When I moved to Reading in 2023, I didn’t really know anyone or much about the city. I was in my final year studying business and economics, and although I genuinely enjoyed it, there was something else that had a stronger hold on me. I might share more about that in time, but for now, I’ll just say that art had a deeper pull.
Before Reading, I was living in Portsmouth while studying in London. My classes were only two days a week, so it made sense. I could save money, wake up early, take the train in, and come back on the same day. It worked well for a while, but I knew I needed a change. London rent didn’t make sense, and I wanted somewhere that was close enough to the city but more affordable. Reading fit that description perfectly.
The strange thing is that Reading had already been on my mind years before I ever went there. Around 2019, I was listening to a rapper called Songa who shouted out Reading in one of his freestyles, and for some reason that stuck with me. Around the same time, I used to play Football Manager with one of my friends, and we would always pick Reading FC, trying to take them to the Champions League. We never managed it, but I think those small moments planted a seed. Reading became this quiet idea in the back of my mind, a place that felt somehow familiar even before I arrived.
When I got here, I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I’d been away from art for a while. But one day I found myself on Google searching for “art studios in Reading.” I wasn’t even sure why. Maybe I just wanted to be around something creative, even if it was pottery or sketching. That’s when I came across a place called Jelly.
At first glance, the website looked like it might be for kids. It was full of bright colours and community workshops. I remember thinking, even if it’s for six-year-olds, at least I’ll have left the house today. So I decided to go. I’m not the most social person, and I prefer quiet spaces, so I wasn’t expecting much.
When I arrived, the studio was calm. By what I can only describe as God’s grace, I walked in on a day when only one person was there. That person was Laura. She opened the door, welcomed me in, and we ended up talking for about half an hour. She told me about Jelly, the Young Creatives group, and the opportunities they offered to emerging artists. There was no pressure, just kindness. That conversation changed everything.
After that, I joined the Young Creatives and started taking part in projects. I got to see the full spectrum of what being an artist could mean. There were hobbyists, professionals, people making art for fun, and others making a living from it. For the first time, I saw what success could look like in art. It looked real. It looked possible. I saw people who worked regular jobs that weren’t too stressful, who sold art on the side, ran workshops, and still managed to make ends meet. That was all I needed to see.
From there, I started doing more research. I found artists online who were making a living, and not just a small one. Some were doing really well, and it wasn’t because they were in galleries or showing in Paris. They were making art for hotels, offices, and private collectors, doing what they loved and living comfortably. It opened my eyes. I thought, you can actually do this.
I think this applies to any field. Whether it’s art, finance, or anything else, it helps to see someone ahead of you. It gives you perspective and guidance. You don’t have to copy them, but you can see how they’ve navigated their journey and learn from it.
Looking back, I can see how carefully everything lined up. If I had gone to Jelly on another day, maybe a Monday or a Saturday, I might have found the place empty and turned back home. Or maybe I would have walked in, seen too many people, and left. But that day, the exact person I needed to meet, Laura, was sitting there. And I know that wasn’t a coincidence.
I’ve had other reminders of how little control we really have. Once, I slipped in the kitchen when a kettle of boiling water fell. It could have gone so wrong, but somehow I landed safely and wasn’t hurt. If I had fallen differently, it could have been serious. It was another quiet reminder of how God protects and guides me even in small things.
So yeah, this is how it started. Faith, timing, and something bigger than me brought me here. My meeting with Laura, my move to Reading, even my small fascination with the city years before, none of it was random. It’s all grace.
And that’s really what I want people to take from this. You don’t need to have it all figured out. You don’t have to know what’s next. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just take that small step. Because you never know where it will lead.
This page is called No Clue or Idea, Dude because that’s really what it’s about. It’s okay to not know what’s happening. It’s okay to be figuring things out, no matter what age you are. That’s what this website is for: to show that it’s normal to be lost sometimes, to be uncertain, to be human. You’re going to see everything here, warts and all, scars and all. I’m not giving a polished or glamorised version of what it looks like to start something, because I don’t believe things are as glamorous as we make them out to be. Life’s not all highlights and glitz. - a lil less noise that YouTube dawgie
When you look at people we call “great,” whether that’s athletes, artists, or even parents who’ve done amazing things, amazing doesn’t always mean fame or money or being a CEO. Amazing can mean being the best mother in the world, or a dad who shows up every single day, does his nine-to-five, and still manages to provide a beautiful life for his kids and his family. That’s spectacular too. There’s beauty in the everyday, in the small things. Greatness doesn’t belong to the spotlight. It belongs to persistence.
Everyone starts in the dark. Everyone has moments of doubt, confusion, and insecurity. I think about that a lot, especially through sport. Kobe Bryant’s story has always stuck with me, not the version of him we all know, but the version that came before. People forget that Kobe was genuinely bad at basketball for a long time. He didn’t just wake up one summer and become who he was. When he lived in Italy, he was a young Black boy in a place where racism was still real, and his dad was already in the NBA, which made him stand out even more. Imagine that: your dad’s famous for being great at the sport you’re trying to learn, and you’re awful at it. You’re the odd one out, a Black kid in Italy, walking around school saying, “Yeah, my dad’s in the NBA,” and then you get on the court and can’t score a single point. One summer he really didn’t score a single basket in games. The next, he managed to score two. That’s how slow the growth was. No overnight transformation, no sudden moment of genius, just time, effort, humiliation, and persistence.
He had every reason to quit. He was set up to be laughed at, bullied, and doubted, and most people would’ve folded under that pressure. And that’s the point, not to say “if Kobe did it, you can too,” but to mirror that truth in our own lives. To see that kind of adversity and realise that you can face your version of it too. It’s not about pretending hardship doesn’t exist or pretending it doesn’t hurt. It’s about acknowledging it, accepting it, and moving forward anyway. Some people are set up to fail from the start, but that doesn’t have to be the end of their story.
That’s what I want to highlight through my practice too, the awkward phase, the messy phase, the phase that doesn’t fit into the clean grid of social media. We see perfection so often that we start to believe people had it figured out from the beginning. But most of the time, what we don’t see are the years of struggle, doubt, and small steps forward that actually made them who they are. I think it’s important to show that side of things, that it’s okay to be in the process, it’s okay to still be learning, and it’s okay for things not to look perfect yet.
So No Clue or Idea, Dude is about that. It’s about honesty. It’s about being in the dark and learning to be okay with it. It’s about showing the journey, not the finished picture.