author Nigel Pearson. After a heart attack in 2012, Anthony refocused on clothing and textile design by his shop, The Elvish Tailor. Anthony, welcome to the show. Hi, it's good to be here. Yeah, I'm glad to have you here. So the thing I always like to ask people is what are your creative roots? Like what sort of creativity were you attracted to as a child? And how has that helps you moving forward with your creativity? I was very much one of those kids on the edge. Being the queer kid in the class in the late 60s, 70s, 80s, I always felt very much on the edge of things. And so my best friend was my dog. I would spend a lot of time up on the moors or in the woods. I was really, really into Celtic stuff from a very early age. I don't know where that came from. until I did a DNA test and found that I was Celtic on both my dad's side and my mum's side. So really interesting in sort of that Celtic iconography and Celtic deities and the myths behind Celtic deities. And really I didn't do a lot of artwork until I went to do my A levels, which are the qualifications that we do in the UK. at 18. And I was studying mostly, I was doing English, English literature, biology and chemistry. And I absolutely hated chemistry. And I really, really wanted to do something creative. And so I asked if I could change to do art. So I had to cram in doing the exam that everybody did previously when they were 16. And I also did A -level textiles as well and just fell in love with it really. Just finding that creative buzz gave me a form of not only escapism within myself, but because the art studios in the school that I was were separate and you could use them at like break time and lunch time and stuff, it meant you could get away from the bullies by going in there and doing art stuff. So that's what I did. and decided that I wanted to go on and do it further. And yeah, that's what I did. That's amazing. I so appreciate this. I hear from a lot of people that, you know, in their childhood, they were different, didn't always fit in. And that retreat or retreat may be the wrong word. open exploration into things like mythology and also the natural world is a common thread for a lot of creative people, I think. Yeah. And I think it's that whole thing about observation as well. When you're creative, because when you're creative, if you're if you're drawing or painting or anything you have, it's all about observation. Right. Because you're observing something to put down, whether it's in your head or your vision, looking at something and then you're transferring that to some other mediums. So it's all about observation. And so I think, you know, kids who are on the outside who have that bullying always have a thing about observation, because they're always looking for danger. their observational skills seem to be much stronger than people who aren't on the edge. Does that make sense? It totally makes sense. And that's certainly true for me from my childhood, you know, never knowing. when danger or violence was going to erupt. So I had to become very situational situationaly aware. Yeah. And, you know, the way in which that works to our advantage, I think, is that we do have a more open awareness of the world around us, the natural world, the human world, the animal world, the spirit world. But also, there's a disadvantage in that sometimes we are trying to anticipate things in a way that ends up we're trying to control our environment. Yeah, you know, in ways that aren't as healthy. And so I know for myself, I have had to examine that as well and observe that as well and say, you know what, I'm an adult now, my life is different. And how do I channel that observation into creativity rather than in trying to control the world around me? So I can control my art form, right? Instead of trying to control the world. Does that make sense? It does. I think it's as you get older, you learn to breathe into it and be more in the moment. So you observe things, I suppose in a different way, you observe the minutiae of things as they are happening, not as a warning signal to you. Yes. So you watch. You know, like in the spring, we've got a tree outside our house, a great big, older tree. And we watch, you know, the catkins come out and then the car is covered in golden pollen one morning. And then the next morning, all the catkins fall down and then the leaves start to come out. And, and you observe those small things. Yes. That become important to you. The small things I often feel are what save me. Yeah, it's that connection, the droplet of rain on a leaf. Yeah. You know, the spider on a flower. Yeah. Right. That form of connection just fills me up and fills my soul and heart and reminds me that life is a beautiful thing. Despite the pain and suffering in the world, there are these jewel like moments that I can connect with and that then end up feeding my creativity. Yeah. Yeah, I agree totally. During COVID, a lot of people were really like, well, I worked all the way through COVID. I absolutely loved lockdown because I'm very much an introvert. So being away from people, being in my studio, not having to do all the other stuff and deal with loads of people every day just meant that I could put that into creativity. And people said, well, how can you do that? And