James Crowe didn't set out to become an art teacher. As Managing Director of Pinot & Picasso, he's the first to admit he's, “maybe the least traditionally arty person you might stumble across”. But he saw something missing in how people spend time together, and that gap became a business.
The third space
James talks about the idea of a “third space,” somewhere that isn't home and isn't work. For a long time in history, that space was the church and then that evolved into the pub. But as more of life moved online, James noticed people had lost that connection point, and nothing creative had come along to fill it. Fitness had found a cult following already in the 5am queues outside large gyms like the F45 and CrossFit studios. Creativity hadn't. “You could say we saw an opportunity to flex a creative muscle rather than a physical one,” he says.
Approachable art
That idea became Pinot & Picasso: part art class, part night out, built entirely around the idea that nobody needs to be good at painting to have a great time being creative. “We call it approachable art,” James explains, “because there's no pressure to create anything or do anything a certain way. It's just about getting in there and having a go.”
Walk through the door on a typical night and you'll find groups of friends, hen parties and corporate teams settling in with a drink before a three-hour session begins. Whether people actually follow the instructions or go “off-piste” is, as James puts it, “a complete other story.” Most nights end in as much of a singalong as a masterpiece. “It's fun art, not fine art,” he says. “That's our differentiator. It's just about having a good time.”
Finding the right people
None of it would work without the hosts. James describes the right combination as “this magic Venn diagram of personality, hospitality and creativity,” and admits good ones are hard to find. Once the business finds them, it holds onto them as much as possible. Many come from acting or musical theatre backgrounds; the focus is on finding people comfortable enough in a room to keep the energy up. The art itself, James says, is really just the vehicle. “People come back because they feel seen and they've had a good time.”
The UK expansion
Pinot & Picasso started in Australia, but James brought it to the UK himself, drawn partly by family ties here and partly by a hunch that the cultures weren't so different. “People in both cultures like to enjoy a drink, but they're looking for better ways to spend their time than just being in a pub,” he says. He piloted the first UK studio in Shoreditch and spent two and a half years living in London before moving back to Australia eighteen months ago, a decision that meant learning to run a UK business from the other side of the world.
The art of finding funding
That hasn't been without its challenges. The time difference is manageable, James says, adding “most of the times I talked to Binq it was after dinner.” Sorting finance as someone based overseas proved harder. He's blunt about how tricky the anti-money-laundering checks were to navigate as an Australian entity, at one point calling the process “hell on earth.” What got him through it was a recommendation from a friend of a friend to reach out to one of our colleagues at Binq. “If Chris can't get you funding there's probably no one in the UK who can,” this friend told him. “He was pretty much right,” James says now. The funding itself went toward product expansion and getting the UK business ready for a busy Christmas, on top of a UK launch the business had already funded itself.
Looking to the future
James is clear that they “won’t stay still for long” and is already looking at what's next. He'd like to see Pinot & Picasso in Manchester, Glasgow and Dublin, and, eventually, maybe even further afield across Europe. Closer to home, he's thinking about short courses for the regulars who keep coming back, some, like one woman in Sydney, more than a hundred times, and maybe even a membership model somewhere down the line.
Top tips
His advice for anyone thinking about doing something similar is simple: surround yourself with good people – from your employees to the finance brokers and other professionals you work with - and then just have a go. “There's far stupider people making a living working for themselves and running a business than people realise,” he says. “Backing yourself is the key.”
Ask James what he loves most about it, and he doesn't talk about the business at all. He talks about what it gives people. “I think what we do is provide a little bit of respite from the day to day,” he says, “and an opportunity to detach but connect with people. That's a pretty cool thing to be able to say.”
