Hello Harvard ...!

October 24, 2024

As part of my American art road trip, I stepped into Harvard to create live art and meet the team selling my extensive Harvard product range in the Harvard Coop. It felt quite emotional coming here as 12 years ago, this is where my journey as an international, map themed illustration brand started. I had won a place on a national women's business competition, sponsored by Santander Corporate Bank, to visit the USA with 10 other women and explore international opportunities for our businesses, which at the time, mine was an eco-bag print facility.

It was on this trip that I realised that the future lay in creating a cool tote bag brand, which would have a global reach. As I brought together an umbrella or emerging artists and printed their work on the canvas tote bag, I simply created designs to fill in the gaps. The gap I filled became the centre of the show and my map themed illustrations soon were sold by prestigious retailers around the world. I sold my manufacturing company and through a process of progressing licensing, my brand grew and today, is sold by hundreds of retailers across America and beyond, incliuding Harvard.

Today, I came to create a version of my Harvard illustration, painted in goauche onto canvas. I rediscovered the campus I walked 12 years ago, as well as earlier in the day and replaced my threadbare Harvard t-shirt with a new one :-)

I discovered that wild turkeys now roamed the commons and also got to know the campus cat ... Remy! Both made it into my new art and I even created a special portrait to celebrate Remy the Harvard cat. I now follow his instagram.

After work, I headed into Boston and the iconic Cheers bar, f(rom the very same TV sitcom) that stocks my brand too.  And enjoyed the best Mac'n'Cheese ever. I was so full, that I had to walk back, over the Charles River, and to the hotel near Harvard! :-)

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