it's like creating something beautiful all the time. Yes. And trying to put beauty into the world that sometimes it seems like there isn't a lot of beauty. Yes. Yes. And so it's sort of adding to that in a way. Yeah, I agree. And I notice that nature infuses your clothing design. Hugely, I'm wondering if you want to talk a little bit about that, about your relationship to the natural world and how you translate that into clothing. Sure. In every morning, I have to go on a walk through the woods with the dogs and down by the river and just to feel that connection really with nature and with spirit, very much with spirit as well within nature. And I'm constantly looking at things. as we walk in the changes and I'll start off with an idea for something or it might pop into my head while I'm walking. So like the embroidered silk velvet shawls that I do, I do one about every three or four weeks. They're quite time intensive and somebody commissioned an Aphrodite one last week from me. So I was sort of walking through the woods today and thinking about how I was going to come together, thinking of the stories of Aphrodite and looking at the colours around me and the changes in the landscape and down by the river with that sort of water element as well for Aphrodite, it's normally the sea but you know we're fairly near the sea but I wasn't by the sea today. But looking at the colours very much so and seeing how they're going to work in together. And then when I'm making clothes I use a lot of florals. I love florals, I think they're really joyous. And I love using them in slightly different ways, maybe taking apart a fabric and putting it back together again. And again, it's very much inspired by what I see in my garden. We've got a lovely garden that Nigel does nearly all the work on. There's so much there, so much inspiration there. have medicinal herbs planted everywhere. So I do quite a lot of shawls that are embroidered with herbs and even the seasonal ones that I do. So sort of for the eight festivals, I tend to pick herbs and plants that I see out in the garden at that time. Right. And they will be incorporated into the embroideries. That's beautiful. So How about you have a lot of training in various skills, but also in various spiritual practices, including you've trained in Ayurvedic medicine. You're qualified as an advanced yoga teacher. You also are deep into paganism. And I'm wondering what core spiritual practices do you do on a regular basis? I do a lot of meditation and my spiritual practice has changed over the years. So I do less and less formal stuff now, except when I work with my coven. And then it's quite a regular ritual, really. But when I'm working by myself, it's very much of the moment in the moment. So if I'm doing spell work, for example, instead of, you know, having the right color candles to find very much that sort of person, go, I've got some oregano, that'll do. And I've got a bit, I've got nightlight there, that'll do for the candle. Because it's the intention that you put into it rather than the power finalia that, you know, people bring along. And I find that I'm much more... it works and flows much better for me because I'm not worrying about all the stuff, the other stuff that's going on. So yeah, a lot of meditation and again, the walk in the woods in the morning is a major part of my spirituality. It's there when I speak to the spirits of the woods. Every Monday morning I leave an offering for them. in the same place, is it's almost like a little altar, which is a tree stump really. It's been there. I've been using it for so long. It's less of a tree stump and more of a mound of earth because it has it's rotted away. So yeah, every Monday morning I leave an offering of bread, milk and honey and ask them for blessings for the week. Keep us all safe and healthy and that everything goes well for the week really. don't tend to ask for huge amounts of things. The older I get, the more I just want peace and happiness. Yes. Rather than years ago, I wanted a high flying career and in fact I had a high flying career long, well before we opened the shop. It doesn't bring happiness though, it didn't bring happiness to me. Right. And I've always craved that happiness and that's sort of the goal really in life. And simplicity brings that happiness, I think. You know, that's interesting. We're in a similar age cohort and I feel similarly that, you know, my ambitions are quieter now. Happiness, being of service in some way, you know, enjoying life, doing my creative work. I also do a lot of meditation and I go for daily walks as well. I love your walk so you take photos of things along the way. Yes, yes, I post my photos every day. And you know, that's one way I, for me, creativity is all about connection. And so posting those simple photos every day is one way I'm just trying to connect with people and say, hey, remember, there's beauty in the world here. But I agree the the simplicity, you know, sometimes I still do elaborate magical workings, but it is that daily heartbeat that simple, you know, we have a house spirit in our home that when we moved in, we were doing some work on the kitchen and I was, I was moving the stove out and I found a ceramic leprechaun figure, the kind that come in the boxes. so