Viva Brighton Issue #38 April 2016

talking shop
.....................................
Cass Art
A big draw for artists
Who have your main customers been so far?
The bulk of our customers have been art students
and professional artists, who used to have
to go up to London to buy their materials. We’ve
had fewer amateur artists so far, but we’re hoping
that will grow over time. One of the things
which makes Cass Art unique is that everybody
who works in one of our shops is an artist, and we
all have different specialist areas; in this shop we
have a portrait artist who specialises in oil paints
and a textile designer who knows all about our
fabric products.
Which area do you specialise in? I do (very amateur)
watercolour. During the last year or so I’ve
been getting back into it. I did A-Level Art and
worked in architecture for several years. I live in
Lancing so I can go onto the Downs really easily
and sit and paint, or I’ll take photographs and go
back home to paint in the warm lounge.
Have you had a chance to try out any new
products since you opened? One of the newest
products we’ve ordered in are these watercolour
brushes, which are great. They can give off
broad strokes and thin strokes, and they have a
little reservoir of water, so the harder you squeeze,
the more water comes out. Some of them come
with the colour already in them, so when they run
out you can buy more paints and refill them with
whatever colours you like.
How is Cass settling into Brighton? Pretty well,
we’re sponsoring the central trail of Artists’ Open
Houses next month, and we’re hoping to partner
with Hove Plinth and Snowdogs by the Sea. In
the coming weeks we’re going to start holding
artists’ coffee mornings, where we’ll invite local
artists to come and talk about their work, like an
open forum. Different things work for different
people, so the idea is to give professional artists
the chance to speak and ask each other questions.
What do you do to cater for the large student
community in Brighton? We have two new student
ambassadors assigned to this store – and a
total of 48 across the country – who give us feedback
on what’s going on in the universities and
what types of products students are looking for.
And being an art student can be really expensive,
so we have a price guarantee which means that if
you can find our products cheaper anywhere else,
including online (apart from on eBay or Amazon)
then we promise to match them.
Rebecca Cunningham interviewed Stuart Bassett
21 Market Street, Brighton, cassart.co.uk
....57....