ben Braudy – bringing the world to folkestone

Ben Braudy is Folkestone born and bred.  He went to Bath Spa for Art College and returned to work for Saga, the local travel and insurance company that has employed most people in Folkestone at one time or another.  Taking a leap, for a very risk-averse person, in 2017, Ben decided to see if he could make art for a living.  Now, South Eastern Railways have commissioned him to create the poster that sells Folkestone to the public.  Ben also sells his work at East Cliff Creatives on The Old High Street and online.  Folkelife caught up with him to find out how life as an artist works in Folkestone.

“I did that thing of coming home from University and falling into an office job.  I didn’t really think you could make a living from being an artist. So for about 10 years the only things I created were greetings cards for friends.  Then, when the opportunity of redundancy came up in 2017, I negotiated to leave and had plans to run off to Canada!  My cousin lives there and he’s an illustrator, so I thought I might be able to pick up some work through his contacts.  Unfortunately, it turned out there was none available.

“I am quite risk averse, and in order to work in Canada I would have needed a visa, and sponsorship from a business which would have meant getting another office job. I knew that didn’t suit me, so took a holiday there, but thought about how to make it work here instead.  At that time, 2017/2018, Folkestone was starting to take off.  There were lots of people moving to the town and things were starting to happen.  I drew pictures of a row of buildings on Tontine
Street and was able to have them shown on the wall of Lime Bar which is now The Old Buoy.   Those went down really well and for the first time I was selling my artwork.”

east cliff creatives

“I also met Angus Cameron through both having our artwork in Lime Bar. We started East Cliff
Creatives to create a network of local artists and makers that could cross promote each other.  We worked together on art projects (such as the Pebble Poppies next to the boardwalk) and also shared the costs of pop up shops and markets. We opened our first permanent shop on The Old High Street in January 2020 with fellow artist and friend Hayley Restall, before being immediately plunged into the pandemic! Through grants we managed to keep the shop running through the lockdowns.  Unfortunately, weren’t able to see a future in the projects based aspect of ECC due to the lack of funding available.

““Once we were able to reopen, we changed direction and focussed on the shop side,
showcasing and selling the work of existing ECC members. We also opened a second in Hythe
in 2021, which we ended up having to close after a year due to a lack of footfall. We had three
great years in the Folkestone shop until we were unable to renew our lease at the end of 2022.
Angus had moved away from ECC as a business by this time to work on his new project ootiboo which delivers free creative projects to schools. I began working with him on this last September, and have since become one of it’s directors. Hayley and I have also
kept East Cliff Creatives alive in a new shop further up The Old High Street which we co-own
and run.”

folkestone artwork

“Most of my work is currently of places around Folkestone.  It seems to connect with people who have links to the town. I think it works for me because I’m based here too.  You can get into great conversations with customers and find out their links to Folkestone.  It’s because of my work that South Eastern Railways got in touch.  I got a call out of the blue asking to talk about creating a poster for Folkestone which would sit alongside other posters of the south coast of the UK.  

“They had contacted the council for names of artists, and then been put onto Creative Folkestone who had given them a list of people.  It was a really nice surprise to be approached because you can sit in a little bubble sometimes – you post on social media and meet customers but you don’t really know who’s aware of what you do.”

south eastern poster

“The brief was to include key places in Folkestone that help define the town.  They had The Leas and the Harbour Arm and Lighthouse already but wanted to see what I’d include.  I had a week between the initial call and the meeting itself so I sketched out a rough composition that
also included the Viaduct and the Leas Lift just to show them and give them an idea.  They really liked what I’d done and the rest… well, that was it really!

“The posters will be all across the South Eastern Network so it’s going to be great going around to see them in different places.  They will also be on sale in the East Cliff Creatives shop and on my website too.  It’s been a really good start to this summer, and exciting to see my work going further than Folkestone.”