I'm like, and then I found a tiny silver spoon. And I'm like, clearly, this is your little silver spoon. Yeah. So I set up a kitchen altar. I have a bleak China cup that I've had for decades that has shamrocks on it. So every day I make myself a cup of tea and I make the house spirit a cup of tea. Yeah. Right. And it's just a way of saying thank you for this lovely home. Yeah. Thank you for the shelter we are offered. Yeah. You know, and then out just refilling the birdbath. for the animals and birds outside. Those simple kind of offerings that you're talking about, I do as well. They're another heartbeat that's important to me. We have a similar thing with our house spirits. They have a shrine in the corner of the dining room. And we feed them on a Saturday evening after we've finished work for the week. It's like a thank you for looking after us for the week. bring us blessings for the week ahead. And we had a really interesting thing, must be getting on maybe for 20 years ago, where we, running your own business sometimes, it's keeping the wolf from the door and hand to mouth very much so. And we were really short of money. And I was in the shop, Nigel was at home, and he was cleaning and he said, have you lost a 10 pound note? He said, I've just found a 10 pound note down the side of the sideboard. I said, no, I haven't lost one. well, there you go. The next week he found a 20 pound note and the week after he found a 20 pound note and it was 50 pounds exactly that we needed. Wow. And we hadn't lost any money there. just, know, spirits had manifested it there for us. That reminds me of a favorite story from one of my teachers who has since passed Cora Anderson. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She and her husband, Victor, were poor. She was raised dirt poor. But there was a time where they were completely out of money. And so Victor asked his son, can I use your drum? His son gave him his drum. So Victor sat with the drum and started praying and Cora started sweeping the house. And at the time the house they lived in, the door opened directly out onto the dirt outside. So she swept the house and kept sweeping in the yard and swept her way to the corner where there was a bush and there was money on the bush. It was exactly the amount of money they needed to buy a small amount of food to get the family through for another week. Yeah. So again, that's just about, you know, awareness and connection to what is around us and that we don't live in a void. We don't live in a vacuum. We don't have to do everything ourselves. Right. There's there's help for us if we're open to it. You know, it it reminds me of the old Robert Anton Wilson practice of think of quarters and then you find quarters everywhere. Right. Yeah. And part of it is just tuning your awareness, which is something I think you touched on earlier about becoming more aware of the world around us. We're back to the beginning of our conversation. And there's something else there that you touched on about not needing as many elaborate rituals. And the word that came to mind when you spoke of that was integration. You have integrated all your decades of training. And so now they're part of you. Yeah, they're part of you. You've digested the material. Yeah. And so you no longer need as much. It's not that the external stuff wasn't useful. No, think, I think that external stuff is useful to get you in the right mind space. Yes. You know, those are what those tools are for, because the magic ultimately comes through you. Yes. And so those things are just to get you in the right space. Right. And I think particularly with having a meditation practice so you can switch into that, you know, mind space, that magical head sort of thing. Yes. Quite instantaneously. Yes. That you no longer need that or that other stuff. Right. And very much my mum was, she would never have said she was a magical person. She was really psychic. So that if you got in trouble at school, she would know about it when you got home and you get told off again, which was annoying sometimes. And she would, she seemed to be able to manifest things when she needed them. And, but if you, if you mentioned witchcraft or anything like that, you know, you couldn't go there at all. And, and I, you know, she did it very much from herself without loads of equipment around. So I think maybe part of it was picking up from her as well, the way that she worked. know that my centering and meditation practice in the morning sets a template for my day. So you're correct. Then, then I always have access to that energy. If I notice myself getting tense because I'm struggling with something in my business, for example, I can just take a breath, drop back down into my center and say, this isn't that important. Yeah. I am not living in an active battleground. It's a business, it's a thing I'm stumbling with in my business right now. And I will get through this. I can find a new way to connect. I can shift my mindset. Focus on my I think that's another thing more and more as you get older, things that you thought were important maybe 10, 20 years ago, you realize now in the whole scheme of things, they're very unimportant. Yeah. and you don't need to stress so much about. I also think, sorry, go ahead. I was just gonna say that the years that I've spent worrying about stuff that never happened. Right. You know, I sometimes look at it I think, I could be much more productive if I hadn't spent that time worrying about stuff that never happened. Yeah. I think that would be the thing I would tell myself, you know, if I could tell myself when I was 18, don't worry so much. It all works out fine. