Interview With Tom Yendell

[00:00:00]So Tom, thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to you about the Mouth and Foot Painters Association and your involvement in it. And I'd like to start really with when did you first come into contact with the Mouth and Foot Painters Association?

[00:00:15]I first made contact, really, when I was three years old, a long time ago, they had the Mouth and Foot Painting Association president, then Eric Stegman, who founded the Association. They organised an exhibition in the press club in London, was to raise money for the Thalidomide generation, the babies that had been born with different disabilities, of which I was one. My mother was prescribed Thalidomide, and that's why I don't have any arms. So, one of the biographers talks about Tommy Yendell doing somersaults across the floor at the exhibition. We haven't changed much then. I haven't changed all that time. That's right, haven't changed. Still do my somersaults across the exhibition floors. And then in 1988 they had the international conference in London, and I was invited as a student artist. I was invited to that so I started as a student, but then, luckily, I was made a member artist, and that was life changing, because student artists, our students get paid an amount of money each month for them to get their art materials and have a tutor and to try to become professional artists, which is what we're all trying to do.

[00:01:32]But when you become a member artist, you're earning a living, and you can also have a sense of purpose in life. Absolutely, what can often be a traumatic change in your life.

[00:01:42]And for the majority, you're absolutely right. And for the majority of our artists, that is the case — they've got their uniqueness, as I like to say, later on in life.

[00:01:52]Through accident or illness, the Association has had Self-help, not Charity, on its paperwork that we send out. And so therefore we're run as a company. We have a Managing Board, which I've worked my way up onto, and so now I'm a Board Member for the last 12 years.

[00:02:10]So if the Association's main revenue is based on Christmas card packs, and that's been very successful for many years, those habits are changing, aren't they?

[00:02:19]Absolutely, yeah. I mean, the business of Christmas cards and calendars and wrapping paper, the traditional paper business is getting harder. We're finding that post is more expensive. The publishers have to get names and addresses from somewhere, with the controls on data — now it's very difficult to do that, and post office services in different countries around the world are closing. So the opportunity now, after 60-70 years of being here as a company, we now have to look to the future. I describe it as going from Analog to Digital. We've been doing four colour press printing for the last 70 years, and now we have to look at digital art and how we can reach our primary market. People don't send so many Christmas cards anymore. They're falling away.

[00:03:11]Yeah, absolutely. Now we can just have one print of one image done.

[00:03:15]With digital printing now we can put it on a cup or a mug or a cushion, and so it opens the opportunity now for us to sell to our traditional market, to hopefully now a new demographic.

[00:03:30]Speaking of the artists — I know you've been a Board Member for nearly, what is it, 12 years now, and you're coming up, hopefully, to your third term as a Board Member.

[00:03:41]Are there any initiatives that you'd like to see in place around perhaps creating a greater sense of community within the artists themselves? Absolutely.

[00:03:51]I think my mandate for election for the Board is about communication. We have 730 artists in 70 countries around the world, we have 40 publishing houses with publishers and their staff, and the only way that we're going to go forward is by having a much better communication and sense of community. And so I really want to get that. I mean, one of the things that came into the Association five or six years ago was a thing called MFPA Day — the Mouth and Foot Painting Day — that's on the fifth of September every year. And it's to celebrate Eric Stegman, our founding father, and just to tell people on social media about the Association.

[00:04:36]It has a wonderful story, doesn't it? Oh, his is an amazing story. And the Association story — how many companies have been going strongly for 70 years? It's an incredible story. And the fact that all the people in it are people with very severe uniquenesses — the majority of our artists have broken their necks. They can move their heads up, down, left and right, and they paint amazing paintings. And so the stories that we tell are many and inspirational. And that's the next thing — how we get those stories out. And we all have to work as a community. The artists are not just painters anymore, and our PR company says it's not good enough just to be a Mouth Painter anymore. That's because there are so many people out there with uniquenesses that are seen in everyday life.

[00:05:32]When the Association was founded 70 years ago, it was very unusual to see a person with a disability in a shop or out in the open — and now, in the broader context, that's a great success, of course. Absolutely. And now we look at the one-legged skiers, the Paralympians, who are really inspirational. And so we need to tell our stories. And like all artists, pictures aren't just about the picture — the story behind the picture is just as important. And how you go from a white canvas as an artist to producing a really lovely image — there's a story behind that, and those are the stories that we should be telling.

[00:06:16]Indeed. And just going back to your creation of a sense of community across the artists. How would you do that?

[00:06:24]I think digitally. The main thing would be trying to communicate more — with Zoom.

[00:06:31]Technology, even five years ago, translation was very difficult. You've got to remember that we speak at least 17 different languages in our company. Our Mother tongue is German, because that's where we were Founded — but the 17 languages when we get together.

[00:06:52]Luckily, lots of our artists speak English, and so I can communicate, but there are artists out there that we need to find ways of communicating. But now with the technologies out there, we can put subtitles in different languages on films and videos and things, and that opens up the door. In Covid, one of my communication things was to do Zooms with the artists in different countries. So I did a Zoom with the South Africans and the Brazilians, just so that they felt that they are part of it — and they respond.

[00:07:30]How was that received? Really great. Very, very few of our artists actually ever get to speak to another Mouth and Foot Painter — really, especially the student artists.

[00:07:40]It's a really lonely business, and the more that we can make them realise that they are part of an amazing organisation and a big family, the more work we'll get from them.

[00:07:50]With more painting, they'll feel more inspired. They'll see other art from other artists and think, well, I can do something like that. So communication is the next thing.

[00:07:59]In the next five years, I want to make sure not only are all our artists connected to each other, but at least 50% of the world knows about the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists.

[00:08:10]My motto is that I want every student artist now to have the same opportunity that I've had for the last 40 years, both financially and artistically, and if I can make sure as a Board Member that we do that, then I'd be very happy.

[00:08:31]Well, Tom, as always, it's both interesting and inspirational talking to you. Thank you very much for your time today.

[00:08:36]Thanks, John. Thanks for your interview. It's been brilliant. Thanks.