Labours Of Love

At Bristol’s first Something Good festival, Nick Carson finds a rekindled joy for craft

After building momentum with its thread events series, Bristol agency Fiasco launched its first two-day festival, Something Good.

The diverse line-up ranged from the infectious enthusiasm of local success story Gavin Strange to the anti-establishment surrealism of Swedish superstars Snask, with their leather-clad band Väg in tow.

Perhaps the most memorable takeaway from Strange’s talk was the pie chart that revealed how he splits his time to accommodate a day job at Aardman, his passion projects under the JamFactory alias, and family life – a packed schedule that includes taking advantage of being awake at 5am (for baby-soothing duties) to crack on with some personal work.

“I want to do all the things that excite me. Because, why not?” shrugged Strange. “Opportunities are born from passions. But I pride myself on being a realistic idealist. We all love to be floaty-floaty, but we still have bills to pay.”