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. I mean, it's... That's hard to hear when you feel in the midst of all that strife, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, and I think that all of this whole conversation relates back to creativity because, you know, it's the throw the hundred pots theory of creativity, right? You don't work to perfect one pot. You make a hundred pots and you learn the clay and you learn the shape. and you learn the process. And again, you integrate all of that into muscle memory, touch, all of you know, how your body reacts, how how your mind thinks of things. yeah, so it's similar, the more I write, the easier writing becomes, you know, I see people say, I hate writing, I struggle so much to write. I'm like, Wow, I just enjoy writing. It's a pleasure to me. Do you do as that is? I've integrated it, right? Yeah. Do you do it as a practice? you sort of, cause when Nigel's writing, he does it from, I'm going to write from 10 till one, and then I'll have lunch and then I'll write from two till three, and then I'll finish for the day. And so he's very disciplined with that. It varies from me. when I, when I'm really in the middle of a project, I definitely write every morning. Yeah. and I write for at least two hours. I do not write all day. That doesn't work for me. Because my, you know, I have a chronic illness. I have weird brain stuff. But yes, I definitely have that relationship with my writing and I am very much internally motivated, which helps. So it's easy for me to just sit down and write. But the other part of it that's a practice and I do this, I have a monthly creativity sprint with my Patreon supporters and I always say, let's take a breath. Center and connect with our project Yeah, right. So I connect with whatever I'm working on whether it's fiction or nonfiction whether it's a newsletter or a novel It doesn't matter. Yeah, and that that connection which only takes a few seconds for me because I've trained for it Gets me into the flow more easily. Yeah, right And of course consistency helps with that the then I'm not starting from zero people who are inconsistent with creativity, I think struggle more. Yeah, I think they do. They're either waiting for inspiration to strike, which may or may not happen, or they're always starting from zero and having to ramp up from scratch every single time. Yeah. I work in my studio. I will do some work in there every single day. days when I'm, in the shop, two or three days a week when I'm in the shop I'll be down in my studio at sort of 5 .30 in the morning just maybe scribbling ideas down, looking at different fabrics, know, just keeping that momentum going. And so that when I go in there with a full day then I don't have to sort of... you know, turn the engine on and get it going. It's already sort of motoring along and it's already warmed up, ready to go. Yes, exactly. Same for me. So how do you balance, you know, how often do you get a full day in the studio? How balance running the shop and fulfilling, you know, having your customers and creating things? So I am in the shop every Monday, every other Friday. and some Saturdays. The shop is closed on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which is a decision that we made after COVID. And because we decided that we wanted a kinder life really, and we wanted more time to do creative things. And so we decided we would shut on Tuesdays and Thursdays and it's worked fine. You know, we don't take any less money. So I'm in my studio. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and every other Friday and some Saturdays and Sunday mornings usually. And I'll start, you know, was down there this morning again at 5 .30. I was down there just getting a few ideas together for what I want to do today. Today was totally thrown out though because I was waiting for fabric deliveries and they didn't turn up and they're coming tomorrow. So I decided that I was going to go off and see my best friend who lives out in the country and it was lovely. And so, you know, she had the afternoon off. we just had a chat and a cup of tea in the garden. And it was nice to have that time off, which is something that I do very rarely. I get a bit sort of head down with, with work and obsessed with it sometimes. Yeah. I tend to work seven days a week also. Now I don't work seven full days a week. You know, that's my trade off is some days I'll only work two hours. Right. Yeah. Other days I work a full day. I don't really see it as work. You know, it's, I'm really lucky because I love it so much that I see that I'm very lucky that I get paid for doing something that I love. I feel the same too. And not many people can say that. No, it's a blessing. