Introducing Annie Warburton, CEO of Cockpit Arts, London's leading studios for creative craft and design
Annie Warburton CEO of Cockpit Arts - photographed by Alun Calendar
Meet Annie, CEO of Cockpit Arts, an award-winning social enterprise and London's leading studios for contemporary craft and design. Alongside her work at Cockpit, Annie writes and presents and broadcasts on craft and design in the UK and internationally. She is a Fellow of the RSA and an Associate of Newnham College, Cambridge.
Here she shares how she started, her top tips for budding craftspeople, what the future holds for Cockpit Arts, and her approach to finance and wealth.
Website: Cockpit Arts
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“I’m a creative director, writer and social entrepreneur specialising in craft and design. Cockpit is an award-winning creative business incubator in London. Home to 150 independent creative businesses – some of the UK’s leading jewellers, weavers, designers and ceramicists – we launch and empower creative enterprise. Come and visit! ”
You read economics and philosophy at Cambridge University: how do you think this influenced your work in the creative arts?
Philosophy is a training in how to think, how listen hard, ask big questions and communicate with clarity. It’s a training in humility too. And all the early economic thinkers were philosophers too. They were concerned with what it is to live a good life in practice. Some, like Kate Raworth, still are.
These are all qualities I practice: to seek out potentials, envisage possibilities and then bring them into reality.
What would you say is the biggest business lesson you’ve learnt through Covid-19?
Be honest. Build trust. Find solutions that support everyone. Don’t listen when people say that’s not possible. It is.
What tips would you give to craftspeople looking to start their own business?
There’s never been a better time to build a business in craft. Public appetite for the handmade has grown massively – whether for one-off, collectible art pieces or for beautifully made, everyday items for the home. We’re all craving items that embody care, meaning and soul.
Social media is a gift: a way to build international audiences, share process as well as product, and even forge new artistic collaborations. If you’re a maker and you’re not on Instagram then you’re either a fool or so stratospherically well established that you don’t need to be.
Find a great coach. They’ll help you build the skills to refine your vision, figure out your business model, identify your market and get your voice out there. Our in-house team of coaches – alongside an amazing community of makers – is Cockpit’s secret sauce.
Annie Warburton, CEO of Cockpit Arts
What are your most valuable business resources?
People. It’s always the people. To me it’s all about relationships.
What do you think are the biggest difficulties facing craft in the 21st century?
As we recover from decades of mass manufacture, it’s still a struggle to communicate the value of the handmade but I’m hopeful: the world is waking up to what it takes in human skill and material resources to produce the things around us.
Have you faced any challenges as a woman in business? If so, how have you dealt with this?
In my first CEO job in my early 30s, the challenge was men in power patronising me. I turned it to an advantage. I just kept on showing up as myself, resisted internalising their assumptions, and got on with doing a great job.
What’s your vision for Cockpit Arts?
The destination for talented makers starting out on their careers, we equip people with the tools, knowledge and connections to succeed on their own terms, creatively and commercially
Above all, Cockpit is a community: Together, we’ll make it!
Annie Warburton, CEO of Cockpit Arts | Photographed by Sophie Mutevelian
Describe your relationship with money and personal finance:
Gratitude and flow.
How do you define wealth?
Appreciation of fine things: a nephew’s smile, a magnolia in bud, a beautifully crafted pot, listening to Philip Glass on a Sunday morning.
Most wealth money can’t buy.
What do you feel are the differences between the way you run your personal and your business finances?
I’m rigorous and meticulous with my business finances, more relaxed in the personal realm.
What is the best financial decision you have ever made for Cockpit?
The radical discount on studio fees that we gave Cockpit makers right from the beginning of the pandemic. I knew that we needed to take big action to show that we understood the challenges facing small creative businesses and were prepared to support them. It is, after all, why we exist.
Our fees are already heavily subsidised, but this was the moment to go further. It was about more than financial support for the makers, it was moral support too.
We’re a charity and social enterprise and to begin with I didn’t know how we’d make it work financially but it paid off. The action we took won the admiration of funders who, recognising our bold action, stepped in to enable us to continue that support. A full year later and we’re still giving discounts (albeit at a smaller level). And we succeeded in our objective in stabilising the situation: we have just as many makers on board at our studios now as we did 12 months ago.
Annie Warburton, CEO of Cockpit Arts | Photographed by Jamie Trounce
What did you learn about finance and money when you were growing up?
Treat money with respect, care and gratitude. Be generous.
Which area of finance do you wish you knew more about?
Investment.
What’s your guilty pleasure purchase?
Proper coffee.
What’s your money secret?
Treasure what you have. As with time, and as with love, appreciate what you have, not what you think you lack.
Who is your role model?
No single person – there’s a whole constellation of people who inspire me. I mention a handful of those below in my listening, reading and Instagram recommendations – and my fantasy dinner guests.
Speaking of your own craft preference, what are your ‘go to’ pieces?
Anything by the artist Magdalene Odundo.
How have you responded personally to the pandemic and lockdown?
You know in many ways, the restrictions of the pandemic haven’t affected me too much. I spent my teenage years on a remote farm living with my father, a taciturn man in his 70s, miles from the nearest village store or neighbour. It taught me self-reliance. Later, in my 20s, I experienced the limits to freedom that come with being a single parent, not least an evening curfew. So when lockdown came it didn’t feel all that different to other phases in my life.
What was harder was witnessing so much suffering and loss. My tip for not being overwhelmed by that is focusing on what is in your control. In my case, that was helping out locally through mutual aid schemes and doing all I could to support Cockpit’s team and 150 makers.
Annie Warburton, CEO Cockpit Arts
What are your top tips for staying grounded through the pandemic?
As for staying grounded: yoga, meditation, time in nature, eating well, consciously practicing gratitude, connection with friends – and, of course, making with my hands. All things that stand us in good stead always.
What’s next for you?
I’m writing a memoir about my mother’s story – an extraordinary woman who found her way from working-class Southeast London to working in Baghdad in the Fifties, only to battle the barbarism of mental health ‘care’ in the 70s on her return the UK. It’s more fun than it sounds – it’s a story of determination, unexpected redemption and a slice of social history.
I also have a podcast in the making. It’s an idea I’ve been kindling since 2016, so it’s evolved as the podcast scene has changed. Its time might just be now.
Top 5 Instagram accounts to follow?
@design.emergency – a collaboration between Paola Antonelli and Alice Rawsthorn exploring design’s role in creating a better future
@ekta_kaul – mindful stich | embroidery as psychogeography
@art_car_boot_fair – the most joyful art fair I know
@rogerrobinsononline – poetry | wisdom | activism
@so.shiro – London gallery featuring craft from around the world curated by the inspiring Shiro Muchiri
If you could invite 3 artists to dinner, dead or alive, who would you choose and why?
Anni Albers for wisdom, stories and insight into making.
David Bowie for wit and inventiveness.
James Baldwin for fire and fierce intelligence.
Could I squeeze in Olafur Eliason? His studio kitchen brings people together to share ideas over locally sourced food. It’d be the perfect venue for our dinner.
Website: Cockpit Arts
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recommended reading and listening?
As I write, I’m listening to the wise, glorious, playful and serious Laurie Anderson. I first listened to her as a child. She’s never stopped captivating me.
I’m (re)reading Philip Pullman’s essays on story and storytelling, Daemon Voices, and Joan Didion’s lucid essays in The White Album.