“I became a homeowner, and that was very exciting, but I had very little money because I was single and not on a huge wage, so I couldn’t really afford to brighten up my walls. She soon transferred to London, and art was one of the last things on her mind at this point, as she made new friends and had fun in the capital as the youngest person in PA’s Victoria office.Įmma decided to move back to East Yorkshire when she was 21, and bought a house – which, around the turn of the new millennium, was far easier to do for young professionals than it is now, of course. Emma spotted an ad in the Goole Times for a job as a sub-editor at the Press Association in Howden (now PA Media), went for an interview and got the position. Despite this, she went to art college and took a foundation course as well as a GNVQ Advanced in art and design.īut at 18, the need to find regular paid work was more pressing. She acknowledges that she had “quite a different upbringing” – and not many people can say they sat next to Demis Roussos’s son on the school bus.Īrt had always been her favourite subject, but, as was often the way, her parents – who moved back to a pig farm in East Yorkshire when she was 10 – weren’t enamoured by the idea of Emma pursuing a career in it.

However, Emma Bateman left a well-paid job in business development to do just that and, a year down the line, her hard work and creativity – both on and off the canvas – is paying off.Įmma spent much of her childhood in Greece, having moved there at the age of three due to her parents’ jobs. There are thousands of artists up and down the country selling their work in markets and local cafes and pubs, but few manage to turn their passion into a business.

Soul to Take by Helen Bateman