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. So your textiles are both a visual art, a tactile art, a practical art, a craft. Do you have any thoughts about that, about that combination of things? I'm very much of the idea that William Morris said, you know, that it needs to be beautiful and useful. Yeah. And if it's not those things, then I'm not really interested in creating it. So everything that I do, I hope is beautiful and useful. And I'm very hot as well on sort of environmental stuff. So a lot of the fabrics that I use have a very low environmental footprint. So a lot of them are basically stock that would have gone to landfill. Right. Fabrics that would have gone to landfill. so I don't know what it's known as in the States, but here it's known as dead stock. And there are suppliers who will buy, you know, from designers, they will buy ends of rolls and things and then I buy from them. And like with the cloaks that I do, the wool cloaks, there's very little wastage. You know, what's left over from the cloaks goes into the, you know, button scarves. What's left over from them goes into the, to interline the bags to get the bags body. And probably from a roll of fabric, there's probably about a teaspoon full of fabric left over by the time I finished with it all. that all sort of ties together. And I think, you know, pagan spirituality really needs to tie in that environmental awareness and also the quality of stuff as well. There's so much throwaway fashion that people will wear it once and then throw away because it's so cheap, but it's so bad for the environment. And I just hate that sort of idea that, you know, people have just wasting resources. So I make things that are going to last for years and years and years, hopefully they'll last for years and years and years. I know the button scarf I got from you, I was really happy to find that you had made it of scraps from other projects. That felt really good to me. Yeah, I saved them up through the hour. I've just started doing button scarves for this winter using the fabrics that I've used probably from Christmas that have left over in a big bag. And then I go through and use them again. So the beautiful and useful thing That also feels to me, it relates back to some of your childhood activity in my mind because it harkens back to the way people used to live, right? Yeah, very much so. We made baskets, we made homes, we made kitchen utensils, right? And those were all beautiful and useful. it's interesting to me watching the ways in which, I mean, I also love you know, just art for art's sake. But it's interesting for me how much those two things have become divorced in contemporary society. And I think it's to our detriment because we no longer have the active relationship with the material world we used to have. And I think in a lot of ways it comes down to sexism as well, where a lot of craft things are traditionally seen as like sewing is traditionally seen as a woman's craft and you would be you might not be amazed but you may be amazed when i'm doing a stall at a you know a show and i've got all my stuff in front of me and they say who made this and i'll say i did and they go and they don't know how to relate because surely that's woman's work is sewing isn't it And it's like, no, you know, my family had been doing it for the last 700 years. So it's not women's work. It's everybody's work. Everybody in the family was involved in it. And I think very much, if you look at the value of art when it's being sold, if it's a painting by a man, it'll be much more, get a much higher price than if it's a textile by a woman. Even though there's probably the more skill gone into the textile and more time has gone into it. Right, like the old lace makers, for example. Exactly, yeah. Incredible skill, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, we even see the differentiation between clothing designers are often men, but the sewers are often women. Chefs are often men, but cooking is traditionally a women's craft. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And it seems to have that differently perceived value. If you're called a chef, then you can command much more in wages than you can if you call yourself a cook and you're a woman. Right, Amazing. You know, I once had the privilege at the Parliament of the World's Religions of hearing some Ainu elders speak and the Ainu are the indigenous peoples. in Japan. Yeah. And they talked about how, you know, we have a connection with, they're very much animists. So we have a connection with something and you have to have a connection with that object from its inception, from its first thought, from when it's made all the way until the end of its life. Totally. Yeah. Right. Because everything is alive. And what struck me is that is that's easier to see with a handmade garment or a handmade piece of pottery because we can sense that active relationship, that insolvent, if you will, between the creator and the material. Whereas when things are mass produced, that thread grows more and more tenuous and it's harder to even comprehend that this mass produced thing has a life span. And also what would happen if the corporation that made it was responsible for it from its inception until the end of its life? Right? They are not responsible until the end of its life. And so we end up with the trash heaps and the climate change and all the other things we're