Louis Francis, a resident artist at Westbury Arts Centre appears as an expert mentor on the BBC programme ‘Make it at market’. He was on the shows on 30th Nov and will also be on the show on 14th December, which airs at 4.30 p.m. on BBC1 and can also be seen on i-player.
Louis is a specialist stone carver who employs traditional craftsmanship methods in his stone carving which he undertakes from his studio at Westbury. You will see Louis mentoring two stone carving students who want to make a living from their craft and to have more ideas about enhancing their work.
Louis says: “I mentored two stone carvers who were struggling with certain aspects of their business in getting them ‘off the ground’ - one is based in Scotland, the other in Oxfordshire. With my guidance it is hoped that will both go on to bigger things which will aid them in their business journey.
“They both needed to create a website with more traffic to notice their work and to polish up their social media platforms.
“Working alongside them over the summer we managed to gain an understanding that within the modern world, they needed to be seen more by views online and so the result of this hard work managed to gain them more business.
“The other avenue I assisted them with was to create extra touches to their work such as gilding with colour or making their work more personal to each individual customer - work motifs or initials.”
Read more about Louis on the Milton Keynes Living Archive project website Louis Francis - Stone carver - Living Archive. Louis was selected as one of 16 people who have been pioneers in their professional lives and communities in Milton Keynes. Louis, who is profoundly deaf has had to deal with many challenges in both training and setting up his business as a stone carver and was supported in this by the charity, the Shaw Trust.
To find out more about Louis, please visit: Louis Francis