dealing with. Right? Yeah. I'm reading a book at the moment. It's called Less. It's by a guy called Patrick Grant. And he owns a Savile Robe tailory, but he also owns a company called Community Clothing, which aims to bring back the clothing industry back into the UK. So all the clothes are made in the UK. And they're really well made. They're at a higher price premium, but they're going to last longer. And in this book, he's saying, you know, He has very few items of clothing because if they're well made, they're going to last for years and years and years. And if you have a Savile Row suit made, which costs several thousand pounds, but he said, you know, people bring them back to be altered to fit their children and then their grandchildren. Right. Which sort of again puts into into the the whole thing that the amount of love and care and quality. and beauty really of that whole manufacturing process where everything is made very slowly and with care and attention and hand done. Yeah and so then we end up with you know wealthy people, middle class to wealthy people can afford these things that will last forever. poorer people cannot right and rely on things like fast fashion. through no fault of their own. But then it was that thing with fast fashion is that if you buy say a cheap t -shirt you maybe can wear it for a couple of months and then you've got to throw it away. So you spent I don't know five dollars on it. Right. It's expensive to be poor. It is expensive to be poor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's expensive to be poor. You end up paying more over time because you don't have the the outlay upfront. Yeah. And that's that shift has happened in the last hundred years. I would say I would say in the last 40 years, 40 years, you're correct. Yeah. Because I remember as a child, I learned to sew because my mother sewed. And we either got our clothing, either my mother made our clothing or we got it secondhand because we were poor. But now it's far more expensive to make your own clothing than it is to buy clothing. Yeah. Right. That has flipped. Yeah, sure. When I was a, I used to be a buyer for a big chain of department stores. I used to buy men's formal wear. And this was in the late eighties, early nineties. And the cheapest that you could buy a shirt landed into the UK from Hong Kong was around five US dollars, five pounds. And now you can buy a shirt in a shop for three pounds 40 years later. Right. But that's due to slave labor, child labor, exploitation right the way through the process. Right. That we need it. We need a massive social change in the way that we look at things and the way that we value things. We do. And I mean, that's top to bottom in every sector. We need that revaluation. And I'm not sure how we're going to get there. I'm not either. I'm not either. No. You know, I mean, it's why, right. You're doing the best you can with your cottage industry. Yeah. I'm doing the best I can and, you know, trying to take care of people in my local community as best I can. So that's one way is building stronger communities as much as we are able to and sharing resources. teaching people, teaching people, think is hugely important. people what sorts of things? Teaching people crafting skills, you know, how to make clothes, how to sew a button on. Right. So many people, I say that I sew, go, I can't even sew a button on. And I'm thinking, you know, somebody needs to. just had two basic things like how to sew a button on, how to darn a sock, all those sort of little things to make clothes last longer. I know that there are trends right now like visible mending that people are doing. There's also, in some cities there are small collectives that you can go and they'll have sewing machines and they will help you mend your garments, things like that. Yeah, we have those here as well. Yeah, think the more we can encourage each other and band together to do that sort of thing, the better, you know, and I just know in my communities, whether it's friends or neighbors or just random people that I connect with, we do a lot of resource sharing, you know, who has a tall ladder? Okay, you have a tall ladder. Great. Can I borrow your tall ladder? Who has a chainsaw? Who has an air conditioner, an air purifier, they don't need anymore. Well, I know this elder over here who needs an air purifier. Right. So we do a lot more resource resource sharing. And I think that is also reclaiming basic community that that also was torn asunder, certainly here in the US with the at the rise of car culture and suburban culture. Yeah. really disintegrated those sorts of basic human ties that I think a lot of people are hungry to rebuild now. Yeah and I don't know what it's like there but here in the UK the majority of people don't know who their neighbors are. It's true here in the US and I think some people are trying very hard to turn that around. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But There's definitely more social distance. Like here in the US, it's a problem. Instead of going to talk to your neighbor and saying, hey, can we work this out? People just call the police. Really? my goodness. It's like, need to move your car. You need to turn down your music. It's like, really? You can't just go talk to your neighbor. my goodness. It's terrible. of course, as you know, that causes a whole other host of problems. And then when you when you include systemic racism, we're in big trouble around that sort of thing. Now, I'm lucky where we live now, we do know our immediate neighbors and people make sure to look out for each other. Like during lockdown, you know, there was a 90 year old man on our street and we were all checking on him. Do you have groceries? Do you need delivery? Are you OK? that sort of thing. So I'm really happy where we live right now. We don't have to agree with our neighbors. No, we just we just have to be neighborly, right? Just be nice. Just be a nice person. That's the whole thing at the end of the day is just be a nice person. Yeah. So I want to get back to I'm trying to thread this needle between community and creativity, right? So You spend a lot of time alone creating, and yet the art you create is meant to be worn. It's meant to be enjoyed. And so how do you feel or do you feel that that builds community and connection with others? How does that work for you? I think it's through the shop, that, you know, people come in. And because of the sort of shop that we are, I think in the States you call them metaphysical shops. We have a really good community of people who come into the shop and are interested in that sort of thing. Interested in the stuff that I do, they'll give me ideas, they will ask for things to be specially made for them, whether it's something as small as a tarot bag up to... a wedding dress, example, or a hand fasting dress. I suppose it's quite an intimate community. And particularly in the town that we live in, actually everybody knows everybody's business. Particularly if you've got a shop, everybody knows who you are and what you do. Yeah So that community thing comes through that. I suppose also through online social media as well. You build a community through that. There are lots more ways of building community now than there used to be. And I have a group of friends who are all creatives. And so we'll chat about things and creative things and ideas. And if somebody gets stuck with an idea, how do you do this? And somebody will say, this is how you do it. And so there's that. almost helping out of each other if you get stuck with ideas. So sometimes people will come into me in the shop and go, I'm making this, but I'm a bit stuck on it. How do I do it? So I'll explain to them how I would do it. Not that the way that I would do it is necessarily the right way, but it's a way of doing it. So there is that as well of helping people out. Particularly in the shop as well, because I'm a herbalist, I... work on the old apothecary system. So I don't charge people for consultations. I will just charge them for the price of the herbs really. Which again is, I think it's something everybody should be able to use. I, there are... lots of people who need that facility. And so on days when I'm in the shop, I sort of put my shop head on, which is different to my creative down the end of the garden head. And so I can spend hours talking to these people about their health issues and sort them out. And very much that's part of the community thing that we do as well. That's part of how you're of service is what it sounds like to me. yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we can all find our ways to be of service. Yeah. Yeah. And even just, you know, sometimes just listening in the shop, for some reason, maybe it's just who we are. We get people come into the shop and tell us their life stories. Mm -hmm and tell us all their problems and and things they would never tell anybody else I had somebody in the shop the other day and She was in there for about half an hour Just telling me about her life and and just crying and I was like, you know with the tissues just there as a listening ear right and That's one. Yeah That's that's I think part of that Magical thing it goes back to the the wise woman and cunning man, doesn't it? And just being there to help. It does. And I appreciate that. I appreciate you offering that gift to people in your community. And it also brings up a question that I'm sure some of my listeners will have, is balancing. You have years of training in all these crafts and art forms. You've put in the work, you've got the skills. How do you balance that being of service and giving things away for free and making sure you also get paid for your work so that you can have a home and food and a life? It's very hit and miss really the way that I do that. So you can sort of tell when people come in and they want an order for something, if they're gonna be difficult. And then you get other people. So I charge them, say for a handmade shirt, which takes me probably a day, day and a half to make. I will charge £125 out of which probably £30 to £40 of that is materials. And if you look at the minimum wage, I think it's about £12 an hour at the moment, so I'm not even earning minimum wage. And sometimes you get people coming in, that's really expensive. And I say to them, how much do you earn a day? Because this is how much this is going to, you know, how long. So you're getting this really cheaply and they go, yeah, suddenly a bell rings for them. And then there are other people who just really love your work or really love my work. And, you know, I have a connection with them and I'll have something there that they really love. And just go, here, have this. Just because it makes them happy by giving it to them. But very much it depends on the person. I think through years and years of experience of dealing with people, you can tell those people who are trying to take you for a ride and those people who really... are lovely people who aren't going to take you for a ride. Does that make sense? It does. And, you know, I'm just thinking... So you're undercharging. Yeah, I am undercharging. And yet you're still somehow, by grace, able to pay for your home and your food and your shop and your shop rent. Right. Yeah, sure. And your materials. Yeah. Right. So how do you think you manage that? the goddess provides. I think it's, I don't know, I mean we don't have loads of money but I don't need loads of things. So as long as I've got enough money to pay the bills at the end of the month then I'm happy. You know you see these people who are squirreling away thousands and thousands of pounds and and they're not happy. Right. And I think at the end of the day, one of the things that we should be measuring as a wealth of society is the happiness in society. I agree. And that's how I feel about my life as well. I don't need much money. Yeah. And my wealth comes from the fact that I have a home. I have partnership. I have good food to eat. I have my walks. I have my creative practice. I feel very wealthy, even though I'm not. Exactly. I'm not by those other measures. And I think that gives me a contentment. I have a contentment with what I have and an appreciation for what I have. And that also then feeds back into my creativity, because there's just less tension. around my life because of that. And you're not trying to do things. If I do this, will it sell? Right, exactly. And I found whenever I've done that, you know, this is really popular at the moment, I'm going to do this and I'll have it forever because my soul's not in it. And I'll do something that's real. And sometimes I'll just go, are you sure about that? And I'll go, yeah, yeah, I want to do it. And it'll sell straight away. Yeah. And I think it's the energy that you put into it, isn't it? That people pick up on the love and the spirit that's in something that you make. Yeah. I know for myself, as soon as I stopped, when I pivoted towards writing fiction again, as soon as I stopped trying to do marketing and writing the way other people told me I ought to, Yeah. And just said, no, I just have to do things my way and figure it out. I amazingly. My audience found me and I found my audience and I started making a comfortable living. Right. So that's the other thing. You know, I see these people who are doing all the things that they think they ought to be doing and they're miserable. And I'm like, well, you some of them aren't even making enough money. right and they're still miserable and then others of them are making probably more than I am and I'm like yeah but I feel I think I'm happier and I'm not working as hard yeah because I'm in I'm in the creative flow I think it's also that thing that Goddess wants you to be on the right track and when you get onto the right track then everything will work out. May it be so. Yeah, when you're doing the right things that sing to your heart, then it all comes together. I think that's a beautiful place to close. Unless you have any final thoughts about creativity. The only thing I would say is, you do things because you love doing them. And also be careful who you take criticism from. If you wouldn't take advice from somebody, don't take their criticism. Yeah. Because there are a lot of people out there who will. try and destroy you. through jealousy or whatever. And it's very easy to take that on board, I think, when you're a creative person, because, you know, going back to what we said about observation right at the beginning, that that thing of observation is also picking up on feelings of things. So you pick up on the negative stuff from people as well as the positive stuff. And that can easily throw you out and stop you carrying on. Yeah. So what I hear from that is stay as true to yourself as you can. Surround yourself with people who support you and whom you want to support. Yeah. There was just a thing on the news just before we started talking about the the oldest person in the world, this lady, which is 117. I think she's just died today. And they asked her, you know, when she was, I, what keeps you going on? One of things she said, it was staying away from negative people. And I think, you know, staying away from that negativity is a very positive thing. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, I appreciated the conversation. thanks to all of our listeners. You can find Anthony Morehouse, the Elvish tailor at the elvish tailor .co .uk. And as always, you can find me at thorncoyle .com. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for joining me. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. And if you would like to support this series and future podcasts, please join me at patreon .com slash thorn coyle That's T H O R N C O Y L E. Have a creative and magical day.